Talking Chris Pine's Penis With Hollywood's Fake Dick Guy
EntertainmentThe news of Chris Pine’s penis in Outlaw King is a great excuse to talk about Chris Pine’s penis. It is also a great excuse to talk about penises more broadly. Fake ones, more specifically.
Why? Because while talking about Chris Pine’s penis, some of the Jezebel staff idly wondered whether it was real or a prosthetic. Because fakes dicks are very much a thing in Hollywood! Were we even talking about Chris Pine’s penis when we talked about Chris Pine’s penis? Was this a penis or an existential riddle?
Enter Matthew Mungle, Hollywood’s Fake Dick Guy. He’s not just Hollywood’s Fake Dick Guy. Mungle is an Academy Award-winning makeup artist who has created fake guts for CSI corpses and did special effects makeup on X-Files. He’s even applied his makeup wedge to Oprah’s face.
But I didn’t want to talk about any of that. I sent him a nude pic of Pine in Outlaw Kings and called him up to talk about fake peni.
JEZEBEL: So, did you have a chance to take a look at the screenshot that I sent?
MATTHEW MUNGLE: I did, and I don’t know if I can comment on that because I don’t know.
You can’t tell if it’s fake?
I can’t tell! I guess you would have to ask Chris.
Are there any giveaways that you would typically look for in a scene to tell if it’s a prosthetic?
Absolutely, if there’s a lot of pubic hair. What I require when I need to do something like this on an actor is ask, or have the production ask, that he shaves down there—all the pubic hair. What we do is make a penis out of silicone and then we attach hair to the top base of it and then that hair is glued to the actor’s… area. That’s how we hide the seam: pubic hair.
There’s a piece of spandex that is tied to the bottom of the fake penis and it’s pulled up through the butt cheeks and then glued at the very t
If you see a lot of pubic hair, it might be a prosthetic.
It might be a prosthetic, yes.
So… if Chris Pine were wearing a prosthetic in this scene—which doesn’t appear to feature a whole lot of pubic hair—it would have to be a very carefully applied prosthetic.
They tuck their own member underneath. The prosthetic is basically either hollow or it’s got on indent in it where it can pull their own penis down. There’s a piece of spandex that is tied to the bottom of the fake penis and it’s pulled up through the butt cheeks and then glued at the very top of the buttocks.
So… it is possible that Chris Pine’s penis in Outlaw King is a prosthetic, but it seems unlikely.
It’s possible, but it’s unlikely.
Why are penis prosthetics used in Hollywood films?
The reason they’re used is for the actor’s modesty. They don’t really want to show their own penis, either it’s smaller than what they want to depict—and this is not commenting on Chris—or they want a smaller one for the scene. For The Overnight in 2015, I had to make penises for the two lead actors [Adam Scott and Jason Schwartzman]. They’re running around the pool naked, and it gives them liberty to actually do that and not feel self-conscious. For that, one had to be larger than the other, because that was the whole gag of it.
I think the first or second one we did was for Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. They wanted to see this guy coming out of the jacuzzi and he has a very small penis but tons of hair around it. So we had to sculpt a smaller penis. That was interesting going back and forth with the production and director through emails, asking, “Is this the size you want?” and holding a ruler up to the sculpture of it. “No, no, no, we want the testicles bigger” or “We want the penis smaller.” We had some fun with that.
The smaller penis was in the service of comedy, then.
Yes, absolutely. And then in Step Brothers, we made the testicles for Will Ferrell in that, where he rubs it over a drum set.
Ah, OK, I did not see that movie.
I was a little miffed because in the extras [for the DVD], Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly were commenting, and then started singing a song, about how much it cost for the testicles. It got around that I had charged a ton of money for these, which I didn’t.
How much do fake testicles actually cost then?
I believe those were probably around 3,500 dollars, because we had to make them so they acted like real testicles—with testes inside the sac so that they would move right.
You were really going for realism.
And then for Little Britain USA with Matt [Lucas] and David [Walliams], we had to make them body builders and they had to have extremely small penises. One scene calls for Matt to get an erection, so I put a wire inside the small, small penis and I had to get down on my knees and fold the penis up [laughs].
Basically, penis prosthetics are used either because the actor is modest or wants to appear more well-endowed, or because it’s in the service of comedy?
Both. I’ve done a lot of breasts for female actresses who want to make their breasts more endowed or to hide their own breasts so that they can actually act and not be worried about “these are my breasts.” I made some larger breasts for Jane Fonda for This Is Where I Leave You. It’s all in the same vein, as far as penises and breasts are concerned.
We have to ask production all these questions: How long do you want it? What’s the girth of it? Are the testicles bigger or smaller?
Have you ever made fake vulvas or vaginas?
Actually, we did for Knocked Up. We had to do a crowning scene with the baby coming out.
What’s the process of creating a fake penis?
We have to ask production all these questions: How long do you want it? What’s the girth of it? Are the testicles bigger or smaller? Is it darker or the same color as the actor’s skin? Then we begin with sculpting it from photographs, and that’s interesting for all my sculptors to come in and sit in front of the computer and try to pick out pictures. Oh, that’s a good one. That look good. Oh, no, not that one. Is it cut or uncut?
We sculpt it and get it approved by production. Then we mold it and make an epoxy resin mold on top of the clay sculpture and then that’s cleaned out. We then run the silicone penis and try to make it as soft as possible, so that it will move realistically. We clean it off and paint it with silicone paints. Then we either punch hair in or make a lace hair piece to put on the penis.
How many fake penises have you made?
About 10.
Do you have a favorite?
There was one for an episode of Shameless. We had to take one of the larger penises that we had and enlarge it even more because there was a shot between a stripper’s legs where you saw the penis and testicles swing back and forth. We had to make it even longer than it was. And it had a Prince Albert piercing in it.
Sounds advanced. Obviously, you don’t just make penis prosthetics. You’re a makeup artist. Did you anticipate that making penis prosthetics would be part of the job going into it?
Well, I’m an all-around makeup artist. Whatever I get a call on that I feel is something I can do, I’ll do it.