‘Super flattering’: Montreal makeup artist gets Oscar nomination for The Whale

Makeup is often used to enhance one’s features, but Montreal-born makeup effects artist Adrien Morot uses makeup to transform people into zombies and mutants.

And most recently, Morot used makeup and his award-winning talents to transform a character into a morbidly obese English teacher – something that got him an Oscar nomination for makeup and hairstyling on Tuesday.

“When I woke up yesterday morning, I had a massive text message from Brendon who like congratulated me and it was the first thing. And then I was my groggy eyes. I was like, okay, let me look you right. Okay. I’ll be like, Who’s nominated?” Morot said.

Morot scored the nomination for his work on The Whale, along with Judy Chin and Annemarie Bradley – the second Oscar nod of his career.

“This is the second one,” he told CityNews. “We’ve been involved like a few times, like in the past 10 years. I think we were there four times in what they call the bake-off… We make it to the top eight, but we don’t make the final selection. This is the first time we make it to the top.

“It’s super flattering… There’s many makeup artists in the field who really much enjoy the awards or the recognition. I don’t do it for that. My reward is when I do work that I’m satisfied with. But it’s nice icing on the cake.”

Morot has been doing makeup for the movies professionally for 35 years. He says it’s 41 years if he includes the six years working on student movie projects in his dad’s basement.

“It’s such a great job because each project brings their own challenges,” he said.

It’s only when he was asked to put a recent biography together that he really realized how many movies he’s worked over the years and how many awards he and his team have received.

Morot has already won the Critics Association of Central Florida and North Dakota Film Society awards for The Whale.

Fifth project with director Aronofsky

It was Morot’s fifth time working with director Darren Aronofsky

“It’s always exciting when he calls because Darren is one of the most demanding directors that I’ve worked with,” said Morot. “Darren is a bit like me and this is where we’re kindred spirits and that’s probably why he calls me movie after movie. He’s relentless. And there’s a quest for achieving or pushing things as far as it can.

“And that doesn’t work with everyone. There’s some people that halfway through the shoot are like, ‘oh my God, I can’t take this anymore.’ But for me, I’m like, bring it on.”

Challenges of working on ‘The Whale’

Having worked with mutants and zombies in the past – or all-around action movies – Morot says working with Brendan Fraser on The Whale was a vastly different experience.

“So not only The Whale is very different in terms of technical requirement from anything I’ve done before and from anything that anybody in the makeup field has done before. But the fact that the character… it’s not a comedy, it doesn’t have the filter of a something like a blood count, it’s not a sci fi, a horror movie.”

With only 12 weeks to work on Fraser’s prosthetics, it was important for Morot, Aronofsky and Fraser to treat the project with empathy.

The Los Angeles-based Morot says the work involved gluing several thick pieces of silicone onto Fraser’s face and body, and then applying makeup to seamlessly blend everything together.

“It’s a small, intimate drama taking place in one location where he’s the main character and he’s interacting with a small cast of other actors. None of them are wearing prosthetics. He’s the only one that’s covered from head to toe. So if the makeup doesn’t work, if it’s a distraction, if he stands out from the rest of the cast, like despite the fact that he’s that big… if he stands out from the rest of the actors, the movie doesn’t work.”

Morot says it was an especially challenging film because so much of the plot revolves around Charlie’s imposing size and the way Fraser moves while wearing heavy prosthetics.

“I remember the guys that he asked me if we could do this in the most realistic manner ever that wouldn’t resemble the kind of caricature of obese people that we’ve seen in the past with those kind of make ups, if we can do it right, there’s no point of doing this movie.”

“Having this main character who is in every scene, every moment of the movie is always there. And there’s no hiding anywhere.”

Morot says he was sleeping when a text message from Fraser alerted him to the Oscar nomination.

Fraser earned a best actor nomination for his turn as a reclusive English teacher, Charlie, who attempts to reconnect with his estranged daughter.

The team faces Oscar competition from the hair and makeup teams of “All Quiet on the Western Front,” “The Batman,” “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” and “Elvis.” The awards will be handed out March 12.

Morot was previously nominated for best makeup at the Oscars in 2011 for “Barney’s Version.” He won a Genie Award for that film and a Jutra.

The Montrealer and his team have worked on some big blockbustre action movies such as “The Day After Tomorrow,” “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” “Riddick” and “300.”

“You could have said like, Oh, I want to be an astronaut and go and be like the first Canadian to step foot on the moon. That would have been as farfetched of a dream as as saying like, Oh, you’re going to be nominated for not only you’re going to be doing makeup effects for a movie, but you’re going to be nominated for an Oscar that’s just insane.”

—With files from The Canadian Press

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