The Man Who Played Legion’s Devil With The Yellow Eyes Lived Every Nerd’s Dream

The Man Who Played Legion’s Devil With The Yellow Eyes Lived Every Nerd’s Dream

Quinton Boisclair basically has the dream origin story: He was working in a comic book store when someone making a comic book TV show realised he had the perfect body shape for being a creature. And not only did he get the job, he got to use his knowledge to help teach the makeup artists about his character.

Image: FX

In a fascinating interview with Deadline, Legion‘s special effects makeup supervisor Todd Masters, prosthetics designer Sarah Pickersgill and prosthetics makeup artist Lori Sandnes talked about all the things they made for the series. But the bit that captured my attention was the story Pickersgill told about Boisclair and why he made such a perfect Devil with the Yellow Eyes.

It was kind of by fluke that we found him, and it was probably only a couple of weeks before this role came about. A guy that worked at our shop, he discovered him at a comic book store, or a toy store, where Quinton was working.

He noticed, obviously, his physique. He’s like six-foot-ten, roughly, and very slender. We’re always looking for people like that, because in what we do we’re always building onto somebody, so to start off with a smaller frame always works for us. And also for creatures and stuff, having a tall, slender [build] works really well.

Pickersgill and Sandnes then described what it was like having him in the makeup chair for four and a half hours:

Pickersgill: The funny thing was, he actually was kind of a comic book nerd from way back, so he was feeding us info about the character. Honestly, we didn’t really know the background on the comic book, so he would fill us in while we were doing his makeup.

Sandnes: He had read the graphic novel prior to this, as well, so he was really happy to be playing the role.

Pickersgill: I don’t know if it impacts the way we approach the makeup, but it was interesting to learn, as we went, more about the character.

In case you don’t know, in Legion a giant man with many chins and yellow eyes torments the powerful mutant David Haller (Dan Stevens), showing up as the “true” face of a psychic parasite living in David’s mind. If you know the comics at all, you can guess who this character turned out to be. I’m assuming Boisclair totally did and he gave the entire weird and complicated story to the makeup artists.

This is every nerd’s dream and I’m so happy Boisclair got to live it.


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