Biography

While filming Predator (1987), Winston returned to his hotel one day, to find his shower crawling with frogs. Convinced that this was a prank by Arnold Schwarzenegger, he called in the help of members of his special effects crew in catching the frogs in a pillow case and releasing them into Arnold's bed. Neither Stan nor Arnold dared to bring up the subject the next day. Years later, Winston was on a talk-show and recounted the entire story, knowing Arnold would be a guest in that show the next day. But the next day, Arnold commented on the story by swearing he had nothing to do with the prank, upon which Winston's crew members finally confessed they had played the prank on him. They knew Arnold was innocent but had decided to let Winston get even with him anyway.

Only the second special effects artist to be honored with a star on Hollywood's Walk of Stars.

Stan Winston claimed of all the films he worked on in his lengthy career, Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) was the most ambitious.

Helped out on some Special Effects scenes in The Thing (1982) when Rob Bottin was suffering from exhaustion at the time due to his immensely heavy workload.

Made a living as a stand-up comedian before moving into make-up effects.

People who are afraid to go to horror movies are generally afraid their whole lives. People say to me, 'Do you have nightmares?' I never have nightmares! And I go to movies and see the most bizarre things in the world, and go... Wow that is really sick, how fun is that! And I don't have to carry it around. I think that's very healthy.

I have two comic books series that are out and that are developing screenplays based on them. I've got a toy company. My production company has about twenty projects in production, pre-production or in-development. I've started, as of last year, SW Digital, under my roof. Other than that, I'm not doing anything. - about his current projects

Kristanna Loken created the TX. I would like to think that the vision of what was under her skin helped her with it, but the fact of the matter is that Kristanna Loken is the TX as Robert Patrick was the T-1000. - on Terminator T-X

I do my art for art's sake on my own time. I spend as much time as I want on it because it's art for art's sake and it's not for a dollar. It's not with business parameters.

You have to understand that rightly or wrongly, I consider myself an artist and I consider the work that we do art. In helping to tell stories by creating these characters. I came out as an actor. I am not a technician. I am techno-ignorant, but I love creating characters and telling wonderful stories. Thinking of myself as an artist doesn't allow me to think of size having to do with importance.