Yahoo News How ‘Eric’ Created Its 7-Foot-Tall Titular Monster
Stitches and Glue, the London-based puppet and creature makers (“Wonka,” “Paddington”), are the unsung creative force pulling the strings in “Eric.” The Netflix limited series, which explores the ugly underbelly of New York City in the 1980s, contains a cheerful side in the form of “Good Day Sunshine,” a popular children’s TV puppet series.
Benedict Cumberbatch plays desperate puppeteer Vincent from “Good Day Sunshine,” who goes on a quest to find his missing 9-year-old son, Edgar (Ivan Howe), with the help of Eric, a 7-foot-tall blue monster inspired by Edgar’s drawings. Stitches and Glue (run by Paul Vincett and Becky Johnson) were responsible for creating all of the puppets for the show within the series for their portion of the shoot. In addition, they made the full-size animatronic Eric, who performed alongside Cumberbatch.
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“There are so many storylines in it, and we only feature for a very small part of one,” Johnson told IndieWire. “So when we got to see the whole thing together, it was quite mind-blowing. I think we were in that studio for three-and-a-half weeks [it was shot in Budapest and New York]. But designing the puppets was steered heavily by Lucy [Forbes], the director, and [creator] Abi [Morgan] as well.
“When they first came to us,” Johnson continued, “they had this very sort of loose theory of how and where the puppet show was going to be set…in Central Park. That was the [backdrop] that was set in stone. But the selection of characters that they wanted to choose hadn’t been established yet. So we went through quite a few different alternations.”
Forbes was adamant about the color palette to the point where they were given individual pantones for costume elements of the puppets. The key imagery was vivid and muted, influenced by game shows of the period. The director also insisted that they make unique characters while hewing to period-correct looks (such as covered faces) and materials (predominantly felt). Of course, it was a given that they steer clear of any resemblance to Jim Henson’s iconic Muppets.
Additionally, it was Morgan’s idea to focus on two androgynous children: Bug (puppeteered by Cumberbatch) and Mush (puppeteered by Roberta Colindrez). “Then there was the fact that there are always dogs being walked in New York,” Vincett told IndieWire. “So that’s where Peggy, the purple poodle, and Parker, the orange chihuahua, came from. He’s based on this really famous 1960s photograph.”
Cumberbatch and the other actors received basic training by puppeteer vet Raymond Carr, made easier by the fact that they manipulated their puppets with their hands. Cumberbatch, in particular, displayed a lot of curiosity about the process. However, two characters required two puppeteers apiece to handle arms and eyebrows: Officer Charlie and Mr. Jose, a hot dog vendor who wears a yellow and orange-stripped shirt.
Meanwhile, the design of Eric started very creature-like before they made a necessary course correction. “There was a realistic finish to him with the silicon skin and hair punching and glass eyes,” said Vincett. “Everyone was really enjoying going down this route. And then there was this sort of realization that, no, he still needs to be very much a puppet. So then we dialed it back to this fleecy face. The suit itself very much began quite pale. And then we spent a good couple of weeks dirtying down the hair and really giving it a grounding in reality with the idea that it’s always been living on the streets. And throughout the shoot, Eric got grubbier. Abi said, ‘He looks like he’s been peed on, lovely.'”
There were actually two Eric puppets: the hero one who accompanies and spars with Vincent, serving as the dark manifestation of his inner demons, and the “Sunshine” puppet that’s simpler, brighter, and more child-friendly. “All the different furs and coloring and everything that went into our hero Eric just gave so much texture and interest to his overall being,” Vincett continued. “The other one is very flat, everything’s sort of one layer. Vincent is supposed to have built [it] in two weeks whilst looking for his son.”
Eric was played by Olly Taylor inside the suit, with a vest to keep him cool and wearing multiple camera feeds through VR goggles and two separate audios in his ear to guide his movements. There was also a team of dressers alongside him with a leaf blower and water to make the suit look as good as possible. The headpiece was controlled remotely by puppeteers Phill Woodfine and Laurence Moran, who manipulated the eyes/eyebrows and ears, respectively. His vocal performance was done in post by Cumberbatch, but Taylor said the lines on set.
“There was a lot of tech that we’d have to get into the back of the suit, and also the batteries to run all this were vast,” added Vincett. “They were these big bricks and they got really hot, so we’d have to wrap ice packs onto these batteries, and then try and hang them off this sort of chest plate that we built for Olly.”
Cumberbatch got in the suit as well with the vest, carrying the head, sometimes running frantically on the streets of New York. “The first time he literally just had to run round the corner and down the street, holding the head, kids kicking footballs in front of him and all the extras,” Johnson said. ” I mean, my heart was in my mouth. It was just terrifying. But he was absolutely heroic.
“And Benedict had to master these giant slippers,” she added, “but he did a great job running quite fast in those things, and then take after take as well. And just being positive. There were times it was quite challenging because of the heat. But he remained a true professional. I think he enjoyed it, I think he had a good laugh.”
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