Channing Tatum’s Veneers Are a Character All Their Own in Blink Twice
Courtesy of Amazon MGM Studios
In The Scenario, reporter Kirbie Johnson takes readers behind the scenes of the buzziest movies and TV shows to reveal how the best wigs, special effects makeup, and more are created. For this edition, Johnson spoke with the FX dental technician Gary Archer, who took on a subtle but significant part of Channing Tatum’s transformation in the summer thriller Blink Twice.
Channing Tatum has it all: He can dance. He can act. He’s got a great sense of humor. He’s engaged to Zo? Kravitz. All this despite his completely normal, nothing-to-write-home-about appearance.
Everything he’s got going for him, physically and personality-wise, makes for a good foundation to portray the deceptively charming sociopathic tech billionaire Slater King in Blink Twice.
In the film, Tatum looks like himself—until he speaks. We see his character for the first time in an interview setting, not unlike Kara Swisher interviewing any one of our modern tech behemoths. But seeing as Tatum doesn’t have the, er, typical look of a Musk or Zuckerberg type, the key to transforming him into one was dental prosthetics. When he opens his mouth, his teeth are blindingly white and perfectly cut—void of personality or uniqueness, unlike Tatum’s real-life smile with all its charming and natural unevenness. It turns his handsome puppy dog face into the face of someone you’d probably avoid at the bar.
“We were asked to give him a million-dollar smile—white, perfect, broad—just somebody that had so much wealth available to them they could [pay for] a perfect…smile,” the film’s FX dental technician Gary Archer tells Allure. Archer, whose dental career spans 40 years, is known to many in the industry as “The Godfather of FX teeth.” His IMDb is a sm?rg?sbord of iconic films and television shows; he’s worked on highly notable chompers like Mike Myers’s in the Austin Powers trilogy, Robin Williams’s in Mrs. Doubtfire, and Drew Barrymore's in Never Been Kissed.
Archer, who has worked with Tatum on previous projects, says these teeth in Blink Twice are akin to the smiles Beverly Hills dentists are charging $30,000-$40,000 for. “[You] cut down every tooth, [give them] bleached white veneers…you’ve seen them on multiple celebrities; they’ve all had their teeth done,” Archer says. The key to Slater King’s teeth, he notes, is that they’re super bleached, over-the-top white (“Somewhat ridiculous, but that’s my dental opinion speaking,” he quips) but aren’t a “joke.” They don’t appear too large for Tatum’s mouth and even though they’re noticeably porcelain white, they aren’t out of the ordinary for a wealthy tech tycoon. “[Kravitz, the film’s director] wanted him to look like he had this billionaire's smile, but it wasn't to be done in this overt way that made it look ridiculous,” Archer says. “We didn't want it to be an eye draw.”
Generally speaking, to achieve temporary veneers for the screen, Archer first molds an actor's teeth, a similar process to getting an impression done at the dentist. Even for actors he’s worked with before, he orders new molds for each project unless one has been taken within the year because teeth move subtly over time. Archer then evaluates the actor’s bite to ensure there’s nothing that could cause problems when manufacturing the teeth.
For Blink Twice, Tatum wore an appliance that slid on top of his actual teeth, similar to dentures, with teeth made of acrylic, which can be created through a digital milling process or conventionally through hand sculpting. “They're very, very thin plastic shells that are all joined together with a little bit of gum work on the top that slips over your own teeth,” Archer says. “They're very similar to what people get with porcelain veneers, but with plastic veneers you obviously don’t have to have your teeth prepped—no one has to file your teeth down. They just slide right over your own teeth.” Archer says because the teeth are made of denture acrylic, they look just like teeth, and because they’re plastic, they can shape, stain, and color them to supplement the actor’s character design.
Once the acrylic veneers have been aligned and secured in place on the appliance, Archer cleans, files, polishes, then custom stains the teeth. The final product is applied atop the actor’s real teeth to make sure no further adjustments need to be made, then the actor has a practice session with the makeup department where they’re taught the ins and outs of wearing them. Archer creates two extra sets in the event the teeth get lost or broken.
But are they comfortable? “I’ve had this happen many, many times—people eat with them in, although they’re not supposed to, because people forget they’re wearing them,” he says. “They become so comfortable in them.” That’s because these teeth are less than a millimeter thick, so you don’t feel like your mouth is full of an extra set of ivories.
Tatum’s smile in the film will look clearly altered if you’re familiar with him, but somehow, it’s also natural. It doesn’t look ridiculous and it isn’t distracting. “The whole point of doing character teeth is that so people, when they’re watching the film, they don’t realize the character is wearing teeth,” Archer says. “They know there’s something different about the character, but they don’t know exactly what [has changed]. We don’t want teeth to become the focal point of the film.”
It’s a subtle change but an effective one. We’re all familiar with Tatum and the types of roles he typically plays. This role is a departure for the actor, and adding something as simple as a different smile helps separate him from his usual hot-guy-with-a-heart-of-gold types, while clearly indicating an important character trait (he’s rich rich) as it relates to the theme of the film—abuse of power —without having to overtly dress him in luxury fashion labels. Further, the type of smile he’s sporting in this film—perfect, unflawed, pristine—helps add to the apprehension the viewer is intended to experience of his character.
We know he did something he had to apologize for at the start of the film, but his behavior appears reformed, kind, and even trustworthy… until it isn’t. And his pearly whites help play into Slater King hiding something underneath it all.
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Originally Appeared on Allure