Former CIA Chief of Disguise Breaks Down 30 Spy Scenes From Film & TV | WIRED

That's sick Hi, my name is Johnny Mendez, you may recognize her from our previous video. I was

chief

of

disguise

at the CIA today. I'm analyzing spy movie and TV clips and costume clips. This is a passport box at Bourne Identity this is not reality there is no passport box there are no big wads of money or weapons this type of denigrates that the expertise required to make alternative identity documents is thorough it is meticulous you verify another name for me, we don't do it they just in case john-michael can they are too precious yes, you do them one by one as they are needed they are not waiting for you in the whole world I don't know about that photo I don't know who I am I'm having dinner here in my homeland traveling in this engine I say I'm sorry yes she wears a costume that basically consisted of dying her hair just ends with this okay I thought it was absolutely ineffective she still has dark hair do you think I know she could have cut her hair and redesigned it, That is not necessary.

She could have changed her makeup. I had a long day. She could have put on some glasses to hide that kind of crazy look that she has that, you know, catches your attention when you see her character. What do you mean? Yeah, I didn't think it was effective at all. Why are you doing this to me in a similar scene in alias? She dyes her hair in a bathroom before going through security. Have you ever tried this? It's too late for me. What do you think what she did was absolutely right? Thank you and she not only dyed her hair, but she dyed it outrageous red and then she adopted everything that came with it, including chewing gum while she walked through the airport and then she has that exchange with the agent of the airline.

I thought that was a brilliant thank you. This is a great example of how to distract someone with the use of lipstick. I love talking sweetly to them, involving them, and keeping them away from things you don't do. I didn't want them to look out the window. We could have used it as a training

film

. I've known for a long time, aka the Americans, have you been in my family? Her costumes were convincing, tell me what he wore, he was comfortable in them, her wigs were excellent, he never was. trying to look good, he was trying to fit into these characters that he had built when he came very close to projecting the little gray man that we always talked about in the CIA, that was sometimes frequent, that was the goal that you wanted to be forgettable, we have to safeguard For aviation security officers, dressing up is very much like a method of acting, the appearance is part of it, but if you are going to wear it for more than a minute, you must inhabit it.

Have you been Martha? That's what she does on the big day at the FBI. counterintelligence becomes the guy dressed as a bureaucrat, nerd. Did you get a look inside this time at the actor in it combined with the costume? I thought that was brilliant, thank you, the next clip changes quickly, mission impossible three I've talked about. quick change

former

ly for Wired quick change is the ability to surreptitiously change your appearance. You have 37 seconds to make those changes. It wasn't unusual for us to wear layered costumes so you had the real person and then he put on.

disguise

number one and on top of that would be disguise number two, we would never let that disguise fly away, that is evidence that there are three covers that are basically out of reach of the CIA and that would be a religious figure, a figure of the media and peace.

Corps it's not that we don't like the Peace Corps, we love the Peace Corps, but it has to remain pure, you have to do the right thing, it can't be suspected of harboring CIA officers, can you imagine priests are so vulnerable who are simply outside? there, if they accuse them of being spies, they have no structure to protect them, they are too vulnerable, we also don't use the media as a cover, the same reason why it is good for another example of rapid change, take a look. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Now that I understand you, I think the change to the schoolgirl outfit was actually very well done, which demonstrates a great precept that we always operate under and that is that, basically, the bigger the crowd, the more forgiving They are, if you want. to change clothes in public you can do a lot of things you would never dream of doing no one pays attention to you, that's the point, we use it a lot in our training exercises back here, it was always a way to lose your vigilance, you have vigilance. and you have to get away from them to do what is necessary.

Practice surveillance is not following their face, they never do it, they follow their profile. The profile was a blonde wearing dark framed glasses and a pencil skirt and she just took everything off. those pieces were well made, so for another quick change of purchases let's look at the baby driver, as you can see, this time the alarm bells are ringing, the intention was good, the execution was fine, but again you have to ask yourself if we would really recommend it . that because the chances of getting caught and arrested for shoplifting are too great if you have everything with you at the beginning and you start revealing it, you start taking things away and you have a bag where you can put some things and maybe even a bag . putting that bag there works but we don't recommend stealing mixing with the crowd Casino Royale is on the move he's on the move and he's heading straight for me stop touching me here in this opening scene the man in the crowd was called after having his hand up, He was grabbing his earpiece and he was so caught up in that movement that he forgot about it and it was a gift.

He started the whole scene. We find a way around it by inventing something that doesn't. It existed, it was a harness that we were in mourning, a receiver that would be in our ear that we would never have to touch and an induction loop that went around our neck so we could receive and transmit to the headset, it was hands-free. kind of perfect system officer choosing Pink Panther costume I think you would really like this one I'm particularly part of the enlarged pores right here about looking good oh this scene was about looking good do you have those four noses then the officer?

He couldn't choose which nose he was going to wear, we would have made him a custom nose, he couldn't choose the teeth, we would have made the equipment, yes, some teeth on the knob of the house, if he was there, do you think? Do you think you do a lot of things that would have been custom-made? Some might be available on the market. What we were interested in was giving him a total appearance that he didn't have to like, but he had to use it. we had to feel like he would wear it look what you've done no one came out of our labs looking better your genius then after our labs looked different yeah guy the next clip is a worker uniform 24 makes sense to me this whole country will know how We'll see you in the next few hours, people will do that with military uniforms.

There are many uniforms that are universally recognized. There are hundreds of video cameras in there. Oh those are repairmen. They're fine. Any questions. We're working on the air conditioning. One of those groups comes in and you disappear. and your identity becomes the identity of the group and that's good, Ivan agreed, we don't have warehouses for maintenance uniforms or military uniforms, we don't have anything, we can fix anything, okay, let's get the cover story of the sofa Argo Ben Affleck is playing my husband Tony Mendez in the movie Argo my name is Tony Mendez the story of an exfiltration one of the many exfiltrations that my husband carried out over the years More than 30 years ago we undertook a secret mission to save Six Americans trapped in Iran.

This was a very successful exfiltration. I'll show them all in this particular clip. The guests of the sixth house, as we call them. We are using the cover of a Hollywood location scouting team production. Topic they thought they could easily talk about. They could talk about Hollywood movies. People do it and they are credible. This would be the first. So as a cover story it was carefully selected. They have no alternative. They came up with a location scouting party in Hollywood. a Canadian

film

crew looking for locations for a sci-fi movie instead of dressing them up, we redesigned them more these cover identities were created specifically for each of when they chose the cover for these six guests posing Howard what is his official occupation It was unique.

Because it was a group of people, not just one person, they had to find a cover that all six of them could talk about credibly. Let you be so many people that your dream of seeing Argo gives us the opportunity to look. an actual cover story and see how it was executed and see how it was worn and see that it performed its function masks Mission: Impossible this is pure CGI of course this is what we call a superior mask we could change your gender we could change your ethnicity we could turn you on almost anything, of course, so we couldn't guarantee that that mask would animate.

I am very sorry to hear you say that we were stuck with the measures presented to us. What's that? Masks are always additive, you can't put them on. a small nose on a larger nose, you need to make sure your donor and recipient are compatible, that's probably true. We had some aluminum pans that came out of Hollywood, they came in large, medium and small sizes. The big one was an old Hollywood actor named Rex. Harrison was then participating in many interesting operations without his knowledge. I think Jesus, let's move on to the second Mission Impossible, it was a mission impossible, it's really cool, you could make a mask with someone underneath it with their mouth taped shut, but I can't think of a purpose for doing that, you don't know what what you're missing, you can still breathe through your nose, but it's always a relief to know you can also breathe through your mouth, etc. by covering your mouth, you really start to restrict your other air intake, Freddie is going to be happy, how did they make these masks?

Let's watch Mission Impossible 3. What if I said we have it so you know when you go to the dentist and get a dental impression? taken, that's what we did to your entire face, being very careful to keep your nose open so you could breathe while this was happening, stop talking, the mask we just saw is a mix of CGI lights again and there they are flipping back and goes from the real actor to the actor who wears the mask and is invisible to know where the real actor returns and is animated. It's a wonderfully done trick.

Thanks, so we'll go spy on hidden identities. You will be given a new one. identity your name is penny morgan you are a divorced housewife from iowa you have sold more mary kay products than anyone else in your state it is a pretty funny sight to be issued a new identity certainly not the identity she wanted what i have ten cats, it's even illegal, she couldn't elect and the vice president of the Ames Garden Club couldn't even be president, the pieces, the ID cards, the things they were issuing to her, that's what we would do. call pocket trash, no, there is a chance that Tim those are the things that any of us would carry with us and in our bill folder in our purse, that's new, there is a similarity here with the Pink Panther Clinton, not her she liked the identity she was proposing but then she couldn't really choose it was Pepe LePew wasn't available cultural customs inglorious bastards shampoos greg says it that sinister look tells you something bad just happened I say, let's move on British soldier miscounted with his hands glazed in Europe, when you're counting, you start with your thumb one, two, three, doing it this way, show him that he wasn't even European, certainly, he wasn't German, it was a dead giveaway, we know from our travels around the world that each country has its own customs and zero nonsense and it is up to us to learn those customs, know those customs and not violate any of their procedures.

This is the hottest knowledge, but sometimes you don't feel it when you are discovered out there. There's no escape once you've made one of those mistakes, you've discovered yourself, so to speak, and you have to accept the consequences, whatever those consequences are, well, if this is it, oh boy, I hope not. mind if I come out talking in the Kings gadget room Kingsman I had a lot of fun with this one of our best examples of chemical engineering poison the poison in the pen there is a real story to that Shaw thought we put a lot of things in pens that were They were not equipped and they were not used as weapons in some cases they hid a camera, but we had a couple of scenarios with agents, they said: I will work for you, but I would like the poison to insist on taking an L pill, which is lethal.

I sit because I don't want to give them the opportunity to do what they would like to do to electrocute me. The two cases that I know of we put L pills in remotely activated fountain pens and in one case our agent was captured and he was going to be questioned and he said before he did it, give me my pen, I will write my confession and they handed him his pen and he bit him on the tip, they said he was dead before he hit the ground, you know, so there's a there's astory of the poison in the pens, no one would have had these things, a couple of other things that are there that are less historically correct but tremendously entertaining, is that he is sick, the scientists disguise the saint.

I'm here to do an interview with that dr. Russell, I am exposed as a fraud, he is wearing a disguise that would turn most people away from him and his behavior is very imposing and really scary in a way that she is bringing out a lot of attention in me that you never want. to get attention then I would call it dressing up as a failure glasses as a Superman costume Lois Lane greets Clark Kent poor George Thunder hey, anyone who has seen Superman wonders Lois, can't you see that Clark is the newspaper reporter and Superman is the superhero, Friend, are I physically exactly the same?

Same kind of natural Superman glasses our ridiculous first impression Oh, it doesn't make sense, poor Lois, yeah, poor Clark barging in, be nice, rewind it's that staircase again, what do you think? I don't know, it was funny the first time I saw it, but for a professional It looks sloppy It looks poorly planned When you plan an operation you always had Plan B What happens if it goes wrong? Go get some ice cream from my office. We had people who specialized in going places they shouldn't be. I can't be here we are doing and doing things there that they shouldn't be doing maybe we think Italy I hardly ever talk to you our operations were usually meticulously planned we never planned to hide behind the chain link fence however I know Some of our people they said they weren't caught but they were stuck where they had to stay in place maybe for a day or two where they could leave some funny stories talking about aka Austin Powers let me introduce myself my name is Richie Cunningham and this is my wife Oprah amazing powers they make you laugh, yes baby, name aliases in the CIA are tightly controlled, they are managed, they are assigned to you.

My name is number two. You end up with one name for your entire working career. Come back again, your real name. it's never on paper overseas Ruby baby Oprah probably wouldn't be one of those names she's my wife Oprah any name that really caught your attention wouldn't be one of those names Cunningham was what could happen could be but we always had a medium initial danger It's my middle name, you always had three names, I mean, you could abbreviate the middle initial, but you always had three names, Austin Danger Power, my name for life, my first name was Faith, very shagadelic, and every time I see something that has to do with Faith. how to keep the faith baby I'm like okay Oh behave camouflage furniture Sherlock Holmes who delivered this package the usual chat New York Curia we never tried to disguise ourselves with the CIA furniture but there is a story about James Comey in the White House he was trying to blend in with the curtains behind him his suit and the curtains were the same blue wearing a blue suit he was trying to blend in with the blue curtain he was trying to hide that way without success another furniture camouflage in this next movie called spy hard We use concealments of furniture for a number of things that technology comes to mind if you had spy equipment in your house and you were in a foreign country and it's a controlled society, you don't want your receivers and transmitters sitting around so we would build The we placed on select furniture, trying to remember if we ever had something like that for a person, James, even when we had some things we built to exfiltrate people out of the country.

Exfiltration containers could have various configurations at the International Spy Museum. an exhibit of checkpoint charlie where many people exfiltrated from the east many of them were hidden in cars there would be special spaces built into the cars for the purpose of exfiltrating that person across the border undercover accents 22 Jump Street in which everyone stays the body or the dream would like Mexico Wolverine is here and my partner here do you want to see that product when he speaks yes, first of all you would speak the language you wouldn't try and use an accent we don't talk about that, we actually pay some people study the languages ​​to master the languages ​​and they swipe, but it is something made up, they seem to be completely unprepared and you feel that maybe they will be arrested or, worse yet, they will disguise the voice the dark night I wanted yogurt, you wanted me your Batman has a very specific costume beyond his voice, the voice wasn't even necessary we're in hockey, man, we tried to change the voices, we wouldn't use voice modulation technology, but we would try to physically change the paddle, the paddle of your mouth, thanks to our Dismay, it didn't change your voice, it would just make you list forever.

You could try consciously changing your voice. That's like consciously limping after a while, you just forget about it and your normal voice returns. We were not successful with that. This symbol. from open I can never be the cover story Fletch names Liddy Gordon Liddy Lord take a look at the 7th Fetzer valve oh yeah I think it's been sticking probably humidity maybe I should take a look Gordo back here well Fletch made the mistake of not studying his cover story, but pretty good before he hit the road, right, yeah, we would always choose a cover story that our people could talk about about lean smart, it's so simple, maybe you need a refresher course, we would never choose a career area where they had no idea and where they would come out like Fletch did with Gordon, yes I know where it is.

I'm just getting an aerial view here. spy seduction alias stories about seduction in the spy business our allegiance this house in your house some of them are based on the truth she was a famous seductress who worked for American intelligence during the Cold War, who did amazing things, she went into a couple from embassies and took some figures from some safes, although most of the stories have to do with the Russians and the Germans. I swear to God the Russians even had a name for this, they called it swallows, although a friend of mine Jason Matthews recently wrote a book called Red Sparrow and called them sparrows which became the Germans had men who were trained the same way and they called them.

Romeo, then, using sex to gather intelligence is not unheard of and will probably continue to talk about Red Sparrow today. Here's a clip from a seduction scene. Why did the CIA officer fire his gun? According to his story, which he says is based on truth. had a school where they trained young women in seduction, the only deal in psychological manipulation to a certain extent, take off your clothes, you can imagine this was a school that produced graduates, you must learn to love, come on, and Jennifer Lawrence is supposed to represent one of those successful graduates bye Dominika I think it introduced a lot of American audiences to the idea that that was, you know, that's a piece of the intelligence machine in Moscow, no one belongs to the state, it takes it to another level, now you might want to ask.

I, if the CIA has a school, I guess we'll find out and I would say no, we shouldn't be so critical, this is a typically Russian technique, the state asks for something in return, clown costume, James Bond, hey, anyone? ? Otherwise, if I'm a human carnival, I can't actually tell if a CIA officer has ever worn a clown suit. There was a lot to be said about fitting into your surroundings, your surroundings, right, we're in a clown, so you look like one of them, rather than an outlier, I'm a surgeon, so in that sense, it's very disingenuous to say who am.

During World War II, there was an agent named Virginia Hall who disguised herself as a shepherdess with a flock of sheep. to hide her prosthetic leg and she was lethal in general this man is drunk or crazy this type of catsuit is a popular trope let's look at The Avengers 1998 they use climbing gear but not really black catsuits you must be true, I think The reason is because women look great in them or at least Hollywood women made them, most of our men and probably most of our women wouldn't have been caught dead in a black cat suit.

Dark sportswear is technically fine, but not a black catsuit. I feel like I'm acting drunk to Veronica Mars, how long should a girl act drunk and cry before someone tries to make her take her clothes off? She wouldn't act undercover drunk and I don't think most officers would because it would defeat her purpose. I know. officers who have gotten drunk undercover, but they didn't intend to because a lot of the work used to be on those black tie affairs where there was a lot of whiskey and a lot of liquor running around, I think I would.

You'd rather drink Mark McGrath's bath water than drink anything here and at the CIA we're told there are things you can drink and eat before you leave that will coat your stomach and help you think I'm drunk or worse if you need to look like you're drinking, do it without actually having a, you can tell the bartender I want 7up. Watch how you do it, where you don't get drunk. Conclusion, the writers and directors do everything possible to achieve this. really true, half the fun for me is watching closely to see where they get it wrong and that's it.