NSFW: As Paul Thomas Anderson said, seeing Dirk Diggler’s gigantic penis in Boogie Nights is like seeing the shark in Jaws: It’s more powerful if you have to wait for it. The oral history (pun intended) of Boogie Nights, we now know exactly how they made the peen prosthetic. The model itself was made of plaster, with a little public wig specially made to match Mark Wahlberg‘s hair color. They also created a special bulge for his pants…

“…a woman’s stocking knee filled with birdseed.”

After they tested some prototypes, the final penis ended up being a little smaller than Diggler’s oft-mentioned 13 inches. Special-makeup-effects coordinator Howard Berger said;

“We sculpted a version that was 12 inches long, and we tested it, and it was just way too big. It looked like a weird monster penis.”

The version seen at the end of the film was seven inches and in the words of editor Dylan Tichenor;

“It was the size of John Holmes‘ penis, but Mark is like eight or nine inches shorter than John Holmes.”

To get reactions from the rest of the cast, Wahlberg wore the prosthetic even when it wasn’t needed onscreen, and everyone involved still has high praise for his performance. Director of photography Robert Elswit said;

“What Mark Wahlberg did in that movie was all sorts of things that he had to absolutely commit to. He had to put a prosthetic cock on his own cock, you know what I mean? That’s asking an awful lot of an actor, honestly.”

As an homage, here’s THE scene from Boogie Night‘s with THE reveal and the bonus of Red Hot Chili Pepper‘s Give It Away. Enjoy.

(via Vulture)