Things To Know About Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, Hollywood

Last spring break we had my son’s milestone birthday trip to Disney land California. Our plan was to spend 5 days in Disney Land & Disney downtown. Then 3 days in Hollywood & surroundings. When in Hollywood, we got a chance to visit the Madame Tussaud wax museum. Madame Tussauds wax museum was on my bucket list for a long time, ever since I came to know about the cost of making a wax statue. That cost is almost $350,000 & it is close to the price of a decent house in Houston. Another fact that grabbed my attention is, how celebrities donate their dresses & accessories to Madame Tussauds museums. I really wanted to see these accessories too.

Whenever we go for a vacation we usually take a lot of books from the library to read about the place and then we discuss and decide what we are going to see and do. This time we were so focused on Disneyland so we didn’t spend much time with books. Even though we had planned for 3 days in Hollywood, we didn’t do our homework but eventually, everything came out well. In a way, it was good we didn’t do that because we told our kids that all the exhibits in this museum are original actors and are posing here for us to take pictures with them. And for a while, they believed it. It is not their fault they believed it. The statues look so very original & so detailed that anybody could be easily mistaken. In the museum, all the statues are designed & arranged in such a way that visitors can pose with them and take photos. They regularly change the backgrounds, dresses & accessories of the statues to bring variety to the whole context. I have read that most celebrities donate their accessories for this purpose. Recently I read that Ivanka Trump donated her designer purse or gown to Madame Tussauds. Also, they have some photo props like hats, shawls, and glasses that are kept beside it to be used for photos.

Usually, when we go to such places they don’t allow you to touch any of the exhibits. But here there are no such restrictions. But I remember reading somewhere in the museum that you cannot touch the eyes of the statue. For selfie lovers, I have to say this is a “selfie-paradise”. Also, I have seen a lot of photos on Instagram with #FamousFun. My kids didn’t disappoint me in taking photos, they unleashed themselves into a photo frenzy mode and took a lot of pictures using all the possible props they could get their hands on. It was fun to take pictures and even I didn’t miss any chance to take pictures with my favorite celebrities.

This wax museum in Hollywood started around 2009. Here they have around 125 statues and most of them are star celebrities. What else can you expect from the World’s Entertainment capital city? The moment you get into the main hall of the museum you are received with an electrifying atmosphere & red carpet. And then what you see inside is A-List party celebrities like Taylor Swift, Jason Derulo, Kylie Jenner, Lady Gaga, Zoe Saldana, Demi Lovato, Jennifer Lopez, Amitabh Bachan, Angelina Jolie, Halle Berry, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep. Then you move on to the all-time romance and grandeur of the golden era of cinema. Spirit of Hollywood has Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, Ginger Rogers & Fred Astaire, Ingrid Bergman, Bette Davis, James Dean, Howard Hughes, Joan Reverse, Elves Presley, Alfred Hitchcock, Bob Hope, Charlton Heston and movie scene from Lawrence of America. Then comes the western theme where you see Clint Eastwood, John Wayne and also Paul Newman, and Robert Redford in the settings of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid.

In addition to the celebrities, they have an illusion horror exhibit area named “Illusion Of Horror” which has all the exhibits of horror movies including Dracula, Frankenstein, and Mummy among others. The area is so famous for selfies. Since I am very “ daring”, I didn’t stay long to take photos here. The kids didn’t know most of these movies so they also were not interested in this section. When you enter the “Illusion Of Horror” room, you feel like roaches crawling on your feet. That is a trick using light and it is actually an illusion. But it really creeps you out! We finished the Illusion of Horror as fast as we could and came to the classic movie section. Kids were still so much into taking pictures. Here you can see Sylvester Stallone, John Travolta, and Tom Hanks. You then move on to see the legends behind the camera like Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, and Martin Scorsese. Here you see some other legends as well like Uma Turman, Robin Williams, and Jim Carrey. Then comes the world’s most famous singers & pop icons — Michael Jackson, Madonna, Selena Quintanilla, Whitney Houston, Rihanna, and Beyoncé.

A virtual reality game room is another section that is worth spending time on. This is a room where they have set up a Virtual reality game. For the VR game, we had to pay extra. Four of us split into 2 groups and played a game where the mission was to save the world from aliens. They gave us virtual reality gears – A headset with glasses & joystick — for everyone. I think it was a total of 10 mins (2 five minutes games). It was a great experience. Then comes Avenger’s exhibit. Almost all the characters of avengers are exhibited here. There was a 4D movie also of the avengers. The kids really enjoyed the movie.

As I mentioned before we told our kids that all the statues are real actors posing for us. They were skeptical and were not convinced that they were original. And when we came to Conan O’Brien’s sitting statue, they tried to feel the breath under his nose by keeping their fingers there. Nothing. Then they brought their fingers close to his eyes and he didn’t blink. That’s when our little lie fell flat and they became absolutely certain that statues are statues indeed! Then we explained to them all about the statues. How these handmade statues of celebrities are made? Once they knew that, it actually piqued their curiosity and they wanted to know all about it, and we explained everything about it.

To create one wax statue, they start off by sitting with the subject & taking almost 300 different kinds of measurements. They also refer to some 200 photos and videos. In addition to that, they consult celebrities’ makeup artists. After taking all the possible inputs they start to make the wax figure at their London workshop. The first thing they do before doing anything with wax is to make a metal structure (like a skeleton). This is to hold the weight of the wax in the statue. Then they start to make the head – for the head they make a mold with clay. The mold is like a jigsaw puzzle that creates different small pieces of the head. Then they pour the wax into it to create a hollow wax head. After that, they fix their eyes and teeth. That is how a complete head is made. The body is made in a similar way, but they use fiberglass for the body for durability.

On the statue, they exactly match the skin color, and hair color and meticulously create the subject’s beauty spots, visible tattoos, wrinkles, etc. Then they paint the wax figure. They use oil paints to color the statue and to get an exact skin color match, they use almost 10 layers of paint. Eyes and teeth are made of acrylic and for the hair, they use real human hair. The hardest part is to fix the hair because every single straw of hair is inserted manually one by one into the statue’s head. Same for eyebrows and eyelashes. The veins inside the eyes are made using red silk threads and we can see those if we look very closely. After the hair is done, a makeup artist will come in and do the makeup for the statue. And they make sure the makeup exactly matches the real celebrities. Hairstylists also come in and cut and style the hair, they make sure the hairstyle is the same as the reals subjects’. 20 people work for 4 months to create one wax statue. Creation happens in their London workshop.

If we talk about the history of Madame Tussauds, a french artist named Marie Tussauds established it in London in the year 1835. She started making wax statues long before that and even did exhibitions of wax figures all around the UK. Right now, Madame Tussauds museum is present in 24 locations spread all over the world. The last one came to New Delhi.

In the Hollywood location, there is a wax-making workshop area where you can answer some fun facts about making a wax figure and can see different types of eyes to try on the statues over there. Also, you can make a wax structure of your hand which is fun. We didn’t do it as I find it kind of creepy and didn’t want it in my home. You exit through a gift shop where you can buy your souvenirs.

These are all the facts and news about Madam Tussauds. We believe visiting a museum is worth your time and money.

PS: The Hollywood museum has no parking space available.

For more pictures: https://youtu.be/4_ieY6hTnvA