Vampires, Movie Stars and Their Teeth
Last updated November 22nd, 2009
One of my team members watched the movie Twilight and wondered if heartthrob Robert Pattinson had dental work performed on his teeth — which look pretty good in the movie.
We did a little searching and found that yes, Twilight producers made him wear something close to an Invisalign brace to help straighten out his teeth. According to Pattinson, they wanted his teeth to “be perfect” in keeping with the character Edward — who like his vampire family, has perfect, “razor-sharp” teeth in the books by Stephanie Meyer.
This made us wonder about dental special effects in other movies — and after doing some searching, we found that movie stars do undergo (sometimes painful) dental procedures for the roles they play. Even better, the dentists who perform these procedures can get listed in the IMDb (Internet Movie Database)!
Case in point: Dr. Rick Glassman, who placed Johnny Depp’s gold crowns for Pirates of the Caribbean as well as performing work on Sean Penn in 2004 for the movie The Assassination of Richard Nixon.
And of course, you have Emma Thompson wearing that ugly jutting tooth in Nanny McPhee (we couldn’t find who did that one), and who can forget Richard Kiel, who played the steel-tooth Jaws in the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me.
According to Kiel in a recent interview, the teeth were made by a dentist in Pinewood, CA:
‘The guy [dentist] ended up successfully making one set. He told me he couldn’t make any more – it was just too difficult,’ says Kiel.
During shooting, however, Kiel could only wear them for a few minutes at a time. He said: ‘They were nauseating. They were up in the roof of your mouth and gave you a gagging effect – you felt like you were going to be sick. It did add to the stoic part of my character – to keep from throwing up.’‘They were kind enough to have a lady with a tupperware container with some cotton at the bottom. As soon as the director called cut, out they came. She would take them and rinse them with mouthwash and leave them to dry off for the next scene.’
Sometimes though, movie stars’ perfect pearly whites actually stand out too much in a movie. For example, while watching Pride and Prejudice, I was struck by the juxtaposition of the characters’ very white, very straight teeth against the very gritty 18th-century background — the dirt, the lack of running water, and closeness of people and their animals. In one scene, for example, you see a pig walking through the house.
And as we all know, people’s teeth rotted and fell out during this time period due to lack of knowledge about dental care and poor hygiene. (Remember, people took baths maybe once a week, if that!)
So the stars’ perfect white teeth were a modern day anachronism in the movie. In fact, in many scenes, Donald Sutherland (who has very bulky veneers!) actually covers up his smile with his hand.
Do you notice movie stars’ teeth? Do you know of other examples of stars who had their smiles enhanced for roles — or had veneers placed that made their teeth look more suited for a “working class” role? Leave your comments below.
