(Photo courtesy of GalactiCon)
Written by Colleen Bement, Editor
All the way from England, Ross Mullan met his fans at GalactiCon in Denver.
Whovians will certainly recognize Ross Mullan as The Silence from “Doctor Who.” “Game of Thrones” viewers felt the terror of watching the menacing White Walker. Passersby made sure to stop at his table to meet the actor who brought chilling mystery to the Whovian universe. Marvel fans will recognize his voice as The Maitre’d in “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania,” and of course, his breakout role in “Clash of the Titans” is loved by sci-fi fans. Ross traveled all the way from England to join the inaugural GalactiCon event and shared some amazing stories. Please enjoy!
Colleen Bement: Let’s chat about The Silence. I’m a “Doctor Who” fan and your portrayal of The Silence scared the crap out of me.
Ross Mullan: Good. Mission accomplished.
Colleen Bement: How did you prepare for that role? How do you express through prosthetics?
Ross Mullan: Specifically with The Silence or most of the monsters in “Doctor Who” we would have a choreographer. They help you with that–with the movements. You get a very set sort of idea of how the character moves. But like with the White Walker on “Game of Thrones,” or any of the creatures, you have an idea of what you want to do, and once you wear the prosthetic, and the prosthetic will dictate to you what works and what doesn’t.
Colleen Bement: Do you pretty much learn by doing?
Ross Mullan: Yes, for instance when I was preparing for the White Walker season three, my director Michel McClaren said this is the first time we’re going to see the White Walker walking, actually moving. How does he move? We tried all kinds of crazy things like walking like a panther, rolled shoulders forward. You try all kinds of things, but once you’ve got the prosthetic on, it kind of tells you what works and what doesn’t.
It’s trial and error, really. The ones that were the wildest were “Clash of the Titans” playing witches who are very eccentric, climbing over each other, dirty, filthy, living in the mud. They had to move a certain way. Also, with a costume like in “Clash of the Titans” you want to show off the prosthetics. She was a larger lady and she had very large breasts, so I was always thrusting everything forward. I think that’s why Conner Sullivan who was the make-up artist, he said he always likes working with me because you really show off my make-up. That’s the thing is seeing what’s key in the make-up to show it to the camera as much as you can. So you prepare it basically like you would any other character, really. You just sort of try to do what serves the character best and listen to the director.
Colleen Bement: Tell me about filming “Game of Thrones” when it was freezing cold outside, and the prosthetics getting cold.
Ross Mullan: People often think that prosthetics are always hot, which they are when it’s sunny or when it’s warm. But in actual fact, prosthetics pick up the temperature as well. The prosthetic itself, if it gets gold, you get cold. It’s easier to cool yourself down when you’re hot with prosthetics with ice packs, it’s trickier to get yourself heated up. The make-up team would just hold me and give me their body heat in between shots. This picture that we have here is out in the forest, when I look at this picture I see my make-up team hiding behind those trees.
Colleen Bement: What about your bare feet?
Ross Mullan: They would throw a piece of carpet down. They had a little piece of carpet that they would roll out and I’d step on that. One of them cover my feet with a towel and sort of rub them a little bit lightly, and the other two would hug me. It’s actually a very loving and trusting environment. Your make-up team are the people who have your back.
Colleen Bement: What made you get into this type of acting?
Ross Mullan: I was puppeteering on a show for six years called “Bear Behaving Badly” and I had an audition for “Clash of the Titans.” That was my first prosthetics job. I think I got into this work mostly because I was doing mask work for a long time when I got out of drama school. I was always a very physical performer, and the very first creature that I ever played was in a TV series called “Dinotopia.{“
Colleen Bement: I remember that!
Ross Mullan: I did the early stages of motion capture for Zippo the dinosaur. A director from Montreal, my hometown, had seen me in a mask show and asked me to come out to Pinewood Studios and he just said listen, this is a job that I’m just willing to give you because I know what you’re like as an actor. It was like, OK, it was odd, but it was my first foray into creature work. Then prosthetics added a whole different layer to it.
Colleen Bement: Do you have any projects in the works that you’re allowed to talk about?
Ross Mullan: Yes, I’m going to be in a movie called “The Retched” which is a vampire film. And I hopefully will be in a movie called “The Honeywells.” That might be just a working title. I’m also doing a short film called “Leon” when I get back. It’s about a man who lives in a moldy flat and the mold starts to seep into him and cover him, and he’s covered in mold. I’m meeting up with the director next week.
Keep up with Ross on Instagram.
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