Greg Nicotero is co-executive producer, director and special effects make-up designer on AMC’s The Walking Dead. He began his career in Pittsburgh 25 years ago alongside director George Romero and effects master Tom Savini, and has gone on to collaborate with such directors such as Frank Darabont, Robert Rodriguez, Sam Raimi and Quentin Tarantino.

Nicotero has been responsible for designing make-up effects sequences from initial creature design to on-set operation/2nd unit direction on over 700 film and television projects.

In 2010, Nicotero wrote and directed his first short film entitled The Untitled Monster Talent Agency based on a fictitious 1950s company that managed “real” monsters for Hollywood’s classic era of creature features. The film was accepted into over 60 festivals around the world and won “Best Short” at many of these festivals.

Last year, Nicotero received two Emmy nominations and won (his 3rd) for Outstanding Prosthetic Make-Up for a Series for The Walking Dead. The web series Torn Apart based on The Walking Dead franchise which he co-wrote and directed, won the 2011 Writer's Guild Award for Outstanding Achievement in Writing for New Media. He is a returning director on The Walking Dead, contributing episodes in both Season 2 and Season 3.

Recently, Nicotero won his second Emmy Award for his prosthetic work on The Walking Dead and was nominated for his contribution to the visual effects for Gus Fring’s show-stopping demise in Breaking Bad.

His company, The KNB EFX Group (KNB) has contributed special make-up and creature effects on such films as Dances with Wolves, The Green Mile, Sin City, Transformers, The Grey and Pulp Fiction. Prosthetics and character make-up can be seen in everything from Kill Bill, Splice, Drag Me To Hell, The Hills Have Eyes to Boogie Nights, Grindhouse, Austin Powers: Goldmember and Army of Darkness. Nicotero supervised make-up effects on films from Inglorious Basterds to the Steven Spielberg/Tom Hanks HBO series The Pacific and Predators. He won a British Academy® Award for Best Make-Up for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

This fall his work will be featured in The Man with the Iron Fists starring RZA, Lucy Liu and Russell Crowe; Anthony Hopkins’ transformation into Hitchcock in Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho co-starring Helen Mirren; and the much anticipated Django Unchained with long-time friend and collaborator Quentin Tarantino. Next spring Sam Raimi’s Oz: The Great and Powerful will showcase his company’s modern day take on munchkins, tinkers and the wicked witch.

Nicotero lives in LA with his assistant director wife Shari and their two children Deven (10) and Alyssa (7), who know zombies aren’t real cause “Dad makes them.”

Read an interview with Greg Nicotero for Season 1 »
Read an interview with Greg Nicotero for Season 2 »