Tunbridge Wells make-up artist Kate Griffiths tells of her career highlights creating amazingly gruesome special effects, writes Marijke Hall

Wolverine/Logan’s Claws worn by Hugh Jackman

Kate Griffiths has seen enough zombies to last her a lifetime.

She’s had her fair share of vampires, too. But offer her a ‘full body skinning’, though, and she’ll bite your hand off.

Kate may sound like a gore-obsessed, horror fanatic (she is a little, perhaps) but she’s actually a special effects and theatrical make up artist.

With 20 years experience under her belt - along with a number of awards - the Tunbridge Wells native has more or less done it all when it comes to the industry.

From Blockbuster movie projects - she attached Hugh Jackman’s iconic Wolverine claws - to creating intricate, realistic ‘injuries’ for NHS training, there’s little she hasn’t done.

Blood and gore aside, she’s also made up a host of celebrities as dames for many of the UK’s top pantomimes. Kate says her work is massively varied, but admits horror is her thing.

“When I got into it, I found my niche,” she explains. “Believe it or not, the special effects and make-up industry was dominated by men - very talented men - so a female horror artist was maybe not so common back then.

“It was the beginning of Twitter and I really used social media to push it by being shocking and people were inquisitive.”

She says special effects stole her heart when she first got into the business.

“People automatically think of horror films but there’s much more to it,” she said. “I’ve worked for the NHS so when doctors and consultants have to retrain or do exams they need patients to practice on so I make someone up, following the exact criteria for specific accidents.

“That’s called moulage - it’s very specific and it works for me as I love anatomy and physiology. So, if a doctor says to me ‘we’ve got to cut through here’ you’ve got to know what’s inside, you can’t just fake it.

“There will always be somewhere out there who’s going to say ‘that’s wrong’.”

She admits one of her favourite horror projects was a ‘skinning’ for motion picture Winterskin which features on Prime.

“It’s literally a head to toe skinning,” she says. “It’s a human, but it turns into this creature. It took over five hours.

“Things like that which are really detailed and intricate and gory, I love that.”

She’s also worked alongside big names of the screen and stage, including that Wolverine job with Hugh Jackman on the third Wolverine film - Logan.

“I flew out to Finland and went to this remote location for this very bizarre little scene,” she explains. “The claws were flown with the 20th Century Fox team and they came in this sealed box and then I had to attach them so it looks like they are coming through the flesh of his hand.”

She’s also worked with panto favourite Christopher Biggins as well as Jo Brand and Paul Merton for the classic dame make-up.

@shellydinferno photographed by @richardwakefield

“I quite often give them tuition, too. Jo Brand had never done a dame before so I worked with her, showed her what to do so she could do her own make-up for the six-week run.”

Most recently Kate has worked on feature film Fyre Rises and in October is due to fly out to Hungary for a film called Witch.

Her work also extends to big advertising brand campaigns including for Kraken Rum, Fanta and Boots UK.

But despite Kate’s extensive and successful career, she admits she hadn’t always done make-up artistry.

She was 30 when, realising her job as a speech and language therapist wasn’t really doing it for her, she undertook a course in theatrical and media make-up.

It was then another four years of doing free work anywhere she could while holding down her day job.

“I started following a lot of indie filmmakers on Twitter as they always want a free make-up artist and so in return I’d do that for credits and whatever photos I could get. I built this portfolio and got a website going and it just took off and I literally haven’t looked back since.”

She admits with the growth in popularity of make-up artistry due to Instagram and TV shows like BBC Three’s Glow Up, it’s now harder than ever to break into the industry.

“Whereas before you had hair and beauty courses, you now get theatre and film make-up courses in their own right and it’s so popular,” she explains. “There are a lot of people who qualify and they are really talented but it’s so hard to get work.

“I worked for four years for free and very rarely do you walk into this creative job and just get paid work; that’s something that young people in particular have to realise. You have to really work your guts out to get there.

“They can use Instagram to really promote their work and get noticed. It’s hard though.”

As part of her own work, she runs workshops to help inspire and offer opportunities for budding artists.

Kate says the part she loves about her job is capturing people’s minds and imaginations with special effects and by creating illusions.

“Most actors will never look like themselves when they’ve got their prosthetics on so it is incredible what we can do,” she says. “The great thing about what I do is every single day is different. You get the trends, like for a long time it was zombies, zombies, zombies, but it is a very varied job and it is really fun.”