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

David Naughton, star of An American Werewolf in London, talks to Yahoo Entertainment about how he tranformed into the werewolf for the classic film.

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?

- 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!

- --And the Blues Brothers, of course, were movies that sort of intimidated me going in to meet him.

- Lots of space in this mall.

- 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.

- Help me! - Let's walk into the transformation sequence. I sort of want to go beat by beat, if possible to see how they did it. Cause it's pretty impressive. So after you rip off your shirt, you're into it. The first thing we 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?

- They had an 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 them. 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 about done here? You know, / 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 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 you a meatloaf, Jack.

- When they see the hair growing on my back. But that was a bit of film reversal, you know? 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 over strand. You can imagine, just like a big bag. I go, you going to run out of that stuff? No, we got plenty of yak hair.

So we were there 10 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. OK, now look at us. Now look away. Now snarl.

- Oh.

- To the 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 distort. That's the thing that's amazing about it is. As if shoots forward it doesn't distort, it just elongates into a snout in a way that's just, 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?

- 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 has one bit of action, which is the snout. Which they do about five or six times and Landis once again, 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.

- 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.

[SNARLING]

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 or stuffed and then your eyes, then your mouth's 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. OK. I keep talking about the pain and torture. But you know, I mean, we knew it was going to be a big payoff.

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

- Created the category and he walked away with it. And 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, and their lives, and their careers. You know, wow.

- There's something going on out there.

[ROARING]