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  • Narrator: The third season of "True Detective"

  • follows a disturbing crime as it unfolds

  • over three different time periods

  • from 1980 to 1990 to 2015.

  • The present-day period shows Mahershala Ali's character,

  • detective Wayne Hays, as a 70-year-old man

  • who's still haunted by the case

  • while grappling with his own memory loss.

  • Ali is wholly convincing in old age

  • thanks to the power of his performance

  • and the makeup artistry of Emmy-nominated

  • prosthetic artist Mike Marino.

  • Jimmy Kimmel: And your old-man makeup.

  • Mahershala: Mike Marino, Mike Marino, man.

  • Jimmy: Is the best old-man makeup I've ever seen

  • on any actor.

  • Narrator: We visited Mike at his studio in New Jersey

  • to find out how he turned Ali into an old man

  • for "True Detective."

  • Mike is the makeup designer behind "Black Swan,"

  • "Wolf of Wall Street," "Birdman,"

  • and Heidi Klum's elaborate Halloween costumes.

  • On "True Detective," he was in charge of the makeup

  • and wigs seen on Mahershala Ali and Stephen Dorff,

  • who plays Wayne's partner Roland in the show.

  • Mike has a ton of experience adding decades

  • to actors' faces.

  • But his transformative work was really spotlighted

  • in "True Detective"

  • because of the unconventional way

  • that the show's narrative was structured.

  • Mike: They're intercutting in between time periods,

  • so you really get a chance to see the difference

  • and the contrast between Mahershala's face

  • and Stephen Dorff's face.

  • Narrator: The first step in the transformation

  • was deciding where exactly the prosthetics would go.

  • Mike: When you're designing a makeup,

  • you have to find all these lines and creases naturally

  • that that actor may have,

  • so that when you glue pieces onto it,

  • it doesn't move strange.

  • Mahershala's skin is so perfect that there's no landmarks

  • to hide a wrinkle in

  • or hide a prosthetic inside,

  • so it's really challenging finding the place

  • where prosthetics can live.

  • Narrator: Next, to actually make the prosthetics,

  • you have to take a life cast of the actor's face,

  • basically creating a three-dimensional copy of it.

  • Mike: We start out with a life cast of Mahershala.

  • I take that life cast, and I cast it out in plaster,

  • and I take little pieces of clay,

  • and I add a little where I feel

  • is going to look the best

  • as far as wrinkles and puffy dents,

  • and I add in wrinkles, and I sculpt everything down

  • to a very fine detail.

  • Narrator: The sculptures run under water,

  • then the pieces of clay are removed

  • and put on individual molds

  • from which the prosthetic pieces are made.

  • Mike: On set, I take those pieces and glue onto Mahershala

  • and Stephen Dorff

  • all these prosthetics that were once sculptures.

  • Once that is done, they're airbrushed

  • to look like real skin, freckles, little imperfections,

  • things like that.

  • Once it's all painted,

  • we glue wigs on, make sure their sheen and reflection

  • of the skin is really perfect.

  • It really took about three hours

  • to glue on the prosthetics each day.

  • Narrator: All that had to last

  • throughout a 12- to 16-hour shooting day.

  • Mike: It's a battle each day.

  • I'm maintaining the makeup as well.

  • You know, in "True Detective" we filmed in Arkansas

  • in the summer, so it was really hot.

  • So it was also an engineering feat

  • to really kind of prep their skin to not sweat,

  • put them in air conditioning tents,

  • put Mahershala in a dark room

  • where he's not in sunlight and he's sweating.

  • Narrator: Mike's work on the show

  • wasn't limited to the actors' faces.

  • His team also built a life-size replica

  • for Will Purcell,

  • the missing boy whose body Wayne finds in a cave

  • at the end of the first episode.

  • But the aging transformations were his real masterpiece.

  • Mike: You can see how they'd most likely age in real life

  • 'cause I try to find on their own face,

  • where if I find any little wrinkle or line or crease,

  • I accentuate that.

  • I'm kind of a reverse makeup artist.

  • A makeup artist is taking out all the flaws and things

  • on someone's face, and I'm adding them in.

  • So I'm really an actor's worst nightmare.

Narrator: The third season of "True Detective"

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