“The Little Mermaid” Hair Designer Camille Friend on Creating Ariel’s Locks From Halle Bailey’s Natural Hair
When director Rob Marshall cast Halle Bailey to play Ariel in the new live-action film The Little Mermaid, he knew it was important to both bring mermaid energy and believability to everything about this updated version of the character, and that included Halle’s hair. Of all the memorable aspects of Ariel from the 1989 animated feature, her ...
“Queen Charlotte” Hair and Makeup Head Nic Collins Styles Two Decadent Timelines
Everything is in bloom for spring, including the high society style on Netflix’s Queen Charlotte. The Bridgerton spinoff, with a sly eye on the groundbreaking, no-nonsense monarch, features towering wigs and a glance back at some of the series’ strongest characters in their younger years. Hair and makeup head Nic Collins spared no indulgence ...
“Evil Dead Rise” Makeup & FX Artist Tristan Lucas on Loose Limbs, Buckets of Blood, & That Cheese Grater Scene
Evil Dead Rise keeps the spirit of the franchise alive by conjuring the living dead in the most emphatically gnarly way. The fifth installment in the horror franchise is a bloodbath of riches, full of wondrous practical effects and makeup. Most of the body horror in director Lee Cronin’s film is tangible, not computer generated, ...
“Daisy Jones & the Six” Makeup Department Head Rebecca Wachtel Captures the Many Faces of Stardom
Daisy Jones and the Six makeup department head Rebecca Wachtel dedicated herself to the details in shaping the on-screen look of the music group. “It’s a fictional band, but it’s in factual times,” Wachtel said of her approach to the project. She spent two months researching and planning for the series that spans from the ...
Oscar-Nominated Makeup & Hair Designer Heike Merker Paints With Mud & Blood in “All Quiet on the Western Front”
Director Edward Berger’s adaptation of All Quiet on the Western Front is a painfully absorbing epic. Berger’s take on Erich Maria Remarque’s iconic 1929 novel, captured with astonishing vividness by cinematographer James Friend, teases out the themes in the seminal work about the horrors of World War I with bloody precision. The film wastes no time in ...
“The Whale” Oscar-Nominated Prosthetics Artist Adrien Morot Breaks the Mold
When it comes to makeup effects, Adrien Morot ranks among the very best. From fierce alligators (Crawl), to mutant superheroes (X Men films X-Men: Days of Future Past, X-Men: Apocalypse, and Dark Phoenix), to this year’s favorite film doll (M3GAN), Morot has proven time and again he’s a prosthetic wizard. But even he wondered if ...
“Emancipation” Hair Department Head Andrea Bowman on Her Oscar-Shortlisted Work
Andrea Mona Bowman knew that Emancipation was going to be special. Based on a true story, Emancipation stars Will Smith as Peter, a Southern slave who breaks free from his Confederate captors and escapes into the Louisiana swaps. Chased for days, Peter makes his way to Baton Rouge, where he joins the Union army to ...
Best of 2022: “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Hair Department Head Camille Friend on The Sequel’s Stunning Looks
Both 2018’s Black Panther and this year’s Wakanda Forever have hugely impacted popular culture, not least by expanding the acceptance and expression of Afro-Futurism in everything from fashion and hairstyles to architecture. Both production designer Hannah Beachler and costume designer Ruth E. Carter won Oscars for their work on the first film and are in the running for ...
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Hair Department Head Camille Friend on The Sequel’s Stunning Looks
Both 2018’s Black Panther and this year’s Wakanda Forever have hugely impacted popular culture, not least by expanding the acceptance and expression of Afro-Futurism in everything from fashion and hairstyles to architecture. Both production designer Hannah Beachler and costume designer Ruth E. Carter won Oscars for their work on the first film and are in the running for ...
Shaping Locks & Lives With “We’re Here” Hairstylist Abdiel Urcullu
One would think grammar school teachers and drag queen wigmasters have little in common. But having been both, Abdiel Urcullu can see the similarities. For the past two years, Urcullu, who previously taught math to 4th and 5th graders, has served as the key hairstylist for the HBO series We’re Here. Debuting in 2020, the ...
How “Werewolf By Night” Makeup Maestro Ellen Arden Made Marvel’s Monsters
Oscar-winning composer Michael Giacchino chose to plumb new depths of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for his directorial debut with Werewolf by Night. Inspired by the comic book released as Marvel Spotlight #2 in 1972, this special presentation is streaming as part of the Halloween season on Disney+. It features a group of monster hunters led ...
Best of Summer: How The “Westworld” Makeup Effects Team Built Body Doubles & More in Season 4
As we’ve done for the past few summers, we’ve compiled a few of our favorite interviews to highlight in this last week of August. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but a little taste of some of the great conversations we’ve had during these hot summer months. Bring on sweater season. Every season ...
“Bridgerton” Emmy-Nominated Costume & Hairstyling Team on Season Two’s Sumptuous Styles
Netflix’s Regency-era romance Bridgerton became one of its most-streamed series thanks to creator Chris Van Dusen’s modern, Skittles-hued take on historic upper-crust British mores. His ethos going in — that this London Ton would be a “bonnet-free world” — held up for Season 2, in which the eldest Bridgerton heir, Anthony (Jonathan Bailey), finds true ...
How The “Westworld” Makeup Effects Team Built Body Doubles & More in Season 4
Every season of Westworld is an ambitious undertaking, requiring hundreds of talented artists to create HBO’s gorgeously wrought sci-fi puzzle box. Season 4 has been especially complex, owing to the fact that the line between “real” and synthetic, between host and human, has been blurred to the vanishing point. Season one’s western-themed rebellion story, in which the ...
“The Offer” Makeup Department Head Katy Fray Couldn’t Refuse
The limited series The Offer, now streaming on Paramount+, tells the deliciously dramatic story of how one of the greatest films ever made, The Godfather, almost never came to the screen. It is based on the memories of the film’s Oscar-winning producer Al Ruddy, here played by Miles Teller, and spans from the release of Mario ...
“The Eyes of Tammy Faye” Oscar-Nominated Hair & Makeup Team on Helping Chastain Channel Faye
Come this Sunday at the 94th Academy Awards ceremony, Linda Dowds, Stephanie Ingram, and Justin Raleigh may all win their first gold statuette for hair and makeup. The makeup department head, hair department head, and head special makeup effects artist, respectively, are nominated for The Eyes of Tammy Faye, the biopic starring Jessica Chastain, nominated ...
“Pam & Tommy” Makeup Effects Designer Jason Collins on Transforming Lily James & Sebastian Stan
Pam & Tommy makeup effects designer Jason Collins had his work cut out for him when he boarded creator Robert Siegel’s Hulu series. Collins was tasked with taking on two of the most iconic people of the 1990s and capturing them before, during, and after they were the most famous, and infamous, couple in the world. ...
How “Nightmare Alley” Hair Designer Cliona Furey & Makeup Designer Jo-Ann MacNeil Made Magic
In Guillermo del Toro’s carnival noir Nightmare Alley, the visionary director eschews the supernatural for a period noir to fantastic effect. The film is set largely at a mid-20th-century second-rate carnival filled with schemers, dreamers, hustlers, weirdos, and femme Fatales, with del Toro acting as our carnival barker (that role in the movie actually belongs ...
Best of 2021: “Dune” Hair & Makeup Department Head Donald Mowat’s Delightful & Disturbing Designs
This interview is part of our highly subjective, decidedly non-comprehensive “Best of 2021” year-end list. It was originally published on October 22. With the highly anticipated release of Dune in theaters and on HBO Max here at a long last, fans will finally see director Denis Villeneuve’s vision of Frank Herbert’s epic sci-fi novel come to ...
“Being The Ricardos” Hair Department Head Teressa Hill on Wigs Done Right
Being the Ricardos (in theaters now) faced a Russian Doll challenge when writer-director Aaron Sorkin decided to make a movie about the off-stage drama surrounding I Love Lucy. The fifties-era sitcom drew 60 million viewers every week and made Lucille Ball the most famous redhead in America. Portrayed by Nicole Kidman, Ball starred as daffy ...
