The film won an Academy Award for artist Chris Walas and his team's’ work in transforming scientist Seth Brundle into a human/fly hybrid. The film is said to be a metaphor for the effects of aging, and therefore, the effects team focused on making Brundle’s appearance seem more fragile over time. This includes adding skin blemishes, hair loss, and increasingly hunched body posture. They started by first creating the look of the final stage of the transformation and then worked backwards from there to depict different steps during the course of the film. Cronenberg really wanted to show the …show more content…
"Casting was a major issue," creature effects artist Chris Walas said in a DVD special feature interview. When he and the effects team signed on to the project, they asked Cronenberg to make finding the lead actor the number one priority because it would be the hardest part of their job. The director asked Walas for input in terms of physical attributes that would help the effects team. "Get somebody with no ears and no bridge of the nose so that way we have a lot more control with the makeup," Walas said. When Goldblum was mentioned as the top choice, Walas and the others agreed that it was not what they wanted, but they were fans of the actor so they wanted to make it