I do what I did as a hobby as a kid, you know, and make a living at it. And I just feel like I'm one of the luckiest guys in the world 'cuz I get paid to make toys and play with them.
I always wanted to make aliens that looked like '60s aliens.
I have always tried to stay current.
Sometimes we think of a creature like a person in a suit, but then you have limitations of two eyes and two legs - they have to see and breathe. I got more into puppetry because it offered more possibilities.
So many people of my generation all grew up with that shock theater package on television of 'Frankenstein,' 'Wolfman,' 'Dracula,' 'Mummy,' all the Universal stuff.
I find it kind of disturbing when people cheer when someone just gets stabbed brutally.
When I do a mask, I do try to put a lot of character and a lot of expression into the sculpt.
It's fun doing new things.
I'm not really listed anywhere; I don't know how people find me!
I do a lot of CG stuff for fun.
Grinch had so many people in make up - virtually everybody. We had about 100 people a day for five months. And every day we would use 100 sets of appliances.
I wanted to make sure to always stay current, try to find new material and stay with the modern techniques.
There's a limit to what I can do with a makeup or with animatronics.
There are so many decisions in making a movie.
I can't tell you how many people would say to me as a teenager, 'Why don't you grow up and start thinking about getting a real job?'
I feel like I have to top myself every film I do, and it gets hard.
Usually people who are in my position, they run a company and they hire people and then they take the credit for it.
I'm not a big gore hound but monster gore is different to me than killing a teenager in any way that you can when another human-like person does it. I don't know how I rationalize that really but it seems different to me.
The problem I have with schools is, people are taught, 'This is how you do this.' They're not taught about why you do this.
When you're working on a movie you always hope that people will go for it and enjoy what you're doing.
