n the SF thriller Hollow Man, Kevin Bacon gives new meaning to the phrase "disappearing into one's role." Bacon plays scientist Sebastian Caine, head of a top-secret government project, and he spends much of the movie invisible. But that didn't let him off the hook on-set. Bacon underwent grueling daily makeup sessions to transform himself into a walking special effect, enabling computer artists in post-production to remove him from the scenes.
Oscar-nominated actress Elisabeth Shue (Leaving Las Vegas) plays Linda McKay, Caine's ex-girlfriend and chief lieutenant on the project. The physical role required her to wield a flamethrower, climb up a burning elevator shaft and chase an invisible man through cascading water.
Both actors recently spoke with Science Fiction Weekly about the arduous shoot.
Kevin Bacon, how would you describe your Hollow Man character, Sebastian Caine?
Bacon: He's kind of a megalomaniac. He's a very intense, impassioned kind of guy. He's got a very twisted sexuality, I think. He approaches the world in a sexual way. I think he's power-hungry. I think he's self-involved. I think he's kind of childlike, which is a nice kind of juxtaposition to the fact that the Pentagon has given him millions and millions of dollars to basically play around with. He's kind of like a movie director, I think, in that way [laughs]. And the essence of the character is a man into a monster; that's really what happens.
How grueling was your makeup regimen?
Bacon: I'm sure that your people are familiar with the idea of green screen, where ... actors act in front of a green screen or a blue screen, and that background was replaced. In this case, I really was the blue screen or the green screen. So it meant that I needed to be completely covered in green or blue or black, depending on whether we were working with water or just air or smoke or steam. Depending on how much definition they needed for a particular shot, say, muscle definition--I would either be painted from the waist up, or from the neck up ... which required an undercoat of white sprayed on, like a car being painted, and then the green. I wore green contact lenses, which were about the size of a half dollar, [to] cover the entire eye. Green dentures ... were made. And a hood. Sometimes a wig. ... Every day was probably at least ... four hours of makeup total....
In the film ... the team builds a mask, which is not unlike a modern version of wrapping your head in gauze. And the mask ... has cutout eyes, so you see through to the back of the mask, because ... I'm in there, but I'm invisible. That's what I think of as the hollow man. In that case, I would cover my eyes in green and my teeth in green, and then have this latex mask glued to my head. ... I tried to wear it all day one time, and I just wanted to jump out of a window. So I would pull it off at lunch, and then have a half hour or so of nothing on my skin, and then they would reapply it afterwards.
You've said it helps if you're going to play a mad scientist to have one around. What was it like working with a mad scientist like Paul Verhoeven?
Bacon: That's right. ... That was Paul. ... First off, ... he's a trained physicist, I think. He has an amazingly scientific mind. You need to have a scientific mind to be able to handle this kind of effects [movie], [you need] an amazing amount of information. He is also very impassioned and really wild. Mercurial. Hitting the roof, laughing, screaming, acting like a gorilla. If you have an invisible gorilla that you have to relate to, he'll jump around and ... do a better job than the gorilla would do. And he likes to push the envelope. I think that in life, not unlike the character of Sebastian, he sort of thinks of the world in a very sexual way, and that's very evident from the movie, and it's very much in keeping with my character. He was great.
Elisabeth Shue, what can you tell us about your character, Linda McKay?
Shue: She's a scientist working on a secret project with Kevin Bacon's character and a bunch of other scientists. And we are trying to come up with a formula for invisibility.
What was it like working with Kevin Bacon painted bright green?
Shue: We all appreciated the fact that we had him there, because we knew that it could have been the opposite, and we could have been acting into space and hearing his voice, but nobody was there. And we were able to look into his eyes and be able to have a conversation and be able to be there for each other. So it was really not as difficult as it was for him, because he was actually having to be painted blue, black and green and spending hours in the makeup chair and putting that mask on; [it] took hours.
Wasn't your role also very physical?
Shue: It was demanding. But I would have welcomed more. It was really fun, except for the rain. Looking back at it, I loved the flamethrower. I loved to be able to have dart guns, and running and climbing and everything that was physical, I loved. But being in the rain day after day after day, I could have done without that [laughs].
With your performances in The Saint, Back to the Future II and III and now Hollow Man, you've done a fair amount of science fiction. Are you a fan?
Shue: I probably wouldn't be the first person in line to see a film like this. But I was so surprised when I saw the film about two days ago, how much fun it was, and how it was fun to be scared. And I remembered, "Oh, yeah, remember your favorite movies were Jaws and The Shining?" I loved The Shining. I watched only half of that movie. I was so scared, I was curled up in a ball for most of it. And even this film, when I watched it, I couldn't watch when terrible things were happening. So I remembered how much fun it is to be scared.
You've worked with some top-flight directors, and now you've added Paul Verhoeven to that list. Is he really a madman, like Kevin says?
Shue: [Laughs] It's so funny he says that, because I call him a mad scientist. ... He's a beautiful madman, because his obsession is the film, and he's obsessed with how good the film will be, and how good you will be. So that kind of obsession is what motivates you and forces you to focus. So I can't imagine doing a film like this without someone like him.
