Another reunion on the film was that of Murphy and Grazer with Academy Award-winning make-up artist Rick Baker, whose transformations of Murphy in The Nutty Professor made the film a huge hit. In Life, Baker was tasked with having to realistically age Murphy and Martin Lawrence over sixty years by the end of the film.

Murphy says, "When you are doing another character, you can go anywhere. But if you’re doing it and it’s supposed to be an older version of yourself, you can’t go too far from what you look like. It has to look like you, sound like you."

Baker agreed, and says, "Life differs from the other films I did with Eddie in that in many ways it was more difficult to do. A progressive age make-up is tough because it’s not just creating another character. There had to be continuity and a gradual progression." Baker searched through his extensive collection of photos of people at different ages and of different races. He also used numerous photos of Eddie he had taken over the years when they had worked together.

Baker says, "In my studies, I realized black people don’t age the same way white people do. Most older black people don’t get wrinkles like Caucasians, but we kind of stretched the look a little bit, so they looked older and more weathered—like they had had a harder life."

The application of Murphy and Lawrence’s special effects make-up took about three and a half hours each day. But it took months to prepare for those three and a half hours. There are separate pieces for the neck, chin, nose, ears, eyebags and upper eyelid pieces. Each day the rubber and latex was applied like an intricate puzzle and each night the appliances had to be thrown away.

The Baker and Murphy collaboration was so successful that when Murphy first saw himself as Ray at age sixty, he also saw a member of his family. "When I’m in my sixties, I look like my Uncle Leroy. Looking at myself in the mirror, I just tripped off it," says Murphy.