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The Artist Behind Bad Bunny’s Met Gala Aging Transformation Breaks Down the Process
Mike Marino, the prosthetics artist behind Bad Bunny’s aged 2026 Met Gala look, details the 3D scans, silicone builds, three-hour application, and high-pressure live-event process behind one of the night’s most talked-about transformations.
Bad Bunny arrived at the 2026 Met Gala in a dramatically aged look that quickly became one of the night’s most discussed transformations. The prosthetic work came from veteran special-effects makeup artist Mike Marino, who spent months preparing the build before applying it in real time on event day.
Marino, a self-taught artist with more than three decades in prosthetics and over 100 film credits, is known for major celebrity transformations, including multiple collaborations with Heidi Klum and The Weeknd. For Bad Bunny’s Met appearance, he said the singer’s team approached him with a specific concept tied to the gala’s “Fashion Is Art” theme.
“His team reached out to me, and they had already come up with a wish for a design with my name on it,” Marino said. He and his team first traveled to Miami to complete a full 3D laser scan of Bad Bunny’s head and face, then printed the model and sculpted custom age prosthetics on top of it.
Marino said the goal was realism, not exaggeration. The final design included subtle wrinkles, liver spots, burst blood vessels, and custom facial hair elements, plus a full wig and reworked brows. “I didn’t make him look too crazy, because he was supposed to look like an older person, not a zombie,” he said.
On application day, Marino described a tightly timed, high-pressure process that took roughly three hours. Silicone pieces were pre-tinted to match Bad Bunny’s skin tone, then detailed further with airbrushed pigmentation. Hairpieces including mustache, goatee, side beard, eyebrows, and wig were hand-laid and blended with lace for seamless transitions on camera.
“A surgeon wants quiet and peace and perfect temperature,” Marino said. “I’m walking into a party zone and doing surgery in front of 30 people.”
The Met assignment ran alongside a second major project for Heidi Klum, with a combined crew of about 40 people. Marino cited key collaborators including Diana Choi on hairpieces, Carla Farmer on hair, and Kevin Kirkpatrick assisting makeup application. “I couldn’t do it without them,” he said.
Marino compared live-event prosthetics to temporary street art: high detail, no reset. Unlike film productions, where makeup can be adjusted between takes, red-carpet work has little margin for correction once the subject steps out. “Live events, you can’t fix anything,” he said.
Beyond the Met Gala, Marino’s recent music-industry work includes The Weeknd’s evolving character looks, from the bruised-and-bandaged award-show era to the plastic-surgery prosthetics in “Save Your Tears” and the aged portrait used for Dawn FM. Marino said The Weeknd initiated that relationship directly and remains deeply interested in effects makeup as a storytelling tool.
Asked about dream collaborators, Marino said he would have loved to work with legacy performers including Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, and Jim Morrison, adding that he remains open to new artist partnerships across pop and film.
