David Naughton explains how he became the 'American Werewolf in London'

David Naughton talks to Yahoo Entertaintment about how he transformed into the American Werewolf in London.

Video Transcript

- What? God! What?

Oh! Oh! I'm burning up!

- Were you a werewolf fan growing up? And was it more Lon Chaney or Michael Landon, for you, if you were?

DAVID NAUGHTON: Yeah, I wasn't really a big horror fan. It was just one of those things. I was a John Landis fan and, certainly, his previous films, particularly Animal House.

- You guys up for a toga party?

- Toga!

DAVID NAUGHTON: And The Blues Brothers, of course, were movies that sort of intimidated me going in to meet him.

- Lots of space in this mall.

DAVID NAUGHTON: This young guy comes in, very hip, and full of energy. And just a conversation later, I found myself getting ready to be a werewolf.

- (Screaming) Help me!

- Let's walk into the transformation sequence I started want to go sort of beat by beat, if possible, to see how they did it because it's pretty impressive.

So, after you rip off your shirt, you're into it. The first thing we'd see is the hand. The hand elongates and gets bigger. So how are you doing that? Is that sort of stop motion, in terms of your hand growing, how is that?

DAVID NAUGHTON: The actual prop that he built, which would be put in front of my arm. The frame is cut similar to the way it is now you don't see where my arm goes. My real arm is behind my back and you know a replica of my actual hand is held up with these wires and air bladders and things. And it actually stretched, so it was pretty phenomenal to see how that worked. And I just react to it.

There's stuff where I'm pretty much on all fours and it's shot in front so you see the hands. I have a lot of face, makeup, and appliances on, new teeth. And then, when I roll over, there's a whole new shot of me. I'm actually in the floor, at this point, and this appliance body is attached on top of the floor of this set. But it's pretty primitive, I mean, underneath the feet are basically poles going through the floor with a guy working on pretty primitive-- and I'm reacting to everything in front, but it's a gigantic body, an appliance, basically, attached here.

And the only thing that you see of me is really shoulders, arms, and head and then everything else is reacting. But I was in that floor one morning, you know, for about five hours going, "Are we gonna-- are we about done here? You know, I think we got it." They go, "No, you're going to be here for a while." "So, can we take a break?"

So what they would do is, everybody would leave, and just turn the lights off and the fans on and I'd be in there going, "I can get through this. I think I can do this."

- I didn't mean to call him Meatloaf Jack.

DAVID NAUGHTON: When they see the hair growing on my back, but that was a bit of film reversal. So it's all the way through. And then they pull it. And then, when they reverse the film, it looks like it's growing right through the skin. Then I'd be covered in it. And it'd be strand upon strand, you can imagine, just like a big bag. I go, "Do you-- going to run out of that stuff?" "No, we got plenty of yak hair." So we were there, I mean, ten hours a day for five days in makeup.

And then, go out on the set each time and work for a minimum time, two hours, maybe, hour and a half. And they'd say, "OK. We got it. And let's go take it off for a couple of hours and that's stage one. Let's come back tomorrow and start over."

- In the transformation, at first, your eyes are sort of blood-red before they turn yellow. Did they do anything to your eyes to make them bloodshot or is that just your acting?

- I don't know if you've ever hold your breath and just sort of push and you make your face red, you know, your eyes start to do that. Because there is a lot of time looking in the mirror while Rick's working going, let's see what this thing does in terms of mask and flexibility and what works and what doesn't. And John would be, he'd be right over the camera going, "OK. Now look at us. Now look away, now snarl."

[SNARLING]

- A point there where it turns into what Rick called the change-o head, which is actually a model mounted on a platform and the snout shoots forward. That's not me, of course, but it's his mechanical appliance, which they called the change-o head. And took a long time for that to work. And then, not to store it, that's the thing that's amazing about it is, as it shoots forward, it doesn't distort. It just elongates into a snout in a way that's just, you know, how do you do that?

- You mentioned, it wasn't you with the face when it elongates. Was anyone wearing the mask or is that just the mask by itself and they were pushing it?

DAVID NAUGHTON: No it's actually just a whole head that's got mechanical parts covered and dressed with all the teeth and the eyes in it and all the hair and painted. And, you know, so a whole, full-on mask. But, basically, a prop that does, you know, has one bit of action, which is the snout. Which they do about five or six times and Lance would go, "OK, we got it!"

- Which set of fake teeth was the worst for you to wear? And you definitely see different ones, as they go on.

[INAUDIBLE] [LAUGHS]

DAVID NAUGHTON: It's the bigger, the worse it got. And they're in there to stay, you know, they'd be, sort of, glue them in. But I think the eye stuff, any of the lenses. Actors will tell you, they can go right along with makeup, right up until the point where they start messing with your eyes. But it's sort of like when you're getting those molds made, you're OK with it until you can't hear, your ears are stuffed, and then your eyes, then your mouth stuffed with it, and now you're just trying to breathe, going, "How long is this going to take?" "About 20 minutes and you'll be out of that." Oh, OK, right. I keep talking about the pain and torture, but, you know, I mean, we knew it was going to be a big payoff.

[SNARLING]

- And certainly for Rick because he won the Oscar for that, which was amazing at the time, really.

DAVID NAUGHTON: In the category. And he walked away with it. And, you know, the first of many for him. So he's always been considered, certainly since that film. But it's funny, you know, he says of all these movies he's done and all these Oscars he's won, he always gets comments about Werewolf and the stuff that he did. And the number of people, over the years, that I've met who have gone into makeup and special effects because of him and because of this film. So it's crazy to go on these personal appearances or shows or conventions and things that I've appeared at and hear people talk about what an impact seeing this film had on them in their lives and their careers You know, wow.

- There's something going on out there.

[WEREWOLF NOISES]