by Jaime Leigh McIntosh Department Head Hair
and by Erin Ayanian | Department Head Make-up
and Jason Collins | Special Make-Up Effects Designer
Photos courtesy of Apple TV
HAIR
What do you do when Elle Fanning and Michelle Pfeiffer want you to do their show with them? You say yes please and then plan how to achieve the best results for each of the looks we’d need to create.
I wasn’t able to be there for the camera test or the first week of filming, so I knew I needed someone who could handle all the prep like a champ and keep me involved every step of the way (even if I was on the other side of the planet). That someone was Ahou Mofid. Ahou came on as my Co-Department Head and along with Celeste Gonzalez, they kick-started the first season of Margo’s Got Money Troubles without a hitch! I arrived at a well-organized, well-oiled machine.
If I had to pick my favorite aspect of this project, it would be the creative collaboration and incredible teamwork. It made this job a dream!
Being able to lead a hair team that was excited to create and work with the other departments to build something really special was not only fun but incredibly rewarding. Having costume designer Mirren Gordon-Crozier and Department Head Make-up Erin Ayanian to bounce off of was a joy but also incredibly helpful, as creating contemporary looks is not my natural habitat. The daily input from cast was also something we enjoyed and encouraged. We wanted these amazing characters to feel real and for the audience to relate to them, so it was essential to keep grounding ourselves back in that reality and make sure we were thinking about styles and concepts that the characters would be able to accomplish themselves. Knowing sometimes less is more, I chose to leave the fluff and flyways alone (anyone that knows me, knows I’m a fan of that anyway).
Before we started, I had informative meetings with Elle Fanning, Michelle Pfeiffer, Nick Offerman, and our director of the first block, Dearbhla Walsh. Elle shared her ideas about Margo’s hair being reflective of the struggles the character would go through being a new single mother. The more creative aspects were at play in building her OnlyFans Hungry Ghost character.
Michelle knew she wanted Shyanne to be a blonde, but what shade of blonde was the question. We wanted her to have found her look years back and to have stuck with it, not conforming to the latest trends and fashions but staying with what she knows works on her. We had a wig built to suit and once it was layer cut, Shyanne’s go-to style was created by simply curling it with a flat iron.
Nick Offerman was very open to what direction we would go for his character Jinx. Originally, we wanted to go for a shaved head, but the team opted for a softer look. The only note Nick gave me for his flashback wrestling look was something “glam rock.” To me, that meant length, curl, and highlights. I created the mullet version as that shape was a great balance to his beard and because I’ll always try to sneak in a mullet where I can.
For Susie (Thaddea Graham), the cosplaying roommate, Celeste was able to go full cutie daily, creating whimsical hair styles with everything from leather and charms to mini-toadstools and dragons.
KC and Rose, our OnlyFans girls, had multiple looks and costume changes. I worked closely with Mirren and Erin to build each look, deciding on the wig we could create for KC and what hair accessories we could build into Rose’s look. The cache of hair accessories we collected was something to behold.
For Elizabeth Gable (Marcia Gay Harden), we added a white streak. The looks for Nicole Kidman’s Lace were created by her personal hair stylist, Kim Santantonio.
Special thanks to the incredible hair team: Ahou Mofid, Celeste Gonzalez, R’riyana Kline, Lydia Fantini, Ronald Graves, and everyone who came to help and create on our bigger days. You guys made it what is. We are forever grateful for your outstanding work and how fun you made it to come to work daily! • – Jaime Leigh McIntosh
MAKE-UP
When I knew Margo was happening, there were several important conversations to begin with. First, Elle and I needed to brainstorm about her character’s look. We needed to discuss the personality, priorities, and habits of this person we’re about to bring to life. I needed to see what Mirren Crozier was planning for costumes. I needed to hear what Department Head Hair Jaime Leigh McIntosh was planning and then I was ready to propose some ideas to our showrunners, David E. Kelley and Eva Anderson, and our director, Dearbhla Walsh.
In order not to compromise the extraordinary accessibility and realism that I knew Elle would bring to the role; I needed to keep her make-up reflective of who this character was. I, of course, wanted her to look pretty, but not too sophisticated and certainly not as if she’s had a professional make-up job, which I think can be distracting and take you out of the story if that’s not a skill set that the character could plausibly have. It was important to allow flaws and for her to look how average people in her strata of society, circumstances and geographic location generally look. She usually had some sort of bright or pastel polish on her finger and toenails, and we allowed it to be imperfect at the right time, like when she picks it all off during her sonogram. Once we knew how her everyday make-up should be, it was time to start imagining what her online persona, the Hungry Ghost, looked like. The scripts gave us the one indicator of “green skin,” but after deciding to do more of a teal, the rest was up for interpretation. For the fantasy version, Mirren’s silver, sort of space girl/go-go girl costume lent itself to lashes and a very doll-like approach to things. Of course, it would have been simpler to airbrush the body but the color and durability I wanted just happened to be found in a cream eyeshadow that came in hard little plastic bottles with a sponge applicator. We removed the straining ring around the rim and slammed out the product from more than 100 bottles onto a hard surface and applied it by hand. Over that went a spray shimmer product. The fantasy version in episode six featured lashes I handmade with strands of hair from her double’s wig glued to a very basic strip lash (the blonde kept it feeling light) curled with tongs and embellished with reflective stars and moons. With Mirren’s approval, I glued long silver nails to the gloves.
The real-life version of the Hungry Ghost needed to look much more basic, something that her roommate Susie (Thaddea Graham) could have done herself. I used the same make-up on the body but no shimmer, simple strip lashes and an unsophisticated interpretation of “pretty.” Blue eyeshadow, pink cheeks, pink lips. Throughout Margo’s various make-up looks, I wanted to subtly show her mother Shyanne’s influence: the eyeliner, the lip gloss, etc., even if Margo herself wasn’t necessarily aware of it within the context of the story.
Some of the pivotal moments in the series depended on believable prosthetic work and that’s where Jason Collins and his Autonomous FX Inc. took over. Despite having supplied myriad pregnant bellies and breasts to various shows, a set of breasts that would lactate on camera was a new challenge. The success of this piece was crucial to the story and, as Elle was starring and also producing, Jason knew he might have limited time for application on the day. Elle also brought up time concerns in prep, which led to the creation of a hybrid corset/glued down piece. As we were promised that we’d never see the back (where the corset assured a snug fit), this shaved-down considerable application time as he only needed to glue down the top.
Jason started with digital designs for production approval and then sculpted the full belly and breasts on Elle forms.
Shooting a scene with Elle wearing a birthing bra to breast-feed and then a scene requiring full exposure of the prosthetic breasts on the same day was going to be tricky. The bra would wreak havoc with the delicate edges of the piece. Elle solved this by suggesting the creation of a “tata bra” which exposed the nipple and surrounding skin but concealed the edges of the piece! Problem solved.
For the scenes when Elle would be manipulating the breast, the piece needed to be “deadened” so that it would move and give like real flesh. There was a tube through to the nipple from behind that connected to a syringe of “milk” that Jason held off camera and pumped on cue to hit the mirror Elle was looking into.
As if these genius contributions weren’t enough, Jason/Autonomous also supplied us with an incredible birthing rig and mechanical babies that allowed us to actually see the baby crown and be delivered.
Nick Offerman’s Jinx was the next character I turned my attention to. He’s a biker, a recovering junkie, and an ex-pro wrestler. He needed tattoos for sure and, as we knew from the character’s back story that he had spent time in Japan, I decided many would have a Japanese flavor. As we all know, tattoos can be a tricky prospect since no one wants litigation, but I knew any imagery created prior to 1931 was now public domain. I decided that Jinx’s tattoos would be a series of 19th-century Yokai, demons of Japanese folklore.
Nick and I chose our favorites and had Michelle Sfarzo create transfers for us. The designs for the WWE tattoo on his forearm and the star behind his ear, I created myself. We knew there would be 1990’s flashbacks to Jinx’s wrestling days and that created a set of problems to solve with Nick’s own tattoos. He has a (now faded) band around each upper arm. Thirty-five years earlier, those tattoos would have been much sharper and darker (we wanted to keep them); we needed to create new-looking transfers of Nick’s own tattoos, then cover the real ones during the flashback scenes, apply the new-looking ones on top and maintain all that during long, sweaty shoot days. Nick also got a spray tan every week from Jimmy Coco that would, of course, be removed in the areas we cleaned with alcohol for the transfer applications. We needed to be precise in our cleaning, since we couldn’t allow a white border around the tattoos. For Jinx’s wrestling character make-up, I knew I wanted something gold to harmonize with his red and gold centurion costume. I tried a variety of the usual suspects—powders, pigments, creams, and eyeshadows—but gold leaf was the only thing that really popped on camera. My Assistant Department Head, Michele Teleis, was behind Nick’s day-to-day upkeep and beard color, and all the various Illustrator tones she wove throughout gave it the depth and texture of a beard that woke up like that. She was and is indispensable to me. She was my Jinx fairy or, as Nick joked after a paparazzi shot mistakenly said so, his personal assistant. No article about the show’s make-up would be complete without mentioning my unbelievably professional, competent key, Bonni Flowers, who was the backbone of the department and kept it all running smoothly day-to-day. To April Chaney, Tyson Fountaine, Cynthia Hernandez, Ann Pala, Steve Costanza, Claire Doyle, Ellen Vieira, Michele Tyminski, and all the other day players who gave their best work to the overall look of the show, so much gratitude!!
Michelle Pfeiffer’s longtime make-up artist, Valli O’Reilly, was responsible for the gorgeous work on Shyanne. From custom clip-on veneers to give her teeth a bleached look and push her lips out a bit, to the overlining and gloss, the aged tattoo from her Hooters days, and the multiple sets of custom-designed, jeweled press-on nails, Shyanne’s look was a culmination of many tiny details that spoke of who she was now and who she had once been. Valli wanted to maximize Michelle’s beauty in the context of the character and she really nailed it.
Angela Levin had a blast collaborating with her longtime client, Nicole Kidman, who played ex-pro wrestler and attorney Lace. Using lightweight contemporary formulas to assure everything was high-definition-friendly, she created a look that was beautiful, stylish, and powerful. Her lightness of hand and refined application kept it feeling authentic and accessible. • – Erin Ayanian and Jason Collins
as Elizabeth Gable