How did Furiosa being a prequel to Fury Road influence your makeup design?
Lesley: It played a huge part. For Fury Road, we created the world, the three cities of the Wasteland and inhabitants, the main characters, and various Warboys, not forgetting the wretched people or bottom dwellers. As Fury Road is 15+ years in the future, the characters were more worn out, so we worked backward. In the months leading up to the shoot, we had a weekly creative meeting with all the designers and department heads and went through the script in detail. From there, we worked with illustrator Seth Justus. We then started putting the new characters together for the film and tested them on picture doubles or extras. There were 83 characters, 51 were new characters and almost all had picture doubles and most had stunt doubles.
Larry: Having not been a part of the Fury Road experience, we were trying to bring a new perspective from a prosthetics POV, while still maintaining the integrity of the established look of the franchise, and respecting the work that had been done before. That said, there were plenty of new characters to sink our teeth into, and we worked closely with Lesley to make the characters stand out and show individuality while still being a part of the existing universe.
Tell me about the makeup design for Anya Taylor-Joy as Furiosa?
Lesley: The design came from the look we had for Charlize Theron in Fury Road with the dark forehead that originally denoted experience and rank in the society. Tess Natoli did the hair and makeup for Anya Taylor-Joy. According to Tess, protecting and maintaining Anya’s ivory complexion in the Australian sun was a challenge. She came up with a base layer of sunscreen dirt, a mix of matte sunscreen and supra color applied to all exposed skin. Furiosa had several strong makeup changes throughout the story, most notably shaving her long hair to emulate the Furiosa we know from Fury Road. This was a full silicone prosthetic long-hair cap for the head shave scene, and multiple shaved caps for the scenes following.
What was the process of transforming Chris Hemsworth into Dementus?
Lesley: Team Hemsworth did an amazing job. Matteo Silvi designed the makeup and Luca Vannella designed hair for Dementus. The transformation included a silicone nose, beard, face, body makeup and tattoo cover, contact lenses, prosthetic teeth and wig. Matteo aged his skin for the older look with Skin Illustrator palette and Old Age from Bluebird FX.
What was used to create the warpaint makeup?
Lesley: The warpaint also came from Fury Road. We used either Black Supra or Black Pax depending on what was required for the film or the weather then we would use a mix of MAC metallic powder in Silver Fog with a touch of Copper and sometimes a touch of Blue Shimmer.
The looks feel somewhat deteriorated given the level of aggressive action of the characters. How did you manage that?
Larry: From a prosthetics perspective we were very mindful of making sure characters did not look pristine. They needed to look like they’d been living in their environment –- even characters that had applied mud or war paint to decorate their bodies had probably last applied it days ago. For prosthetic makeups this was often done in the sculpting stage, where we could add in nicks and scratches or other imperfections, but also in the application –- often applying paint or color and then knocking some of it back off.
Was there a character/makeup that you especially enjoyed creating?
Larry: It’s hard to find a makeup not to enjoy in Furiosa. A few key ones for prosthetics were Scrotus and Dementus’ tree man. A custom silicone prosthetic upper torso was applied to the actor for Dementus’ tree man, with gaunt ribs, withered aging skin texture, and pronounced veins that transitioned into tree roots. He also had cheekbones and forehead pieces to show wasting in the face. Matteo and Luca from Chris’s team did the hair and beard. A model tree trunk was built into dummy legs, to appear to be growing from Dementus’ core.
Another little element we loved was our silicone “safety feet”. As Young Furiosa, Alyla Brown had to spend a lot of time running around outdoors in bare feet, so we sculpted shoes that were made from flesh-toned silicone. They looked like bare feet on top, with a hidden running shoe-style sole. They’d blend in well enough that for wide shots the actor would appear to be in bare feet but was completely protected. A set was made for the Mar y Jabassa character as well, then the costume department decided they were amazing so we had to make them in different sizes for several characters. They were christened “Neandersoles”… patent pending!
Lesley: Scrotus and Rizzdale Pell were two of my favorite designs. Elka Wardega did Scrotus’ makeup. Br ydie Stone did Rizzdale’s and was responsible for making his wonderful Wat (wig hat). Tess, Elka and Brydie were on my Fury Road team, it was so great that they joined us on this part of the journey. They are so talented, as was everyone on the Furiosa team!
Words Shannon Levy
Photos Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
