Star Trek: Picard season 3 was nominated for two Emmys. James MacKinnon, Makeup Department Head and Prosthetics, and his team are strong contenders to win the Emmy for Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup.
James MacKinnon has a storied history in the Star Trek franchise. Starting in the 1990s series Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, MacKinnon worked as a prosthetic makeup and special makeup effects artist under department head and mentor, Michael Westmore. MacKinnon also worked with Westmore on Star Trek: First Contact. MacKinnon has won Emmys for his work in Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard.
Screen Rant had the pleasure to chat with James MacKinnon about Star Trek: Picard season 3’s home video release. We discussed his Emmy-nominated work on Picard‘s Borg Queen (Alice Krige/Jane Edwina Seymour), Worf (Michael Dorn), Data (Brent Spiner), and his overall career creating makeup and prosthetics for Star Trek.
James MacKinnon Talks Star Trek: Picard Season 3’s Prosthetics & Makeup
Screen Rant: Congratulations on your Emmy nominations for Picard. I think every other department, especially the actors, the writers, the directors, got robbed this year, but it’s great your department got recognized.
James MacKinnon: Yeah, they did. They did. They did a great job. I was a little disappointed myself.
You have a little cameo in the turbo-lift with Seven of Nine in one of the episodes of Picard. Terry Matalas called you out in the commentary.
James MacKinnon: Yeah, what’s funny is most of the Star Treks that I’ve worked on in the last 27 years, I’ve played a little part in each one of them. So I always try to put my face on.
Do you prefer to be Starfleet? Or is there like an alien love to play?
James MacKinnon: Well, I was a Borg in season 2. Sorry, season 1, I was a Borg. And then season 2… what was I? I was something else in season 2. But this one, you actually saw my face. Usually I’m completely under makeup.
I read that you got to do three aliens from your bucket list in Picard season 3. What were the three?
James MacKinnon: Well, to do Worf again, to do Data again, and then to do a Ferengi for the second time. It’s kind of fun in this world that I’m in that I actually, as an artist, I get to do them one time, and then products and materials change, and years change, and my artistry changes as well. And I get another opportunity to excel make them bigger, better, but still keep the core look about ’em. And that’s obviously with Neville Page and Vincent Van Dyke with VVD effects. So it’s a good combination of how to keep the fans happy, how to keep the original looks, but elevate the makeups to current day.
Let’s talk about that a little bit. I know you’ve worked on DS9. I’m a massive Ferengi fan. I love DS9. It’s my favorite of the Star Treks. Tell me about upgrading Sneed from Quark in the 90s.
James MacKinnon: Well, that’s all foam latex back then. And we’re obviously shooting on 35 millimeter film. So you have a little bit of play on the paint jobs, on the materials. And now with 8K, 10K, 12K, all the Ks that they have… And now we’re doing silicone. We have to, as artists, step up our game because that sees every little nook and cranny of either a mistake in a paint job, a mistake in an application, anything. A mouth opens too big, a crack happens. And I never liked Jason Zimmerman, our visual effects supervisor, to touch any of my work. But if he has to he will. But my goal is for them not to touch anything so that it’s all original and not manipulated. So it’s just an opportunity. I always say that 8K is made for NASCAR and Animal Planet, not for women of a certain age and older men. It’s too much detail. But as an artist, like I say, we have to step up and make sure that these things look amazing because our fans are so, so passionate that they go, “Oh, in episode 3, two minutes in, that makeup was crappy, and I saw this…” So that’s my goal: For that not to happen.
Let’s talk about the Borg Queen a little bit. Absolutely incredible incarnation of the Borg Queen. What went into creating literally the gnarliest-looking version of the Queen ever?
James MacKinnon: Yeah, she’s a little [H.R.] Giger. She’s got a little… she’s been screwed up for the last few years because we haven’t seen her for 20-some-odd years, right? Since she disappeared in [Star Trek: Voyager’s finale]. And I was on set for that kind of stuff, too. I worked on First Contact as well. So it was kind of cool to watch all that happen – we’ll go to a little side story about that with Brent – but just to be able to recreate that, and recreate that cool character again and again, you get that next option. But it’s a five-hour makeup. There’s 13 prosthetics on her face and her body to create that. As well, Dave Blass is creating that set that she’s inside, and then she’s attached to that, and we have to glue her into that. That actress [Jane Edwina Seymour] did an amazing job sitting there all day for 18 hours, plus five hours in the makeup chair.
Yeah, what a trooper she was. She does such a great performance.
James MacKinnon: Yeah, she did. She was amazing. A treat to work with.
There’s a lot of joking around in the commentary for the finale about how Jack [Crusher] was basically the first Borg with hair. And how jealous Jeri Ryan was.
James MacKinnon: Yeah, that’s true. Yeah, yeah.
What was the decision-making for keeping Jack’s hair? As opposed to making him bald as a Borg?
James MacKinnon: I think that was a Terry decision. I mean, it works. It’s the same as on Discovery when our Klingons didn’t have hair, and then all of a sudden, in season 2, they have hair. So there are reasons and changes and all that kind of stuff. The reason why we go certain directions. But I think that was a Terry decision. But [Jack] looked… I actually have some photos where I had him as Locutus in the position and the Borg Queen from First Contact. So I got a couple of great photos of them in that same position.
And you worked with Amanda Plummer to create Vadic as well?
James MacKinnon: One of my assistants, Hugo Villasenor, actually did that makeup. What a process! That was fun, too, because Amanda is passionate as a great actress, and [for] what she is going to bring on camera. And did she ever pull that off. I mean, as a makeup artist and an actor sitting together, it takes both of us. Neither of us can do it until we come together, and that [makeup] starts to come on. And it’s fun to watch as those makeups start applying, and you take away eyebrows, and you put the scars on, they become that actor in the middle of the makeup session too, as well. And they change as a character, and they start becoming it, and they start talking [as the character]. And Amanda’s verbiage changed, and her personality changed because she’s similar to that, but not really. She’s a little more quiet and stuff. But that was a fun process. I mean, it’s a process that I can’t talk about, but it changed dramatically from what we were originally going to do to what was on script and to what you saw. But it was a great process as an artist to create that method.
We talked about Worf. Of course, how great he looks as an older Klingon. He really just never looked better. How did Michael Dorn like that whole transformation to turning him into the samurai Worf?
James MacKinnon: Oof. He had some PTSD from DS9 and Voyager and from the past. And it took a minute to get him ready to do this. And I think with the new products and the new silicone… I mean, we did his makeup in hair and 42 minutes. And usually, he was in the chair for two and some odd hours in the past. So we sped up the process [and] he was happier that he didn’t have to sit in the chair that much longer. But again, Brent and Jonathan are in the trailer at the same time. So they’re laughing and making jokes. So it’s that legacy cast being there. And I’ve worked with them for [years]. I’m almost part of the makeup legacy cast with them as well, which is kind of fun, with so much past and present together.
But we used some techniques from the original shows to make him comfortable. Again, he has to leave that trailer, be happy with what he has on, be happy with his character. So our job is to make sure that he walks out feeling that character. So we manipulated some stuff underneath the prosthetics. Because silicone is not porous. So when he sweats, we made little routes for where the sweat was going to come down. But on the original show, he had a sweatband underneath his prosthetic, which on this prosthetic was so super thin, we couldn’t. So I cut a sleeve off of a T-shirt and put it around his head. So underneath there, he’s got a white T-shirt wrapped around his head. Prosthetic goes over [it]. I painted a little bit of darkness around here because some of it peeked out, but you can’t see because the hair covers it. And then that soaked up all of his sweat during the day. It’s those kinds of things that, as an artist, you’re manipulating and learning as the process happens. And he’s happy, and he walks out happy too.
And Brent also looks so good as an older Data. Tell me about like how that was crafted to make Data human but still an android. Just a perfect fusion of both.
James MacKinnon: Yeah, because on season 1, he was obviously what you call it. And I actually was able to assist Mike Westmore on First Contact. There’s a scene where he flips open his hand and there’s some wires and stuff. I did that while Mike was doing his face. So I did watch that process. And I talked to Mike before we started shooting and asked what the products were, and they don’t exist anymore. It’s not the same method and techniques. So I had to recreate those colors with the materials we have today, which sped things up much, much faster. And on this point with Brent, I put a shine. It’s like a tattoo color that I swept over across his face. So it gave him a little plastic feeling, a little robotic type feeling, but still wasn’t that Data color shimmer shine. And then Maxine Morris, our Department of Hairstyles, did this amazing front lace wig on him that blended with his real hair. So 99% of that is his hair with a lace piece on the front. So you have that realism of his hair, that beautiful white hair, but gives that sharp front edge.
Yeah, he really looked amazing. In your long career with Star Trek, going back to the 90s, where does Picard season 3 rank?
James MacKinnon: It’s like a combination of all of them. Because like I say, that cast is now there, and to have all those friends for all these years and to be able to do their makeup again. And I’m doing little side gigs with Jonathan now on his little side project. So we still get to keep that relationship. And it’s just yeah, it’s just all a combination of having them back again. And hopefully, we’ll see them again, if everything works out. And I don’t know if I get to do it, but we’ll see. They always complain that they’re poor, so we never know. They never have any money.
What are you proudest of in terms of Picard season 3, and the work you were able to do? This amazing work to bring all these prosthetics and makeup and everything to life.
James MacKinnon: I just think for me when I watch it, and we got to watch it on IMAX, if you can create a makeup that the audience and fans don’t see the makeup, I have done my job. So with that massive screen, and I’m scared when I go to those because if I go, oof! I make some weird faces sometimes. But I didn’t. I didn’t. Everything looked fantastic. And it’s almost like we’re shooting a feature each week. Yeah, every week we’re shooting a feature. So there, you have to step up your game as an artist to keep up with it. And the technology is only going to get better, and you’re going to see more pores next year with the bigger TVs. Like, I have a 95-inch TV in front of me. It’s almost the size of a theater, and you can see everything. So when I know that I can trick the eye of the viewer for it not to be a makeup and immerse yourself into that, I’ve done my job.
About Star Trek: Picard Season 3
The third and final season of Star Trek: Picard features Jean-Luc Picard during the 25th century as he reunites with the former command crew of the USS Enterprise while facing a mysterious new enemy who is hunting Picard’s son.
Check out our other Star Trek: Picard season 3 interviews here:
- Production Designer Dave Blass
- Showrunner Terry Matalas on the finale
- Jonathan Frakes
- Showrunner Terry Matalas
- Jeri Ryan
- Daniel Davis
- Gates McFadden
- Todd Stashwick
- Star Trek: Picard Season 3 Red Carpet
- Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut for the premiere and finale
Star Trek: Picard – The Final Season is available now on DVD, Blu-ray™, and a limited-edition Blu-ray SteelBook from Paramount Home Entertainment. Also available now: Star Trek: Picard – The Complete Series. The limited-edition Star Trek: The Picard Legacy Collection will be available on November 7.
