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31 TV Behind-The-Scenes Facts About Some Of The Most Memorable And Jaw-Dropping Makeup Looks

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12 min read

??There are spoilers ahead!??

1.First, on This Is Us, it would take the makeup department about three hours to apply the prosthetic makeup that transformed Mandy Moore into the older version of Rebecca. Then, at the end of a day of filming, it would take an additional 60 to 90 minutes to remove everything. Mandy Moore credits the makeup and hair transformations as Rebecca for helping her create her award-worthy performance.

mandy in makeup to look older in three different scenes
NBC

2.On Bridgerton, given the shooting schedule, actors have to be in their character's makeup for "12 to 14 hours," so one thing that was important when creating their looks was that they don't come off easily. The need to accommodate long filming days meant that the makeup team uses a lot of "layering." They also created "DNA looks" for the show's primary characters, meaning a standard makeup look that can then have elements added to it for any given scene.

close up of the characters make up as she's dancing
Netflix

3.On Stranger Things, Jamie Campbell Bower was the one in the Vecna costume for all of Season 4, and while some viewers might assume it was a lot of CGI effects, Vecna was actually "90%" Jamie Campbell Bower. According to Jamie, everything on his costume and with his prosthetics is real, the only thing added in post-production was the movement of the vines.

vecna telling max he's really there and max belongs with him
Netflix

4.And on Stranger Things, Jamie Campbell Bower's transformation into Vecna would take about "seven and a half hours" every time he had to put on all the prosthetics. This meant he had to arrive on set at 3 a.m. Then, Jamie would film for about 10 to 12 hours, and at the end of the day, it would take another hour to remove all the prosthetics.

5.On Yellowjackets, Nina Hagen, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, and Siouxsie Sioux were big influences for Natalie's makeup and hairstyles. Juliette Lewis worked hand-in-hand with the makeup and hair department on Yellowjackets to create Natalie's iconic look that helped exemplify everything she's been through in her life.

natalie in darker eye makeup and siouxsie from the banshees for comparison
Showtime / Michael Putland / Getty Images

6.On the final season of Killing Eve, Villanelle found religion and it led to a moment where she talked to Jesus, who was also played by Jodie Comer. Jodie said the makeup was "quite a process" and they ended up having to film the moments at the end of the day because getting her into the makeup took so long. In fact, it took longer to put Jodie in the "drag Jesus" look than the time they had to film the actual scenes.

villanelle talking to herself dressed as jesus
BBC America

7.On WandaVision, in order to get Vision's skin color to look just right during the black-and-white episodes, Paul Bettany had to be painted a bright blue. In Assembled: The Making of WandaVision, the team explained that during the '50s and '60s, actors would use blue lipstick so their lips would appear red in the black-and-white footage, so that's exactly what had to happen with Vision.

Paul Bettany painted blue while Wanda and Vision show off their wedding rings
Marvel / Disney+

8.On Euphoria, due to the show's quick-cut style of directing and filming, some of the makeup looks created aren't even seen in the finished episode. "We'll do a look for one scene and then not realize the way [creator Sam Levinson] is going to film is having the camera behind the actor's head and as the actor turns their head, the camera pans away," explained makeup designer and department head Doniella Davy.

close ups of different characters wearing bold eyeliner and glittery makeup looks
HBO

9.On The Walking Dead, there is "an assembly line of four [makeup] artists" who can finish transforming 40 to 50 extras into walkers in about an hour. Executive producer and makeup supervisor, Greg Nicotero, explained, that the first artist "shadows around the eyes and cheekbones, the next person does a lighter color over the highlights to accentuate the bone structure, the next person spatters blood, and then the last person puts conditioner in their hair."

circle over Greg as a zombie
AMC

10.And on The Walking Dead, the makeup department typically went through "30 gallons of fake blood every three episodes." This included two kinds of blood: thick blood, which was used to dress the sets, and thin blood, for the moments when blood had to spray.

a character sprayed in blood over his face
AMC

11.On The Umbrella Academy Season 2, Robert Sheehan, who plays Klaus, would actually be in the hair and makeup trailer longer than any of his female costars. It would take two makeup artists to help transform Robert into Klaus's cult look, which included his meticulously groomed beard and applying various tattoos. The entire process would take close to an hour and a half.

Klaus with small tattoos over his body and a beard with long hair
Netflix

12.On Inventing Anna, you'll notice that the guard Vivian Kent met while visiting Anna Delvey at Rikers Island changed the color of her glitter eyeshadow throughout the series. Apparently, "Glitter Shadow," the guard's official character name, was based on a guard that Jessica Pressler encountered while interviewing the real Anna Delvey. Shonda Rhimes and makeup department head, Brenna McGuire, decided it would be fun to change the color of the guard's eyeshadow every time as a fun Easter egg for fans.

arrows pointing to the different colors of shadow used
Netflix

13.On Pam & Tommy, before building the prosthetics needed to transform Lily James into Pamela Anderson, the makeup team studied photos of Pamela from the '90s vs. photos of Lily. From there, they used Photoshop to map out any similarities and differences between the two actors, so they knew what prosthetics were needed. The differences between Lily and Pamela's "brows and hairlines" proved to be the hardest things to work with.

lily playing pamela and pamela lying on the couch
Hulu / Getty Images

14.And on Pam & Tommy, due to the fact that hair and makeup took so long to transform Lily James and Sebastian Stan into Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, the actors only knew each other as Pam and Tommy. "We really didn't get to know each other till we started doing press," Lily explained. It took the makeup team four hours every day to get Lily ready, so once she was in character — which included prosthetics and talking with an American accent — she wasn't out of it until the end of the filming day.

lily and sebastian mimicking a photo of pam and tommy where pam is biting tommy's nipple ring
Hulu / Jeff Kravitz / FilmMagic / Getty Images

15.On Abbott Elementary, makeup department head April Chaney said she looked back at her elementary school teachers as inspirations for the makeup looks for the Abbott teachers. In fact, Sheryl Lee Ralph's character, Barbara, was inspired by Quinta Brunson's own mother, who was a dedicated school teacher, so April had Barbara's makeup look reflect Quinta's mom. "I put church lady with a politician with my teacher and came up with Sheryl's look," April explained.

janene telling barbara's daughter that it's cool that she's the real daughter and she's her work daughter
ABC

16.On Obi-Wan Kenobi, Hayden Christensen said it took "four to five hours" to get all of the prosthetics on that went underneath Darth Vader's suit, since we do see his face at one point after Darth Vader's helmet is damaged. Hayden explained the process, saying, "It was a lot of time sitting, staying very still while they glue layers of prosthetics all over your body. But I really enjoy just the visual creation that took place every time. It so much sort of effects the way that you feel and you behave when you see yourself like that. So I enjoyed it."

darth vader talking to obi-wan with half of his face exposed
Lucasfilm / Disney+

17.On The Mandalorian, it took "many" screen tests to make sure Ahsoka Tano's overall look was not only a great adaption from the animated series look, but that Rosario Dawson could function in the makeup and prosthetics. One thing that took the longest to nail down was making sure Ahsoka's orange skin didn't look magenta once on the giant digital soundstage, aka the Volume, The Mandalorian films on.

close up of Dawson painted orange with white line details
Lucasfilm / Disney+

18.Over the course of eight seasons of Game of Thrones, the crew used "4,000 gallons of artificial blood," which included blood that had to be splattered on actors and blood that was used on the sets. Like on The Walking Dead, different types of fake blood were used on GOT because there were so many types of injuries. For example, one type of fake blood was used if someone was bleeding from their mouth vs. the dried blood that could be seen on people's arms and legs,

close up of fake blood on the character's faces
HBO

19.On Schitt's Creek, for Moira's wedding look for the series finale, the show's makeup artist, Ana Sorys, was inspired to give Moira a bold eye look based on a piece of dialogue in the script. She thought it would be funny to see Moira's mascara running while she delivers the line about being the one family member to keep her emotions in order. Moira's smokey eye look was a staple on the series for all six seasons.

close up of moira in a long blonde wig and dark eye makeup
CBC / Pop

20.On Mare of Easttown, Kate Winslet had a lot of input on her makeup and hair for the series. Kate's makeup artist on the series Ivana Primorac explained that Kate "didn't want to look glamorous in any way. She didn't want to look put together in any way. She wanted to look completely real." This led to Kate and Ivana creating a minimal look for Mare's makeup and they consciously chose to have Mare's hair showcase her brown roots. All of this was created with the idea that Mare's tragedy has caused her to barley hold everything together.

close up of mare with minimal makeup
HBO

21.On The Queen's Gambit, Natalie Wood's '50s and '60s look was the main inspiration for Beth's hair and makeup looks throughout the series. While Madonna and Grace Kelly partly influenced the "glam vibe" and Beth's hair, Natalie proved to be the biggest source of inspiration when it came to depicting Beth's femininity in the "men's world" of chess.

  Netflix / Ernst Haas / Getty Images
Netflix / Ernst Haas / Getty Images

22.On Peaky Blinders, Adrien Brody worked closely with makeup designer Loz Schiavo to create Luca Changretta's look. In fact, Adrien insisted that Luca have tattoos because "the backstory was that Luca has come from prison." Tattoos are actually one of the hardest things for makeup artists on TV because of copyright issues, so the makeup team researched tattoos for Luca and then altered them and made them unique.

close ups of the tattoos on the neck and hands
Netflix

23.And on Peaky Blinders, a typical day for the hair and makeup team involved working "three hours in the morning on all the various cast." For Season 4, there were several scenes with around "200 extras," so daily makeup artists were brought in to help manage the team's workload. For Peaky, once all the boys have "their Peaky haircuts for the season," the time spent in hair and makeup moves pretty fast, unless wounds/cuts need to be added for a fight scene.

the characters sitting around a table and a shot in with the boxing ring
Netflix

24.On The First Lady, the makeup department actually had prosthetic ears and teeth made for O-T Fagbenle, who was portraying President Barack Obama. "I think it helps them to get into character when you accentuate these details and play them up a little bit. I think he looked brilliant. We also added special teeth, and he had that character down so well. He would practice his dialect in the trailer, and it was uncanny," explained makeup artist Carol Rasheed.

close ups of O-T as Barack
Showtime

25.On Moon Knight, Oscar Isaac's brother, Michael Hernandez, was actually his stand-in while filming. Since Michael was going to be acting as either Steven or Marc alongside Oscar in scenes, the makeup and hair team created a custom wig and makeup look for Michael so he could feel like either character. Other doubles were used throughout filming, but Michael was the primary one who was acting with Oscar.

Oscar Issac
Marvel / Disney+

26.On American Horror Story: Freak Show, the Twisty the Clown makeup that was applied to John Carroll Lynch took about an hour to apply each day. The entire Twisty the Clown look was created entirely with makeup effects until his mouth mask was taken off. Then, CGI replaced John's mouth and nose were replaced in order to get Twisty's creepy mouth just right.

close up of the clown with a mostly bald head and bloody outline with a large toothy and crrepy smile
FX

27.On Angelyne, it would take Emmy Rossum almost five hours on some filming days to transform in Angelyne, with each shooting day sometimes consisting of playing the icon over "six decades." This meant that with each decade, the prosthetics that had to be applied also changed. Emmy wore everything from prosthetics on her cheeks, chin, breasts, lips, and even her earlobes.

Emmy in a tall blonde wig and breast prosthetics
Peacock

28.On Dickinson, for the Season 2 episode, "Split the Lark," which featured the Dickinsons dressing up for the opera, the makeup team spoke with Metropolitan Opera veterans about how stage makeup typically looked in the 1800s. This episode allowed the team to dig deeper into period makeup, whereas, in other episodes of Dickinson, given the modern feeling of the show, they were able to use more modern color palettes.

close up of the characters with more nude makeup looks
Apple TV+

29.On Pose, Blanca had the biggest style and makeup evolution over the course of three seasons. To reflect Blanca's original lack of confidence and lower-class status, the makeup team only used drugstore makeup on Michaela Jaé Rodriguez. This was meant to show that she cared "more about her family than she did learning how to perfect her look."

season 1 and season 3 blanca
FX

30.On The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, in order to be as authentic to the time period as possible, makeup department head Patricia Regan was very deliberate about which colors were used in Midge's makeup because the colors used in the '60s were "so different than colors that are [used] now." One lipstick shade Midge wears a lot in Season 4 is Revlon's "Cherries in the Snow," which was first produced in 1953.

the lipstick worn in three different scenes
Prime Video

31.And finally, on The Vampire Diaries, each actor had to be fitted for their vampire teeth. The makeup team did impressions of every actor who was playing a vampire's teeth. The vampire teeth are simply rubber caps that fit over the actor's teeth and they are actually pretty soft and squishy.

close up of the fangs
The CW
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