How did you come to work on Beetlejuice Beetlejuice?
While on holiday in Sri Lanka, my agent called to inform me that Tim Burton’s team had expressed interest in my availability. They asked if I could take a Zoom call with Colleen Atwood, the costume designer, and Tommy Harper, the producer, to discuss a project in development. My biggest problem was finding a Wi-Fi signal strong enough! A Zoom with Tim Burton followed. I’m a massive fan of Tim’s work and when I was told we were doing Beetlejuice, I honestly felt that I had won the film makeup and hair designers lottery!
How do you approach design when working on a sequel to such an iconic film, that has so many built-in expectations from the audience?
I hope that myself and my team have done the sequel justice. I feel we have; we were all acutely aware of the film’s fanbase and that was discussed in depth amongst the team in our prep.
When designing the makeup and hair, how much did you reference the original 1988 film?
Tim had told me at the start of prep that he wanted everything done practical and to keep the essence of the original in mind when designing new characters.
Several characters reprise their roles — Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, and of course Michael Keaton as Beetlejuice. What was the design process like for them?
Reprising such iconic characters was fifty percent terrifying and one hundred percent fun. Tim was very reluctant to commit to anything until we had the actor in the room with us. My team and I pulled together many variations of possible looks our characters could have grown into. Obviously, with Beetlejuice, his look had to be exactly as it was in the original so Chloe Meddings set about practicing the makeup on Carlos, our very patient trainee, every day for three weeks before Michael’s arrival. Luckily, Michael literally hasn’t aged and was also very involved in his original look and guided us through the final tweaks when he arrived. I had prepped various wig/fringe pieces for Winona, and we played with different lengths until we both felt happy with the look. Winona and I were very keen to keep Lydia’s original vibe. Tim didn’t see her in makeup, hair, and costume until the makeup tests. I remember following her out and watching Tim’s face when he saw her back as Lydia. That was a career-high for me. With Catherine, we weren’t sure how red we should make her hair color. Alex Rouse made us five wigs in a copper color and I put out some stock wigs of varying color. Then Lesa Warrener set about trying different looks once Catherine chose the dark red. Susan Cole set about dyeing all the wigs to that specific color for the following day’s tests. All in all, there was a massive amount of prep before our cast arrived.
What were some of your favorite makeup designs for the characters in The Afterlife?
That’s a tough question as so many were put together and made us laugh out loud. Danny DeVito was definitely one, the cat lady, the hot dog lady, and the surfer dude to name but a few that came through the main buses. Another phenomenal feat was achieved in our crowd room which was run by Charmaine Fuller and a super-skilled team. They worked relentlessly on our afterlife death palettes and in particular the “soul train” and the “immigration hall” days were among our favorites to pull off.
What inspired Jenna Ortega’s Astrid look for the film?
With Jenna’s look, I wanted her to look like a normal teenager who struggles to fit in with her peers. Nirvana Jalalvand kept her makeup minimal and her hair deliberately simple at the start of the film. As her character progresses, she basically grows up in front of our eyes, but the important note was to keep her as natural as possible.
What was the inspiration for Monica Bellucci’s Delores?
Tim had sketched how he felt Delores should be. So, Neil Scanlan, our prosthetics designer, his team and I brought in a body double to test different variations. I then had two wigs made for Monica; one that we could cut around an appliance should we need to, again once we got to testing on Monica it was just fine-tuning until Delores arrived.
What about Willem Dafoe as Wolf Jackson?
Wolf Jackson had been a stuntman in his real life—every afterlife character had to have a back story—so he died when a stunt went horribly wrong. We all thought it would be fun for him to have a normal side and a mangled brainexposed side. That character was very much a collaboration between myself and prosthetics.
What did you enjoy most about working on this film?
To put this in a nutshell, working with Tim Burton and bringing the iconic Beetlejuice back to “after” life restored my love for this industry and our craft as hair and makeup artists.
Words Shannon Levy
Photos Courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures