Interview with ‘Chucky’ Makeup Head Sid Armour

Chucky is back for season 3 and already racking up new kills. This time he’s in the White House taking out Secret Service agents and presidential staff. Chucky doesn’t do it alone though. The makeup team helps bring his kills to life.

Sid Armour is the head of the makeup department. She’s worked on all three seasons of the show and the film Bride of Chucky. Armour spoke with Nerd Report/Nuke the Fridge about the new season but wouldn’t give any spoilers. Chucky airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. on SYFY and USA.

Since you worked on Bride of Chucky, did you work on the nails in John Ritter’s face?

No. I mostly worked on Tiffany’s nails and eyelashes.

You did makeup for the doll?

That’s right. You know what? It’s the only one, I believe, that Tony Gardner wasn’t part of because now I can’t imagine ever going near the doll. That’s Tony’s team. I wouldn’t do that.

By the time you got to the TV show, had they changed a lot of the process?

Absolutely. The puppeteering department is really amazing. Of course, horror and blood has changed so much. Has it been over 20 years? Yeah, a lot’s changed. You can’t believe that we can put the things that we have on television, the amount of gore and swearing and content. That’s on TV. That’s pretty great.

That probably started with Hannibal where the gore was far more intense than anything in the movies.

Right. There used to be a certain amount of swear words, certain amount of blood and I don’t know what the rules are now because it’s elevated for sure.

You said horror has changed since the ‘90s. How do you mean?

There’s just so much more and it’s all so believable. Prosthetics has come a long way. The regular makeup that we do in our out of kit effects is huge. The materials that we use, the bloods that we use are really amazing. We have so many different bloods for all different situations and so many different departments are on board with that.

Did anything in season 3 top sawing a woman in half in season 2?

Oh, I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk about all the deaths.

I’m trying to be vague. Is there anything more intense than that?

There is a lot of blood in season 3, not to be disappointed, absolutely.

Do they give you enough notice of what the kills are going to be in advance to prepare on a television show?

Well, especially this year, we had all the scripts up front. So we know five months worth of material what’s going to happen, the arcs. It’s one of the beautiful things about having Don Mancini be the showrunner and also the writer. He knows everything that’s happening and so do we. We do start preparing for meetings and we block shoot pretty early on. So we’re doing a few episodes at a time. If we’re at a certain location and we need to grab a show for an episode way down the future, then sometimes we get that. If we’re at that location or depending on actor availability, that as well. Sometimes the makeup people know a lot more than the actors who sometimes don’t get to read all the scripts like we do so early on, which is pretty fun.

Is five months actually more prep time than you get for a movie?

Absolutely, yeah. A movie could be just a couple of months and depending on what the film is and how many gags and how much needs to be prepared in prosthetics and different things. It’s tough because you might have to be working as you’re prepping but the same for television too. It’s just a huge span of time to look ahead and know what comes after the kill and how we’re going to get ready for that.

You’ve done three seasons in a row as opposed to a movie every 5-10 years. How has that momentum been?

It’s really fun because I don’t get first day jitters anymore. It’s just going back into the trailer and everybody’s there. The fun thing about our show is besides the blood, there’s so much glam and there’s so much really interesting characters. WE have a lot of really cool actors that come. It keeps things really fun.

You’ve killed Devon Sawa three times now. Has he become an old hat at doing death makeup?

Devon is so great. He’s such a team player. We’ve had to do a lot to Devon over the past couple of seasons. He’s super on board to whatever can make him look like a totally different person. He has a lot of tattoo coverage that needs to happen. He’s been really, really fabulous and such a pro.

So you handle regular human makeup too?

In the makeup department, on a show like Chucky, the Ines cross between departments all the time but that’s one of the things that I love about it. We have lots and lots of meetings. You’ll just find everybody outside basecamp just talking about how are we going to kill somebody? What’s the level of blood? Who’s going to handle that? Who has the biggest sprayer? We do all the regular makeup, all the glam stuff. Jennifer Tilly and all of her makeup is so fun.

What? Jennifer Tilly wears makeup???

Just a pinch. She’s so great.

Did you do more work on the dolls themselves this year?

No. For one second, somebody asked me what the plan was and I went, “I think we’re going to ask Tony.”

How did you make the split Barbara Alyn Woods for season 2?

Everybody was hands on deck for that. Francois is the head of prosthetic and he and Tenile did all of the mold making and the creation and all of the blood splatter. Also came from special effects and then of course makeup. The whole room was pretty gross. Everybody had their hands on that and it looked really good.