Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
It takes a village to squeeze into that fish man bodysuit
We’ve all heard that clothes make the man. In the case of “The Shape of Water’s” oddly attractive fish fellow, it’s the latex body suit and silicone facial appliances.
But it’s also the 6-foot-3-inch actor, Doug Jones, underneath it all. Currently portraying Saru on “Star Trek: Discovery” with a minimum (for him) amount of special effects makeup, Jones is perhaps most beloved for the strange creatures he’s lost himself in for director Guillermo del Toro: “Pan’s Labyrinth’s” Fauno and Pale Man, the “Hellboy” films’ beloved Abe Sapien, The Ancient on the Del Toro-produced TV series “The Strain” and others.
But to play a convincing love object for del Toro’s latest, Jones naturally had to get in the best shape of his life — but that was just to get dressed.
“It takes a village, by the way, to change a tall, skinny guy like me into a fish man,” Jones says. “The artistry that went into it was headed up by Shane Mahan at Legacy Effects... Then a fine artist named Mike Hill was brought into the mix; Guillermo loves his work, and personally had Mike sculpt and refine the shape and colors of this fish man, to make him the beautiful beast that he was.”
Squeezing into the body suit, getting the creature’s hands glued on and the neck and head pieces applied took about three hours each day — short work considering what Jones is used to. But that’s not the same as saying it was easy.
“The suit zipped up in back, but I didn’t slide into it,” he reports. “It took baby powder if it was dry or K-Y Jelly if it was wet to really snuggle and shimmy-shimmy-shimmy this thing up. It was snug to every dot and diddle of my body; it had been molded and conformed just to me.
“There were mechanical gill contraptions built in that were actually puppeteered from off-camera, and the eyes could pop out so
I could see with full sockets.”
Unlike Apes/Gollum essayer Andy Serkis, Jones has never done motion capture, in which the actor does work on a bare green screen stage while wearing a body suit dotted with markers computer artists will use to draw their character. He’s always worn suits and makeup for his creatures and this was especially important for the intimate, tender “Shape of Water.”
“People like to watch other people, even if they’re in a monster costume,” Jones reckons. “CG’s come a long way and the art is great and beautiful, but it also does your other costars quite a service to have that creature in the room with them to react to. And in Sally’s case, she has to fall in love and touch him. That would have been difficult with a tennis ball on a stick, or if I was standing in front of her in a leotard with dots on me.”
Jones wasn’t the only “Shape of Water” actor changed by what he wore. Michael Shannon, who plays the government tough guy Strickland that hates the fish man and a lot of other things about life, says he found vital aspects of the character while being fitted for Strickland’s sharp, Kennedy-era suits.
“Our wonderful costume designer, Luis Sequeira, was dead set on getting my suits exactly right in the tailoring,” Shannon, who averages about half-adozen productions per year, says in awe. “I had several costume fittings, we went through a few different tailors, he wanted every dimension... to be exactly right.
“It developed into, almost, a kind of hysteria,” Shannon recalls. “And I realized this is how Strickland must feel. He wants everything to fit exactly right and he never feels like it does, so it drives him kind of nuts.”
While Shannon was reveling in sartorial satori, Jones was suffering for his art.
“I was, basically, a nursing home patient,” he says of being in full fish man drag. “There was a flap built into the front of the suit, but I couldn’t get to it myself with my webbed fingers on. So, at lunchtime, they would unglue one of my hands — that’s all we had time for — so I could work my own business in the front.
“But there was no trapdoor in the back,” Jones instructively notes. “So I had to make sure that I took care of my functions before … This is a young man’s game, you know? I’m 57! When somebody says, ‘I want to do what you do,’ I’ll say, ‘Take this into account!’ ”