Helping anchor film’s retro look
Latest project: Department head makeup artist on “Anchorman” -- with a specific eye to 1970s-era mustaches, sideburns and other facial hair.
Starting in the library: “I had a book specifically for this one, ‘One Thousand Beards.’ My job is to pull all of those references and start to think about all the characters,” with input from the director and actors. “The first step is reading the script. That is kind of our bible.”
Home-grown: “In this movie every one of the [male] leads grew their own facial hair. What I said to the guys -- and I even called the day players -- was ‘Please start growing whatever you can and when you get here we’ll trim it and design it and figure it out for you.’ Will Ferrell was actually the only one that came in done. He had his mustache.
“The reason why it goes straight across, why it looks a little weird, is that the little hairs were tickling his nose. He trimmed underneath his nose and it ended up being a straight line. It looked great because it is just a little off -- like him.
“Paul Rudd came in with a full beard, and we actually trimmed it down and slowly kept cutting it back until we had the design we wanted.”
The price of style: “Mustaches can be anywhere from $150 to $300 for a good piece, and a beard can be like $2,000. These are film-ready. There are very inexpensive mustaches and sideburns, but we don’t use them in film unless it is for a background player or stuntman. You get yak hair, you glue it on and trim it down.”
Care and feeding of facial hair: “Will’s mustache is very coarse. He has very curly hair, so I used mustache wax to keep it groomed. I actually darkened it a little bit with temporary tattoo color on both his sideburns and mustache to give it a little more strength of character.”
How she got into it: “I actually went to school at Indiana University and majored in TV, radio and film and minored in theater and art. My love has always been the movies since I was a kid. My parents were artists; my grandmother was an artist. I think it was sort of in my family to draw and do art. It just kind of fit together. After college, I ended up going to Dallas, working in corporate, industrial print, and then started working on films that would come to town. ‘JFK’ was the one when I got it in my blood.”
Credits: “The Wedding Singer,” both “Charlie’s Angels” movies, “Ever After.”
Union: Local 706, IATSE.
Salary: “There is a scale in the union, but it goes from whatever the union scale is to whatever you can negotiate. But believe me, there is a ceiling.”
Resides in: Glendale
Age: 40.
Problem solving: “On the day that we shot the fight scene with all the different news teams, it was hot -- easily 100 degrees out -- and these guys were in polyester suits. All the background guys had hand-laid sideburns and the glue was melting off because they were sweating so much. It was constant upkeep with all the sideburns and facial hair. It was kind of a nightmare trying to keep them on in that kind of heat.”
