Mark Coulier

Mark Coulier is a make-up artist and special effects designer who worked in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

Coulier began his career at the end of the 1980s, working as a special makeup technician for Clive Barker's Hellbound, the first sequel to his popular Hellraiser horror saga.

During the first half of the 1990s, Coulier worked mainly in horror and science-fiction movies: He was one of the responsibles of the creature effects on Alien³, plus he worked as the makeup special effects senior artist on another of Clive Barker's movies, Candyman. He was also a makeup effect designer or assistant in three movies about Frankenstein: Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992, Anthony Hickox), where the main characters travel through time and meet the doctor, and two adaptations of Mary W. Shelley's novel: David Wickes' 1992 one, starring Patrick Bergin and Randy Quaid as the doctor and his creature; and Kenneth Branagh's 1994 one, with Branagh himself as Frankenstein and Robert DeNiro, under Coulier's and others' makeup, as the monster.

Then, he began working with Jim Henson's Creature Shop, the same place from which Frank Oz came, with Babe.

Coulier returned to horror with spectacular Event Horizon (1997), replacing Sam Neill's eyes with empty sockets. He would work with Neill again the following year in TV movie Merlin. He worked on TV again on 1999 with Nick Willing's Alice in Wonderland, starring Tina Majorino as Alice plus an all-star ensemble cast that should resemble completely different characters.

On 1999, he also worked in spectacular The Mummy, another classic Universal Monster brought to fame by Boris Karloff. This time, Coulier was experienced enough to be one of the key animatronic model designers, alongside with Chris Barton and Michelle Taylor.

This is a role he reprised, that same year, in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. At the same time, he had to work in a role he was not accostumed to: An actor. After creating Malastare senator, the three-eyed Aks Moe, he was supposed to play that role in the Senate scenes! He had not to worry about his voice; professional voice actor Marc Silk would be dubbed over him. This is a politics that George Lucas had been using since 1997, when he took Rick Baker and placed him under his own creatures.

Coulier continued his career only as a makeup designer, apparently not interested in more acting jobs. On 2000, he created effects for two TV movies, including Arabian Nights (John Leguizamo, Jason Scott Lee...) and Jason and the Argonauts (Dennis Hopper, Frank Langella...), and also in Leonardo DiCaprio's blockbuster The Beach.

On 2001, he would work as prosthetic makeup artist in both crime drama Another Life and in the sequel The Mummy Returns (being the only prosthetic makeup artist of that movie). He would also be the head of the make-up unit in another movie, the popular Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, beginning of the saga.

Satisfied with his previous work, Coulier would be summoned again for the sequel of this movie: He was one of the animatronic model designers for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

On this same 2002 year, Coulier also worked on TV, becaming the make-up designer for the caveman and main star of the movie Stig of the Dump. Besides, he also worked as prosthetic make-up artist for Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones.

Coulier worked on science fiction again as make-up effects artist on the mini series Children of Dune (2003), as well as in the crime movie about computer geeks 3 Blind Mice.

On 2004, Coulier returned to the Harry Potter saga for its third installment, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, being one of the key animatronic model designers alonside Val Jones-Mendosa, Tacy Kneale, Paul Spateri and Guy Stevens