Hollywood’s Creature Queen: How OCD Fueled a Blockbuster Career
Executive Editor Matt Sutherland Interviews Lynette Eklund, Author of Weird: A Monster-Makers Journey from Small Town to Hollywood with OCD
We’re a little giddy about today’s guest author: Lynette Eklund, one of the top creative talents in Hollywood’s effects industry—an artist responsible for creating, fabricating, building, sewing, carving, and otherwise bringing to life literally hundreds of characters from the past thirty-plus years of film, television, commercials, live theater, amusement parks, parade floats, and more. But in reading her new memoir, Weird, Foreword‘s Executive Editor Matt Sutherland came to realize Lynette’s Hollywood success may best be described as an against-all-odds story. You see, Lynette is severely OCD, burdened with perfectionist tendencies, and acutely self-conscious. In other words, she never thinks she is good enough.
Fascinated by her incredible career and complicated life story, Matt jumped at the chance to connect with Lynette for a conversation.
From a very early age, you were deadset on moving to Hollywood by the age of twenty and working in the movie industry. And so you did, but for the first several months, you worked mostly at a sewing machine creating costumes. It was your crucial entry into the industry but you didn’t want to be pigeonholed as a seamstress. So you left that job, albeit terrified that you were tempting fate, and went on to develop an extraordinary set of skills for literally hundreds of movies, television shows, commercials, and more over your career. Using the professional jargon you speak in the industry, can you tell our readers exactly what you do to make movies so special? And also the sort of characters you built and the creativity that’s often required for you to do Hollywood-quality work?
In the effects industry no two jobs are ever alike. If it’s been built before, it doesn’t need to be built again. So, every movie, every commercial, every anything wants to give the audience something they haven’t seen before in quite the same way. Sometimes I’m asked to make an entirely original character, like Kathoga in the movie based on the Preston and Child novel, The Relic. Or I need to make a familiar animal that needs to do extraordinary things, like the baseball-playing chimpanzee in Ed. And sometimes I’m asked to make things that are simply too bizarre, horrific, silly, or simply too darn cute to actually exist, like the Admiral Akbar for Tokyo Disneyland’s Star Tours, or the to-scale miniature clothes for Freddy Kruger in one of the Nightmare on Elm Street films. Whatever I’m asked to create, whether it’s life-sized dinosaurs or an adorable hand-puppet for a children’s theater host, it’s my job to put something that exists solely in someone’s imagination directly into their hands.
To accomplish this, sewing alone isn’t enough. That’s why I wanted to do more. Sewing is a valuable skill, but it’s only one of many I use. I work with all the materials that start with an F—foam, fur, fabric, feathers—to do foam carving, fabrication, and figure finishing. For me, the key is that no matter what creature I’m asked to build—real or fantastical—to make it believable, it needs to be comprehensible. That means it needs to be anatomically logical to our minds. Puppets or suits, I manipulate the materials and consider the performer or mechanics—to all be part of the anatomy. If all the elements aren’t united, the viewer may not be able to put their finger on exactly what is wrong; they simply won’t buy into the production’s reality. Since I can usually see the end product before I even start, it’s really just a matter of building it, so everyone else can see it too.
You have an extremely high level of OCD that affects every aspect of your life, along with a compulsion toward perfectionism. Over the years, you’ve learned to live with a certain set of habits and routines to help you make your way in the world. In fact, your book is remarkable for how well you let us inside your head. Without making light of it, might your unique brain also be responsible for helping you become one of Hollywood’s top special effects designers and fabricators?
Absolutely! OCD doesn’t have to control you, but it takes time to figure out how to use it. When making things for movies, especially those things that are going to be shown on the big screens, you have to be aware that everything you make is going to be seen magnified to enormity. This means any mistake you make is going to be magnified as well. So, there is no such thing as a tiny mistake.
I hate that I’m not perfect almost as much as I hate not having a photographic memory. All I can do is strive for an unachievable perfection. Every project, I have to run a checklist, assuring myself that I’ve done all I can with consideration of the time restraint, materials limitations, human element, and budget, to force my head to accept the end product. Even so, it’s usually hard to sleep for days after I finish a project because I’m haunted by the imperfections. Still, mental agony and all, I consider the OCD that used to torture me my superpower.
It’s taken a lot of years to learn how to use my OCD—just like I’m sure Superman broke a lot of toys before he learned not to squeeze so hard. There’s a learning curve. It’s a tough class, but it can be done, and that’s exactly the point I want others to see by telling my story. I think it’s important for many of the people with OCD—or those trying to understand a loved one with OCD—to hear this.
Here’s a quote from the book to help readers understand your unique form of ambition: “Striving for perfection isn’t a bad thing — that’s what I tell myself, but it doesn’t stop me from crying myself to sleep at night. It’s not the drive that hurts; it’s the hollowness eating away in my chest because I’m not perfect.” And then, when one of your female competitors, Lisa, ends up landing more jobs, you realize that you: “have to adjust my top few Rules of my God-only-knows-how many Rules. Below, I can never fail; I must keep my weirdness my secret; I must always consider everyone and everything’s feelings; and I must check all closets and window locks before locking myself in, above the basic Rules like Don’t breathe where somebody else has just exhaled; Always eat M&Ms in color-matched pairs; and Rotate your wardrobe to be fair to all your clothes; and never step on a doorway threshold, My Rule: I cannot sneak or lie will officially allow the caveat: It will not be a lying to claim I can do something I’ve never done before if my Hyper-drive proves to me I’m capable because — unlike Lisa — the claim will ultimately be backed by my top Rules.”
Lisa makes frequent appearances in Weird. Why was your relationship with her so instrumental in helping you succeed?
My challenges with Lisa are very real, but more than that, as I wrote my story, I realized that Lisa represented my nemesis. The Oxford Dictionary defines nemesis as “the inescapable agent of someone’s … downfall.” Without knowing it, Lisa pointed out all my main weakness.
To my mind, if someone else says something good about you, it’s edification, but if you say it yourself, it’s bragging. I couldn’t brag, which made me a terrible self-promoter in job interviews and while networking at parties and such, leaving Lisa repeatedly winning jobs over me. This made me work harder to become better and better, so that my work could speak for itself. Ultimately, thanks to Lisa, it didn’t take many years before my work came from word-of-mouth and referrals, and my portfolio became just an unkempt photo album because I was too busy to keep it organized.
Insecurity is also one of your unfortunate traits—the near 100 percent certainty that no one likes you, especially if they’re a bit standoffish. All of which makes it difficult for you to trust anyone. How did that affect your career, as well as your personal life?
I have a bio/coloring book I’ve taken to conventions in the past, titled Lynette Eklund Who?! Because while people may know my work, they don’t know who I am. My Cloak of Invisibility makes it even harder on me. This cloak is so powerful that if I were Frankenstein’s monster, and one stitch on my neck broke every time I heard “oh, I wish I had thought to call you to come along; you would’ve loved it,” my head would’ve popped off and rolled down the street years ago. Somehow, I hide so habitually, apparently, I do it even when I don’t know I’m doing it.
And it’s not that I don’t trust people—unless they’re going to offer me food, because it might be poisoned—I just doubt they actually like me and aren’t acknowledging me simply to be polite. With my parents gone, if not for my husband, I’d have nobody I could call without feeling I’m inconveniencing them. I even get pangs in my stomach when I’m texting people I know love me—like my sons. They’re grown and have lives of their own. Surely, they don’t need me interrupting their lives at the particular moment I’m trying to contact them. Right? This is still one of the daily struggles I push myself through.
You rarely allow yourself to hurt someone’s feelings, even when they have wronged you. But, every so often after being mistreated or disrespected, you stood your ground and snapped back at some of those people, and your anger and power left them in tears. Looking back, do you wish you might have let that Lynette the Lioness show herself a bit more often?
Hmm … I don’t think so. Maybe if I had stood up more frequently, I wouldn’t have exploded so intensely when I did, but not knowing that for certain, I wouldn’t want to find out. Besides, the guilt that haunts me whenever I do stand up for myself is excruciating. My memory may not be photographic, but it’s pretty sharp, and it leads me into a loop that replays the scene over and over. I analyze every sentence, considering every way my words could’ve been misconstrued. Once the words are out, there’s no going back. That goes for us all. Standing up for oneself is good, but I think it’s best to leave the lions in the wild.
In the book, you talk about your Calm Mask, Normal Mask, Fear Mask, Cool Mask, Professional Mask (paired with a backup Professional Mask that’s a bit more vulnerable), Oblivious Mask (pulled out when someone takes credit for your work and you let them get away with it), and Confidence Mask. As an expert in actually making masks for the movies, it’s ironic that you also had this acting skill. Please tell us how this ability served you?
Until four years ago, I didn’t even know “masking” was an actual term used to explain what neurodiverse people do to fit social norms. It’s with hindsight that I now see how long I’ve been masking and how frequently I reflexively wore them. At this point, they’ve become a natural habit, and I could no more go without my masks than a rabbit could hop without its legs. There is a special irony in that for me because professionally, I’m only comfortable performing characters when I’m hidden behind a puppet or in a suit that has me behind a mask. If my face shows, I become awkward and self-conscious. Yet on a personal level, I perform from behind invisible masks probably every day. I say “probably” because I’m not sure I’m always aware I’m doing it until I play the situation back later—which I almost always do. I know this makes me sound like a mega phony, but actually the masks allow me to do the exact opposite. The masks allowed me to pretend I’m not vulnerable; therefore, I’m not. And if I’m not vulnerable, I have no reason to lie.
You almost never turned down a job—and almost always had two or three side jobs going after hours and on weekends and then additional moonlighting projects you did at home—because to say no to work meant that that person wouldn’t call you again (at least, that’s what you believed). Take a guess: how many hours of work a week do you think you averaged?
Oh, that’s easy. I’d generally put in eight to ten hours on my day job, and another three or four in the evening. Add an additional eight to ten hours on Saturday, and four to ten more on Sunday, depending on my deadlines. I think ninety-eight hours was my hardest week, but normally, I averaged seventy to eighty hours a week.
But before you gasp too loudly, know that I rarely put in all of those hours completely alone. I felt like I was getting paid to socialize. Puppeteering the snake in Beetlejuice as a midnight job: We ordered pizza and film for a few hours, then I went home long enough to catch some zzz’s before going to my day job in the morning, before doing it again the next night. Those side projects were not only lucrative, they were fun.
The detail you provide in costume creating and all manner of other design and production is incredibly specific—including the exact manufacturer’s serial numbers for the types of foam you used, for example—to the extent that readers might possibly be able to build their own Marshmallow Man, Wooly WhatsIt, or what have you. Regarding your ideal reader for Weird, do you imagine some of your costuming colleagues might be reading the book for shop secrets?
No, I think I’m safe there. The material I talk about and the terms I use are the basics that any foam fabricator is already aware of, as well as most cosplayers watching YouTube tutorials.
Interesting that you should bring this up though. Bryan Farney, the man who met me by chance and started pushing me to write this book, who is also on the board of directors for Histria Books, would read scenes I wrote and call me up to scold me for brushing over things he was dying to know. The first time this happened he called and said, “You can’t just mention working on a Jaws movie and only give it one sentence. That’s certainly worth at least a couple of paragraphs!” Round and round we’d go. To me, my job is so second nature that I forget how much of a curiosity it can be for others. My developmental editor, Ron Seybold, and I were all about telling my personal experiences in the film industry and helping people to understand my OCD, while Bryan stayed locked on his personal fascination with the behind-the-scenes aspects of the film industry. As a team, we worked very hard to balance helping non-industry readers understand what I do, how things are made, and some of the skills it takes, without bogging down the story with brain-melting detail. I think we did a pretty good job. Now it’s up to readers to tell me how they think I did.
Midway through the book you write, “Very quickly, I learned that competition for positions in this industry is considerably more vicious among the females than among males. Being a male-dominated industry, I came in thinking females would support each other, but I’ve been cold-shouldered, pushed into the shadows, lied about, and sabotaged by the very few females I’ve encountered, while the guys have treated me like just another one of the guys.” Why do you think this is true?
First of all, it’s important for me to stress—and I will say this often and loudly—this was how things were for me at that particular time. I don’t find that statement as true today.
That said, back then, there were very few females in the effects industry. Since there were so few of us, it was as if we felt there wasn’t room for more than one female in a shop at a time, because the guys liked their fraternal environment and too many girls would change their world too much. In reality, most effects artists just want to make art. Distractions annoy them. The few other females, like me, who just did our work as one of the guys and let our skills do our talking, got along just fine.
Now, the effects industry is much more equitable in all aspects. The thing that still holds true is that your skills have to do the talking, because gender aside, making creature effects is an intensely demanding job.
How have AI and new technologies affected your work?
Like anything, it’s made some things easier and other things harder. Having the benefit of clearer designs, engineered proportions, clean models, 3-D printed parts, and CGI replacing the massive constructs, it’s easier to construct on a shorter timeline because mechanics and fabricators can get to work before the sculpture is even finished. The counter of that is producers demand more and more in tighter and tighter schedules to offset the expense of that technology, but more so, it’s stripping away some of the creative freedom that came for the artists interpretation of the looser concepts.
I just finished working as head of suit fabrication, puppeteer, and suit performer on a film scheduled for release next year. The director and producers insisted everything be built practical. The artwork was little more than conceptual thumbnails sketches, so the characters and sets were designed as we built. While there are always frustrating moments with this kind of a process, the end results were really cool, and it was refreshing to be allowed so much creative freedom on a project of that size. Everything was old-school, but it lended itself well to the art style, and I think the audience will appreciate it.
I’m seeing more mid-range budget projects daring to turn away from CGI and return to the root style for their special effects and—maybe I’m overly optimistic but—I believe ultimately, there will be places for it all.
Are movie stars snobby, friendly, weird? Can you tell us about a couple of your favorite celebrities and your interactions with them?
Celebrities are human beings doing their jobs, no different than your own co-workers. They come in all shapes, sizes, and attitudes. Elizabeth Taylor deserved to be called Hollywood royalty. Just walking, she owned the room—but she didn’t abuse that privilege. She was friendly and respected all of her co-workers with no regard for white color vs blue color positions. Ben Kingsley, Jeff Goldblum, Ice T, Julianne Moore, Keanu Reeves, Nathan Lane, Lee Evans, Squire Fridell, Lyle Alzado and so many others I found to be cooperative professionals doing what they love, with a strong understanding of what teamwork means. Then there were those few others who were … well … shall we say turds, but then, we’ve all worked with a few of those, haven’t we?
What’s it like to watch a movie with you? Are you looking for anything in particular to critique? And, what’s it like to watch a movie you worked on?
I think I watch movies just fine. My husband, however, says I’m watching a different movie than he’s seeing.
When I watch a movie, story comes first. While I do note good or not-so-good acting, art direction, effects, foley work, costuming, editing, CGI—don’t get me started on bad CGI in big budget movies—and all the other parts of movie making, if the story is good, I can still love a mediocre production. The key concern for me is since I know how far the money can go, did they spend their money well? Micro-budget to blockbuster budget, for me, the story is king. I still love old black and white horror films. A lot of them have corny rubber monsters, but the actors “believe” the monster is real, so I can still believe it too. In any case, unless I’m watching with fellow industry people, I try to keep my thoughts to myself until the movie is over, so I don’t ruin the watch for those around me.
There are others in the world like you—many of them young—learning to live with their unique brains. In anticipation of them possibly reading your book, what would you like to tell them?
Identify it, and own it!
Among our teens and young people there is a heartbreakingly high number suffering from depression and anxiety, many who are self-medicating to hide from themselves. I wonder how many of them may be suffering from OCD and not know it. Most people know that OCD can cause organizational obsessions, clean obsession, and other odd behaviors like the detective on the TV show Monk. But most people don’t realize OCD can also cause thought obsessions. It’s these thought obsessions that worked me over on a daily basis. If I hadn’t had such loving parents, I probably would have been suicidal. I was lucky. Not every person is. Undiagnosed, the thoughts build one on top of another, creating an overwhelming emotional load.
My goal is to get people talking not just about their outward miseries; I want them to get help reaching deeper, to find the root of their issues. That’s why I say we need to identify it and own it!
Identifying it is tricky. I didn’t know I was neurodiverse until about four years ago. There were a lot of things that traumatized me growing up that may not have been nearly so if I had known more about how my brain worked. Talk to a parent, a school counselor, a minister, a doctor. Talk to someone and identify what makes you special. I can assure you that knowing takes the stress out of most of it.
Owning it is tougher but worth it. We unique thinkers may not need to be fixed, but we do need to figure out how to make our weirdness work for us instead of against us. When you get to that point, you’ll find your OC has some cool benefits. And when it goes off on one of its tangents—which it still will from time to time—you can more easily get back in line.
What’s your life like now? And, what’s next for your talented pen?
I love my life. OCD doesn’t go away, but with better understanding of how my brain works, we’re on much better terms. So now, I call myself OC or OCD. I cross out the D because while I’m still obsessive compulsive at times, I don’t consider myself disordered. It’s a mindset. As a matter of fact, if you see me at a convention or making an appearance, I’ll be carrying a stack of stickers that say OC but not D, because I want people to stop talking about unique minds as if our superpower makes us wrong. (Have you watched Marvel movies and seen how the world started to fear and suppress the superhumans? It’s not a good look. Lol.)
I still say that when I grow up, I want to be a novelist. So, these days, I try to keep my effect work to civilized hours, to give myself time to write. My favorite stories are considered Upmarket or Book Club fiction with a bit of a shadowy plotline. I have a few manuscripts ready to go, two more in the works, and another idea stirring. Best-selling author Karen Dionne pointed out to me just recently, after reading part of one of my stories, that without realizing I was doing it, my protagonists have obsessive compulsive tendencies. This is important because I had agent representation for my first story, but we shelved the project because he said beta readers were loving the story but having trouble relating to the protagonist. Now that I know myself better, I can help my main characters be better understood. They always say “write what you know.” Apparently, I’m doing that—in spades!
Meanwhile, until I get a published novel on the store shelves, you’ll have to watch the end credits of Dust Bunny and The Mandalorian and Grogu to find my name.
Matt Sutherland
