He’s ripping off his mask — for good. “Star Trek: Discovery”
Actor Doug Jones has built a professional life as the perpetual prince of prosthetics, often donning all-encompassing costumes, both in film and television. Now the 63-year-old star is shedding his skin as Saru, the lanky Kelpian Starfleet commander on “Discovery,” which launches its fifth and final season on Paramount Plus on Thursday, April 4. “You know, I have had quite a career wearing rubber and glue,” Jones recently told The Post, just days before taking the stage at a “Discovery”-focused panel at the South by Southwest festival last month. The self-proclaimed “flexible” actor has come a long way since his early days as a mime and contortionist at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, where as a student in the early 1980s he suited up as its red-winged school mascot , Charlie Cardinal, before landing a gig as Mac Tonight, a singing, piano-playing “moon man” in numerous McDonald’s commercials. But even after decades of transforming into zombies, aliens, demons, sea creatures and vampires in movies like “Hocus Pocus” and “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” — not to mention a string of freaky films by writer/director Guillermo del Toro including “Hellboy,” “Pan’s Labyrinth” and 2018 Best Picture Oscar winner “The Shape of Water” — Jones seems especially connected to his “Trek” creation. “I’ve gotten to know this character better than anyone else I’ve ever played over my entire 38-year career,” he said of fan-beloved Saru. “I’ve spent the most time with him, the most time peeling back his layers … It’s been quite a journey.” Not that it’s always been an easy galaxy-hopping trip. He would spend two hours daily squeezing into an extensive costume that included a four-piece, all-encompassing rubber alien head — plus large, aquamarine contact lenses that required revitalizing eye drops every 20 minutes. And then would marinate in his sweat for hours more. “Silicone doesn’t breathe. It’s like being wrapped in Saran Wrap, so you get moisture going in there,” he recalled to The Post. “By the end of the day, I could do this” — Jones mimicked rocking his head side-to-side during the interview — “and hear sloshing going back and forth in my head.” The 6-foot-4 actor said colleagues even had a name for the disgusting byproduct. “We would call it hot dog water,” he joked. And then there were his character’s towering boots, which required what he has called a “supermodel walk” to remain properly balanced while moving through scenes. “Lady Gaga wears shoes like these on stage,” Jones quipped about the precarious, heel-less footwear, while surprisingly adding that he has only ever fallen twice — and nursed just one swollen ankle — while filming. “As
aliens go, he’s fabulous,” he said of the graceful, gliding Saru, whose final, 10-episode arc finds him gallivanting across the galaxy alongside Captain Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) in search of a potentially catastrophic 800-year-old artifact with Romulan roots — all while Saru seriously assesses his relationship with Vulcan love interest and Ni’Var President T’Rina (Tara Rosling). But after reaching whatever final frontier awaits the crew and taking off “fabulous” Saru’s mask for the last time, long before this week’s season premiere — “It’s like they’re peeling your skin back,” he said of the removal process — Jones finally may be ready to swear off extensive face coverings. “I do have aspirations to do, like, a
Christmas movie playing, like, a dad of someone who’s in love and working through their issues,” he suggested wistfully. “And I can give them some great advice while I hold a cup of cocoa.” So, no prosthetics? “I’m pursuing more humans now. Yes, indeed,” he said — before being reminded that Guillermo del Toro could still give him a call and offer him yet another all-encompassing creature feature. “Never say never,” he responded. “Never say never.”