W.G. makeup artist creates walking dead

Lee Grimes, a makeup artist from Winter Garden, is skilled at creating the undead.

— Lee Grimes has worked on TV and film productions and applied prosthetic makeup to Lady Gaga during her Monster Ball Tour.

For special-effects makeup artist Lee Grimes, the ultimate compliment to his talents has to be the recent invitation to do some work with “The Walking Dead.” The Winter Garden resident was in Puerto Rico working on a pilot with actor Billy Zane, when he received a phone call from a friend at Los Angeles-based KNB EFX Group: Could he fly up to Atlanta for a day to zombie-fy some walkers?

“The Walking Dead” is an AMC horror drama television series and one of this year’s most popular, and Grimes said he has always wanted to work on the show, now in its fifth season.

He was one of two special-effects makeup artists flown in for the 13th episode; there were a total of eight there to prep 18 walkers. He applied makeup to three zombies, which took 90 minutes each.

In a coup to the makeup artist, one of the show’s main characters, Daryl Dixon, will be killing a walker that Grimes created.

He couldn’t say much more about the show — producers and cast and crew must remain tight-lipped about what happens on the set and behind the scenes. But he did say he would do it again if given the chance. And while he was interviewing with the West Orange Times last week, Grimes received a text message asking him if he could be in Atlanta two more times this month. He was back up there Monday creating more walkers.

“The Walking Dead” has five to 10 makeup artists on the set, depending on the number of walker needed for that particular episode.

There’s a great deal of traveling involved with this kind of work, Grimes said. He lives an average of seven months a year in hotels across the country, from Los Angeles to New York, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan and Massachusetts. The job has also taken him as far as Canada, London and Istanbul.

He has been working in the special-effects makeup business for 26 years and was attracted to cinematic movie effects at a young age.

“I was always fascinated with movies, monsters, monster makeup,” he said. 

His interest was piqued in high school, when he watched the film “Dawn of the Dead.” When he was 23 and frequenting a store in Orlando that featured theatrical makeup, he stumbled on a catalog and ordered books on prosthetic makeup, and this is how he learned his trade. He started by creating foam latex prosthetics, such as aliens or twin heads, and he landed his first professional job around 1983 with “The New Leave it to Beaver” show.

From there, he did several Nickelodeon shows, including “Clarissa Explains it All,” “All That” and “The Mickey Mouse Club” with Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and Ryan Gosling. He still has the prosthetic Timberlake head he made.

In 1991, he helped create scary characters for the first Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Florida. He has since worked on nine other HHN seasons.

Grimes’ makeup and special-effects credits include TV shows such as “Superboy,” CSI: Miami,” “One Tree Hill,” “The Sopranos” and “Dexter,” as well as movies such as “Passenger 57,” “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,” “Rosewood,” “The Waterboy,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” and “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2"; and the TV mini-series "From the Earth to the Moon."

Grimes has also ventured into the music world, applying the prosthetic makeup to Lady Gaga for the Miami, Montreal, Cleveland, Chicago and New York portions of her Monster Ball Tour in 2011. Remember Gaga’s famous shoulder humps and cheek and forehead bumps? That was Grimes’ work.

As much as Grimes enjoys creating the macabre and unusual, he actually has done extensive work with beauty makeup, and because he will do a wider variety of makeup — beauty and effects — this has led to more work.

He likes applying any type of prosthetic, whether it be a bulging eyeball and deep skin lacerations or a 1920s mustache and elderly skin wrinkles.

In “Oz the Great & Powerful,” Grimes applied prosthetic makeup to the balding, bearded tinkers; the pointy-nosed, high-cheekboned winkies (soldiers in green and non-green varieties); and the munchkins, with their fancy mustaches and rosy cheeks.

Next on his agenda is continual work on “The Walking Dead” and promotional pieces for “Salem,” a new WGN TV series. That’s a lot of gore — but there will be a sequel to “Oz the Great & Powerful,” so maybe Grimes will be able to add some more glamour work to his resume.

FAMOUS FACES

Lee Grimes has used his talents on many actors, including:

FEMALE TALENTS

Rene Russo

Jenna Elfman

Michele Williams

Jane Fonda

Amanda Bynes

Lady Gaga

Carrie Fisher

Vanessa Hudgens

Reah Pearlman

Christina Ricci

Paris Hilton

Nicole Richie

Selena Gomez

Audrina Patridge

Rumer Willis

Fairuza Baulk

Ann Cusack

Joey Loren Adams

Alice Kreig

Rue McClanahan

Robyn Lively

Brianna Evigan

Jennifer Finnigan

Joanna Cassidy

Lisa Lampanelli

Megyn Price

Rusty Schwimmer

Ann Wedgeworth

Samantha Mathis

Lin Shaye

Julia Duffy

MALE TALENTS

Billy Zane

Paul Giamatti

Jason Statham

Taylor Lautner

Jon Voight

Shia LaBeouf

Ben Foster

Ving Rhames

Lenny Kravitz

Thomas Jane

Kenan Thompson

James Marsden

Jonathan Rhys Meyers

Henry Winkler

Don Cheadle

Bruce Dern

Roy Snieder

Eric Christian Olsen

Eugene Levy

Andy Sandburg

Larry the Cable Guy

Hulk Hogan

Keith David

Oliver Platt

Peter DeLuise

Jerry Reed

Norm Crosby

Jeffrey DeMunn

Scott Wilson

John Kerry

Will Patton

Matthew Modine

Justin Timberlake

Tony Orlando

Ralph Waite

Rob Schneider

Stephan Tobolowski

Oscar Nuniz

Eddie Griffin

Joey Fatone

Bob Saget

Jonathan Silverman

Djiman Hounsou

Cam Gigandet

John Schneider

Danny Strong

David Koechner

Joe Pantoliano

Michael Rooker

Tom Wilson

Tony Hale

Michael Pitt

Robert Wisdom

Pruitt Taylor Vince

Taye Diggs

Stephen Lang

Billy Campbell