From Dental Tech to Hollywood: The Man Behind Movie Monsters’ Teeth

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Chris Lyons, proprietor of the dental prosthetics company Fangs FX located in Buckinghamshire, specializes in a unique variety of celebrity teeth that differ significantly from the flawless smiles and bright veneers often associated with Hollywood.

Over the past 40 years, Lyons has significantly marked the realm of cinematic teeth. He’s designed custom sets of teeth, fangs, and various jaw structures for both film and television productions – ranging from Star Wars and Jurassic World, to Indiana Jones and Game of Thrones.

He has vividly portrayed vampires (such as Nosferatu, Blade, and multiple Draculas), skillfully crafted dentures to bring historical figures like Napoleon and Nelson Mandela back to life realistically, and mastered the creation of decayed teeth for World War Z, The Last of Us, and more recently, 28 Years Later – a continuation of the work he started on the post-apocalyptic series in 2002.

According to Lyons, in the original “28 Days Later,” the zombies’ jaws were permanently open. To ensure safety during action sequences, they designed a detachable part that wouldn’t pose a risk. Fast forward to “28 Years Later,” and there are now three kinds of infected creatures, each with distinct types of teeth – some yellowed, some cracked, some toothless.

Additionally, just like in “Shaun of the Dead,” Lyons mentions they depicted a zombie with its mouth agape, revealing its teeth. Currently, they’re working on a television series where the zombies’ gums are colorless and pale, devoid of any blood.

Every filmmaker has their unique take on zombies, just like vampires – there’s a variety of interpretations. For instance, you have the traditional Hammer vampires, modern vampires with a more sensual appeal, and in our latest project, we featured a vampire with two fangs on each side!

Yet, Lyons thrives on tough tasks. For quite some time, he along with his father managed a dental lab, catering to hundreds of dentists in the UK with crowns, bridges, and dentures. In 1983, an optician approached them for assistance in producing a pair of chrome cobalt lenses for Superman III, as they had experience working with this material in dentistry.

The triumph of that project sparked a new venture: designing prosthetic teeth for Sir Ridley Scott’s movie Legend, featuring Tom Cruise. Since then, things have escalated significantly. About three years ago, we closed our dental lab, and since then, our focus has been solely on film-related projects.

In a remarkable career spanning nearly 1,000 film roles, Lyons’ approach is consistently unique. Occasionally, actors reach out to him personally to acquire custom-made dentures, which they then discreetly don during filming to aid in their character portrayal.

According to Lyons, we designed a pair of costumes for William Hurt in Lost in Space. During filming, he unexpectedly queried the director about his teeth. It turned out he was unaware of this himself! However, such concerns are typical for certain actors.

In an official capacity, the makeup artist is set to bring Lyons into the team. He’s accustomed to receiving comprehensive briefs, but has also been given creative freedom for projects in the past. As they’re currently working on “The Rings of Power”, he mentions that the makeup crew simply told him to let his imagination run wild.

In the realm of imagination, Lyons thrives, as this genre fosters creativity. The Witcher, available on Netflix, showcases Lyons’ preferred Fangs FX teeth, worn by Norwegian actress Agnes Born in the series’ second season. He describes the vampiric design, saying they were positioned outside her mouth but connected to her real teeth, allowing her to clearly speak.

Similar to how the design phase often evolves, so does the production phase, yet it consistently initiates by molding the performer’s mouth, or on rare occasions, by capturing a digital, intraoral scan. This information is then utilized to craft a plaster model.

Beyond that, we’ll shape the design in wax first, then submit it for approval. Once we get the go-ahead, we’ll proceed by creating molds, and finally crafting the final product using exclusively medical-grade dental materials and AcrylStains, a substance used to stain the teeth.

I have some cherished teeth in my workplace, yet usually, they end up belonging to the production team. Over the past two decades, I’ve been working on Doctor Who, but unfortunately, I haven’t been allowed to keep a single set!

Apart from Doctor Who, Lyons has also been involved with other renowned British productions. For instance, Fangs FX, the company Lyons worked with, crafted teeth for every single Harry Potter movie, including the upcoming HBO adaptation. Interestingly, one director of these films asked Lyons to create fake teeth for a dog, but they ended up using an animatronic instead. Regarding this experience, he describes it as “extremely challenging and somewhat chaotic.

Moreover, there’s Bond. Lyons remarks, “Everyone desires 007 on their resume, but it evaded me until I received the call for Skyfall – and Javier Bardem’s fake dentures. For the scene where he removes his teeth, he had to wear two sets, taking out the ‘good’ teeth to expose the decayed ones. Later, visual effects joined in to make it even more unsanitary! However, once I obtained Bond, I was content.

Fangs FX often assists in making actors look like real-life figures for biographical films, such as replicating the teeth of various musicians, including Elvis, Bob Marley, and Amy Winehouse. According to Lyons, his most notable work was crafting Rami Malek’s Freddie Mercury teeth for the Academy Award-winning film Bohemian Rhapsody in 2018.

Reproducing the distinct likenesses can be challenging. The teeth of Freddie Mercury are so iconic that finding the balance between realism and exaggeration was tricky. We made over twenty sets before we perfected them for Rami. Freddie’s actual teeth were excessively large, so we had to adjust them gradually, millimeter by millimeter, adding a bit here and taking some off there until we achieved the right look.

Upcoming projects for Fang FX involve Sam Mendes’ Beatles biographies, the DC Supergirl movie, another Game of Thrones spin-off, and Netflix’s take on Wuthering Heights. Also included is next year’s sequel to 28 Years Later, titled The Bone Temple.

According to Lyons, “We were responsible for the lead actors as well.” What often gets overlooked is that if characters live in isolation without basic hygiene items like toothbrushes and toothpaste, they won’t have polished Hollywood smiles. So, we need to give them a more unkempt appearance by painting or otherwise dirtying them.

“In our line of work, everything’s a challenge – but nothing’s beaten us yet.”

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2025-06-18 20:05