Frisian makeup artist Arjen Tuiten wins an Emmy for a lifelike C-section after making his name with Hollywood monsters

Arjen Tuiten usually brings science-fiction and horror creatures to life. His first major prize, however, came for making a cesarean section look real in the hospital series The Pitt.

The Frisian makeup artist, 45, received an Emmy on Sunday for his work on the HBO series. The Pitt had 25 nominations and was one of the ceremony’s leading favorites. It has built its reputation on realism, including prolonged close-ups of open wounds and other bloody emergency-room scenes that Tuiten helps recreate.

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I am severely dyslexic.

Tuiten has worked in Hollywood for 26 years, but he was born in the Frisian village of Joure and grew up in nearby Haskerdijken. He told Friesch Dagblad in 2022 that severe dyslexia made school difficult. Sculpting and copying what he saw in films came more naturally. He used whatever he could find, from clay to beet juice.

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I was nine years old. I watched, spellbound. It felt like a puzzle piece had fallen into place: this was what I wanted to do.

After watching Terminator, he built a robot at home from drainpipes and aluminum foil. Two decades later, he repeated the feat professionally for the third and fourth films in the franchise. He said his career choice became clear when his mother woke him to watch the BBC program Movie Magic, which explored film makeup effects. "I was nine years old," he said. "I watched, spellbound. It felt like a puzzle piece had fallen into place: this was what I wanted to do."

After technical school, makeup training in Amsterdam and an apprenticeship in Rotterdam, Tuiten worked on the television series Baantjer and films including Black Book. He left for Hollywood at 19, where he worked with Dick Smith, Rick Baker and Stan Winston. His credits include Terminator 3, Big Fish, Pale Man in Pan’s Labyrinth, Angelina Jolie’s transformation in Maleficent, Woody Harrelson as President Johnson in LBJ, and the werewolf in Wolf Man. He also created Gozer’s unsettling appearance for Ghostbusters 3 and 4. The Emmy adds a hospital procedure to a career better known for monsters.

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Winston saw how passionate I was. During my apprenticeship, I even slept in his studio. All the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park were there, a wonderland for me.