In re-creating probably the most well-known of icons, one would possibly suppose the strategy could be to imitate the unique. If solely resurrecting Marilyn Monroe for director Andrew Dominik’s Blonde had been that straightforward. “Andrew mentioned to me, ‘Don’t simply put Marilyn’s make-up on Ana [de Armas]. It’s a must to discover Marilyn inside Ana,’ ” says make-up division head Tina Roesler Kerwin.
With just a few weeks to arrange for the Netflix movie, Kerwin and hair division head Jaime Leigh McIntosh’s first day of manufacturing was a photograph shoot creating the nonetheless photographs that will present Marilyn’s rise to fame all through the movie. It was whereas placing collectively the greater than three dozen seems to be that they have been capable of observe perfecting the two-and-a-half-hour course of of reworking de Armas into Monroe. “Loads of it was erasing earlier than we might rebuild,” says Kerwin. “Her brows didn’t have the identical form, so I reshaped them. Her eyes didn’t have the identical form, so the lashes have been introduced up a bit and the shadow was introduced down a bit. And her high and backside lips have been reshaped.”
It was additionally in these photograph classes that they found {that a} bald cap wouldn’t work. “Realizing the wigs would change a number of instances, doubtlessly in a day, a daily bald cap not solely will not be comfy, it couldn’t have withstood the eradicating and re-gluing,” says Kerwin, who got here up with the concept of utilizing silicone to cowl the hairline. “The silicone transfers are skinny and clear. We had these custom-made to Ana’s head form, and people would go on earlier than any of Jaime Leigh’s stunning wigs.”
Whereas the nonetheless photographs have been shot utilizing off-the-shelf wigs with the fronts eliminated and customised, the three wigs used probably the most all through the movie have been custom-made to suit the dark-haired de Armas. “You design every part, from the suitable texture of hair and colours to how dense you need it, what shapes you need across the hairline, the little child hairs or, in [Marilyn’s] case, presumably some bleach breakage from lightening her hair,” says McIntosh. “You’re designing it from the bottom as much as mimic that head of hair that everyone is aware of.”
One of many best challenges for Kerwin was capturing off-hours Marilyn. “It was tough as a result of if I pulled the make-up again too far, then you definitely both received younger Norma Jean otherwise you received Ana,” she says. “As soon as she had established that iconic look, there was solely to date that I might pull it and nonetheless have it appear to be Marilyn.” That’s the place the wigs did a number of the heavier lifting. “I might push it a bit additional, having extra of Marilyn’s pure textures present via, or mess it up, no matter would assist steadiness that a bit bit extra,” says McIntosh.
To take Monroe into her ultimate decade, Kerwin created wrinkles utilizing a stippling method. “It’s actually not a snug course of for the actors, whether or not it’s placing it on or taking it off, however for those who do it proper, you get actually refined, natural-looking getting older,” she says. Round that very same time, Monroe additionally modified her hair colour to platinum, additional emphasizing the results of her onerous life. “Everyone knows platinum is a tough colour to put on,” says McIntosh. “Integrated with the make-up that Tina did, it helped us shift into a unique Marilyn interval.”
Kerwin describes the shoot as a shifting practice, and the tight schedule meant sometimes second-guessing what they have been placing onscreen. “The scene the place she’s singing ‘I Wanna Be Beloved by You,’ we didn’t suppose we had it proper,” she says. “It was a type of moments the place if we had a bit extra time with it, we’d have felt extra comfy with it, however we have been simply placing it collectively one of the simplest ways we might — after which it received on digicam and it appeared unbelievable. It’s one in all our favorites.”
Though most of their time was spent on de Armas, Kerwin and McIntosh additionally ready what Dominik lovingly known as the “facet dishes.” Fortunately, the director was much less involved with making actors Bobby Cannavale and Adrien Brody appear to be Joe DiMaggio and Arthur Miller, respectively, than he was about capturing their essence. ” ‘The Playwright’ and ‘The Ex-Athlete’ are their precise character names,” says McIntosh of the Miller and DiMaggio roles within the movie. “I didn’t really feel the stress from Andrew to make that matchy-matchy. And the casting is nice, which was useful.”
Cannavale got here in with a head of hair just like DiMaggio’s, and a tooth hole as well. Kerwin labored on his sideburns, whereas McIntosh tamed the mane. “His hair’s very curly naturally, so he schooled us on that, like, ‘That is what you’re going to want to do,’ ” says McIntosh. “For him, we needed to simply get the form related, have an identical texture, have it parted on the identical facet and get him into that Joe DiMaggio really feel.”
To create Arthur Miller, McIntosh’s problem was Miller’s receding hairline. “We didn’t wish to utterly destroy Adrien’s hairline for his private life, so we did a bit thinning. We additionally styled it on the roots with a moist gel so it could separate extra and you possibly can see extra scalp. We didn’t push it so far as Arthur Miller’s [hairline], however we received it into the realm.”
Watching the outcomes of their labor, Kerwin and McIntosh are nonetheless in disbelief that they accomplished the gargantuan job. “The primary time you see it, you’re like, ‘My profession is over,’ since you watch it with the narrative of, ‘That day we needed to rush this,’ or, ‘We had to do this at the back of a van,’ ” says Kerwin. “Perhaps [after] the third time, you really go, ‘OK, I would work once more.’ ” The 2 are, in actual fact, collaborating once more on the John Wick spinoff Ballerina — with de Armas, furthermore — the place their expertise on Blonde is paying dividends. “We dance round a head very well collectively,” says Kerwin. “We transfer in a superb rhythm. And we chortle rather a lot, that’s for positive.”
This story first appeared in a December stand-alone difficulty of The worldnewsintel journal. To obtain the journal, click on right here to subscribe.
