WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.190 --> 00:00:02.700
When the producers came to me and asked me,
2
00:00:02.700 --> 00:00:04.400
hey, by the way, in a few months
3
00:00:04.400 --> 00:00:06.340
we're gonna do this other job and make sure you're available
4
00:00:06.340 --> 00:00:07.173
I'm I okay?
5
00:00:07.173 --> 00:00:08.453
And then when I found out it was the Joker,
6
00:00:08.453 --> 00:00:10.990
I was like, oh my God, the Joker,
7
00:00:10.990 --> 00:00:12.800
How the hell am I gonna do that?
8
00:00:12.800 --> 00:00:16.740
I approach it like painting to make people interesting
9
00:00:16.740 --> 00:00:18.340
rather than beautiful.
10
00:00:18.340 --> 00:00:20.040
Hi, this is Nicki Lederman.
11
00:00:20.040 --> 00:00:22.593
And this is the timeline of my career.
12
00:00:23.600 --> 00:00:25.090
When I was little,
13
00:00:25.090 --> 00:00:26.960
I wanted to be an opera singer,
14
00:00:26.960 --> 00:00:29.740
and I went to a performing high school
15
00:00:29.740 --> 00:00:33.100
of the arts in Germany, in Munich.
16
00:00:33.100 --> 00:00:35.660
And I truly thought I would become a musician.
17
00:00:35.660 --> 00:00:40.660
When I saw the exorcist, that was really my turning point,
18
00:00:40.870 --> 00:00:45.120
because, when I saw just Linda Blair's head turn,
19
00:00:45.120 --> 00:00:47.120
and I was like, how the hell did they do that?
20
00:00:47.120 --> 00:00:49.010
Or American Werewolf in London,
21
00:00:49.010 --> 00:00:53.390
like this whole incredible rig that Rick Baker built
22
00:00:53.390 --> 00:00:55.870
and got an Oscar for, with that wolf,
23
00:00:55.870 --> 00:00:57.270
coming out of the guy's mouth.
24
00:00:57.270 --> 00:01:01.130
It was just so magical to me that I was like,
25
00:01:01.130 --> 00:01:03.240
how did they do that?
26
00:01:03.240 --> 00:01:04.610
The artistry in it,
27
00:01:04.610 --> 00:01:08.750
the emotions that it makes you feel, all that stuff,
28
00:01:08.750 --> 00:01:10.160
that's all created by makeup,
29
00:01:10.160 --> 00:01:12.160
I thought it was so fascinating,
30
00:01:12.160 --> 00:01:14.460
And I couldn't stop thinking about these,
31
00:01:14.460 --> 00:01:16.910
scenes in all these cool movies that I saw
32
00:01:16.910 --> 00:01:18.940
when I was, in my teens.
33
00:01:18.940 --> 00:01:21.510
I thought like, they don't make movies here like that,
34
00:01:21.510 --> 00:01:22.930
I would have to go to America.
35
00:01:22.930 --> 00:01:25.930
I was 20 years old, and I left my home
36
00:01:25.930 --> 00:01:27.620
to live the American dream.
37
00:01:27.620 --> 00:01:29.890
My boyfriend at the time had this great idea,
38
00:01:29.890 --> 00:01:33.300
why don't you just go to NYU, put fliers out,
39
00:01:33.300 --> 00:01:36.310
for the film students offering your services,
40
00:01:36.310 --> 00:01:37.870
doing makeup on their thesis films.
41
00:01:37.870 --> 00:01:39.460
And that's exactly what I did,
42
00:01:39.460 --> 00:01:41.010
and the kids were so excited,
43
00:01:41.010 --> 00:01:43.410
and we all kind of rose up together.
44
00:01:43.410 --> 00:01:47.130
My very first paid job, I shall say,
45
00:01:47.130 --> 00:01:50.960
was on a small TV show, that was shot in Boston,
46
00:01:50.960 --> 00:01:52.940
called Against the Law.
47
00:01:52.940 --> 00:01:56.270
That show ran for I think only a season,
48
00:01:56.270 --> 00:01:58.150
and we came back to New York.
49
00:01:58.150 --> 00:02:01.890
It was such great timing because, early 90s then,
50
00:02:01.890 --> 00:02:05.760
we had this amazing, independent movie scene in New York.
51
00:02:05.760 --> 00:02:08.920
So my friend Derek, he called me up and said,
52
00:02:08.920 --> 00:02:11.130
listen, my buddy from NYU,
53
00:02:11.130 --> 00:02:13.620 line:15%
he's directing this really amazing movie,
54
00:02:13.620 --> 00:02:15.110 line:15%
it's called Palookaville.
55
00:02:15.110 --> 00:02:17.330
And he said, you have to work on this film,
56
00:02:17.330 --> 00:02:19.010
the script is amazing.
57
00:02:19.010 --> 00:02:20.680
So I met with the director,
58
00:02:20.680 --> 00:02:22.430
and it's funny because I walked in,
59
00:02:22.430 --> 00:02:25.840
we met at Bobby's in Tribeca,
60
00:02:25.840 --> 00:02:29.580
and I saw him sitting at this little corner booth,
61
00:02:29.580 --> 00:02:31.410
and I looked at him and I'm like,
62
00:02:31.410 --> 00:02:32.580
I'm gonna marry that guy.
63
00:02:32.580 --> 00:02:33.580
Turns out, we did get married,
64
00:02:33.580 --> 00:02:35.380
and we did have three kids together.
65
00:02:36.260 --> 00:02:38.540
So working on Palookaville was like,
66
00:02:38.540 --> 00:02:41.640
my first experience of like, a real movie.
67
00:02:41.640 --> 00:02:44.450
The movie was a beautiful movie
68
00:02:44.450 --> 00:02:46.190
that we were all really proud of.
69
00:02:46.190 --> 00:02:48.630
It won awards, it was like,
70
00:02:48.630 --> 00:02:50.310
my first movie that I've done,
71
00:02:50.310 --> 00:02:52.200
that I really was very proud of.
72
00:02:52.200 --> 00:02:54.660
That little movie not only was a stepping stone
73
00:02:54.660 --> 00:02:56.670
into a really amazing career,
74
00:02:56.670 --> 00:02:59.453
but having three beautiful children.
75
00:03:00.350 --> 00:03:02.760
When I heard that Todd Solondz,
76
00:03:02.760 --> 00:03:05.310
who previously directed Welcome to the Dollhouse,
77
00:03:05.310 --> 00:03:06.610
was doing another movie, I thought like,
78
00:03:06.610 --> 00:03:08.183
oh, this is great, I would love to work on it,
79
00:03:08.183 --> 00:03:12.870
he's such a funny, quirky, smart, talented guy.
80
00:03:12.870 --> 00:03:14.945
So they sent me the script,
81
00:03:14.945 --> 00:03:16.690
[laughs] and when I was reading the script,
82
00:03:16.690 --> 00:03:21.690
I was like, oh, my God, I thought it was so ballsy,
83
00:03:21.900 --> 00:03:24.530
so brave, I need to be part of it.
84
00:03:24.530 --> 00:03:28.720
That was like a wild experience that I'm grateful I had.
85
00:03:28.720 --> 00:03:31.860
My taste in the contributions,
86
00:03:31.860 --> 00:03:34.050
that I am giving to in my work,
87
00:03:34.050 --> 00:03:36.240
is I wanna show the beauty,
88
00:03:36.240 --> 00:03:39.550
in what people don't wanna recognize
89
00:03:39.550 --> 00:03:44.550
or people don't wanna deal with or people look down upon.
90
00:03:45.500 --> 00:03:46.620
It's that maternal instinct
91
00:03:46.620 --> 00:03:49.000
that I had even before having children
92
00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:52.220
to help make the underdog shine.
93
00:03:52.220 --> 00:03:55.630 line:15%
I just broke up with my fiance, which trust me,
94
00:03:55.630 --> 00:03:57.053 line:15%
is traumatic enough.
95
00:03:58.650 --> 00:04:01.670 line:15%
And now I have 25 days,
96
00:04:01.670 --> 00:04:04.640 line:15%
to either find the money to buy my place,
97
00:04:04.640 --> 00:04:06.120 line:15%
or I am out on the street.
98
00:04:06.120 --> 00:04:07.570 line:15%
When I started Sex and the City.
99
00:04:07.570 --> 00:04:11.580
It was a complete shift of working in the gritty reality
100
00:04:11.580 --> 00:04:14.800
and turning everything into the high fashion world,
101
00:04:14.800 --> 00:04:17.850
that is special, that is art,
102
00:04:17.850 --> 00:04:20.070
because fashion, if you think about it, is art.
103
00:04:20.070 --> 00:04:22.630
And that really helped me and my team
104
00:04:22.630 --> 00:04:25.410
to come up with really pretty beauty looks,
105
00:04:25.410 --> 00:04:29.120
for our girls that are not as conventional.
106
00:04:29.120 --> 00:04:31.650
What our goal was, to be the trendsetters
107
00:04:31.650 --> 00:04:34.310
and not being the followers of the trendsetters.
108
00:04:34.310 --> 00:04:38.820
What we try to do, to try not to keep it as superficial,
109
00:04:38.820 --> 00:04:41.660
as fashion sometimes seems to be,
110
00:04:41.660 --> 00:04:44.390
is that the looks that we created
111
00:04:44.390 --> 00:04:47.450
are not looks that are unachievable.
112
00:04:47.450 --> 00:04:50.020
You have magazines where people are airbrushed
113
00:04:50.020 --> 00:04:52.640
and nothing is really real that you see.
114
00:04:52.640 --> 00:04:57.260
What we did was trying to create cool looks for everybody.
115
00:04:57.260 --> 00:04:58.700
It doesn't matter if you pretty,
116
00:04:58.700 --> 00:05:00.490
it doesn't matter if you're supermodel,
117
00:05:00.490 --> 00:05:02.050
everybody can have those looks.
118
00:05:02.050 --> 00:05:06.030
And we put the emphasis of uniqueness rather than beauty,
119
00:05:06.030 --> 00:05:08.260
which I thought was very interesting and very important,
120
00:05:08.260 --> 00:05:10.870
because, even the clothes, the hair, the makeup,
121
00:05:10.870 --> 00:05:12.520
it wasn't always like gorgeous,
122
00:05:12.520 --> 00:05:14.420
but it certainly was unique.
123
00:05:14.420 --> 00:05:17.080
And that was really the thing that kept us
124
00:05:17.080 --> 00:05:20.020
from like dropping into that superficialness,
125
00:05:20.020 --> 00:05:22.940
because the uniqueness is an expression of personality,
126
00:05:22.940 --> 00:05:27.940
it's an expression of character, and anybody can do that,
127
00:05:28.060 --> 00:05:29.960
anybody, and I have to say,
128
00:05:29.960 --> 00:05:31.770
working with all my friends on that show,
129
00:05:31.770 --> 00:05:33.240
we all kinda grew up on that show.
130
00:05:33.240 --> 00:05:34.790
We all had children on that show.
131
00:05:34.790 --> 00:05:38.150
It was like an incredible, incredible run.
132
00:05:38.150 --> 00:05:40.040
And that was really my breaking point,
133
00:05:40.040 --> 00:05:44.170
when I thought to myself, I made it as a makeup artist,
134
00:05:44.170 --> 00:05:46.010
because of Sex and the City.
135
00:05:46.010 --> 00:05:50.530 line:15%
Do you have any other income besides the column?
136
00:05:50.530 --> 00:05:53.670 line:15%
No, but I was chosen as New York Magazine's,
137
00:05:53.670 --> 00:05:55.730 line:15%
best pick for city columnist,
138
00:05:55.730 --> 00:05:57.173
Good, now can be saucy.
139
00:05:58.320 --> 00:06:00.550
When we were filming Bettie Page,
140
00:06:00.550 --> 00:06:03.080
as a makeup artist, I had a few challenges.
141
00:06:03.080 --> 00:06:05.460
We were shooting most of it in black and white,
142
00:06:05.460 --> 00:06:06.870
and some of it in color.
143
00:06:06.870 --> 00:06:09.610
And when you shoot black and white,
144
00:06:09.610 --> 00:06:12.617
your application of makeup in terms of colors
145
00:06:12.617 --> 00:06:14.010
are very different.
146
00:06:14.010 --> 00:06:16.350
When you shoot color,
147
00:06:16.350 --> 00:06:18.780
and you put like a really pretty red lipstick on,
148
00:06:18.780 --> 00:06:20.070
you see it's red.
149
00:06:20.070 --> 00:06:22.910
But when you put a red lipstick on, on black and white,
150
00:06:22.910 --> 00:06:25.630
it doesn't look like sometimes anything
151
00:06:25.630 --> 00:06:27.770
or sometimes it looks black.
152
00:06:27.770 --> 00:06:30.210
You have to really test all the colors
153
00:06:30.210 --> 00:06:31.970
that you're going to be using,
154
00:06:31.970 --> 00:06:33.360
and shoot it on black and white,
155
00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:35.950
so you know, what it's going to look like.
156
00:06:35.950 --> 00:06:39.770
So you really had to experiment and practice a lot
157
00:06:39.770 --> 00:06:43.080
in terms of color application, to get the shade right.
158
00:06:43.080 --> 00:06:45.240
What is really important is that,
159
00:06:45.240 --> 00:06:47.770
you research what people actually really look like,
160
00:06:47.770 --> 00:06:48.670
at that time.
161
00:06:48.670 --> 00:06:50.205
Great Bettie, great.
162
00:06:50.205 --> 00:06:52.936
[gentle music]
163
00:06:52.936 --> 00:06:55.519 line:15%
[upbeat music]
164
00:07:01.700 --> 00:07:03.750 line:15%
When we did, Devil Wears Prada,
165
00:07:03.750 --> 00:07:05.700 line:15%
Anne Hathaway character, Andrea,
166
00:07:05.700 --> 00:07:10.700
had a really lovely evolution, from the frumpy, normal,
167
00:07:12.180 --> 00:07:14.880
not caring about fashion kinda look,
168
00:07:14.880 --> 00:07:19.110
into this high fashion vogue girl.
169
00:07:19.110 --> 00:07:22.040
And that was really fun, because you get to play,
170
00:07:22.040 --> 00:07:23.650
you get to try different things,
171
00:07:23.650 --> 00:07:26.420
you really change a look of a person,
172
00:07:26.420 --> 00:07:27.630
but the trick is really,
173
00:07:27.630 --> 00:07:30.810
that you have to keep the essence the same.
174
00:07:30.810 --> 00:07:33.350
You can't just make somebody look completely different,
175
00:07:33.350 --> 00:07:36.140
because no matter how much a person changes,
176
00:07:36.140 --> 00:07:39.650
the essence has to still be there.
177
00:07:39.650 --> 00:07:40.900
And in creating a makeup look,
178
00:07:40.900 --> 00:07:43.840
I felt the essence that I tried to keep in her,
179
00:07:43.840 --> 00:07:46.480
is a little bit of that innocence in her,
180
00:07:46.480 --> 00:07:48.130
by not overdoing it.
181
00:07:48.130 --> 00:07:51.320
So you kinda have to find the essence of that character,
182
00:07:51.320 --> 00:07:53.830
and try to keep that throughout the whole movie,
183
00:07:53.830 --> 00:07:57.200
otherwise, the change of the character is not believable.
184
00:07:57.200 --> 00:07:59.970
That movie was really fun, because we had Valentino there
185
00:07:59.970 --> 00:08:02.230
and we created one of Valentino's fashion shows,
186
00:08:02.230 --> 00:08:03.420
and that was really fun.
187
00:08:03.420 --> 00:08:05.340
That was a really great movie
188
00:08:05.340 --> 00:08:09.070
about fashion, and makeup, and hair.
189
00:08:09.070 --> 00:08:11.460
And at the same time, there was a lesson in this,
190
00:08:11.460 --> 00:08:12.760
and we wanted to make sure that,
191
00:08:12.760 --> 00:08:17.400
that lesson is not lessened by overdoing it.
192
00:08:17.400 --> 00:08:19.090 line:15%
I couldn't do what you did to Nigel, Miranda,
193
00:08:19.090 --> 00:08:22.146 line:15%
I couldn't do something like that.
194
00:08:22.146 --> 00:08:24.729
[gentle music]
195
00:08:29.090 --> 00:08:31.240
When we worked on Enchanted,
196
00:08:31.240 --> 00:08:33.910
we had this amazing scene,
197
00:08:33.910 --> 00:08:36.130
that was taking place in the ballroom.
198
00:08:36.130 --> 00:08:40.370
Where Amy Adams had this gorgeous purply dress on,
199
00:08:40.370 --> 00:08:42.190
and I was so excited, I thought like,
200
00:08:42.190 --> 00:08:44.360
oh, I'm gonna make you look so gorgeous.
201
00:08:44.360 --> 00:08:47.070
I was so excited, this is the ballroom scene,
202
00:08:47.070 --> 00:08:49.210
like Cinderella's ballroom scene.
203
00:08:49.210 --> 00:08:52.510
And so I did my thing and we went down to set,
204
00:08:52.510 --> 00:08:56.540
and I realized, oh my God, what is this lighting?
205
00:08:56.540 --> 00:08:59.540
And oh my God, I should have checked first,
206
00:08:59.540 --> 00:09:03.640
because you know what, lighting is so incredibly important
207
00:09:03.640 --> 00:09:05.340
to my work as a makeup artist
208
00:09:05.340 --> 00:09:08.510
because it can break everything.
209
00:09:08.510 --> 00:09:11.430
And when Amy arrived on set,
210
00:09:11.430 --> 00:09:15.910
my gorgeous makeup was completely washed out and erased.
211
00:09:15.910 --> 00:09:18.310
I didn't recognize the colors in her face.
212
00:09:18.310 --> 00:09:20.810
She looked like she had like, nothing on her face.
213
00:09:20.810 --> 00:09:23.420
And I'm like, we can't shoot her like that,
214
00:09:23.420 --> 00:09:26.750
she looks like a washed out little girl.
215
00:09:26.750 --> 00:09:28.300
I have to take her back into the makeup room.
216
00:09:28.300 --> 00:09:30.180
And so I had to adjust her makeup,
217
00:09:30.180 --> 00:09:33.870
with colors that I would never put on her normally.
218
00:09:33.870 --> 00:09:36.820
But I had to adjust the colors,
219
00:09:36.820 --> 00:09:39.250
so they can register in the light
220
00:09:39.250 --> 00:09:41.890
that they were using for that ballroom scene.
221
00:09:41.890 --> 00:09:44.530
So I put like this crazy color,
222
00:09:44.530 --> 00:09:47.360
weird kinda purply pink on her lips,
223
00:09:47.360 --> 00:09:49.520
and like gave her this strange blush,
224
00:09:49.520 --> 00:09:52.550
that looked ridiculous in real life,
225
00:09:52.550 --> 00:09:54.590
but on set it looked beautiful.
226
00:09:54.590 --> 00:09:56.560
And that was my big lesson,
227
00:09:56.560 --> 00:09:57.970
and I should have known better
228
00:09:57.970 --> 00:10:00.940
because I'm trained for that, right?
229
00:10:00.940 --> 00:10:02.340
That I need to make sure,
230
00:10:02.340 --> 00:10:04.570
that I know exactly what the lighting is on set
231
00:10:04.570 --> 00:10:08.120
because the makeup can really look horrendous,
232
00:10:08.120 --> 00:10:11.373
if I don't compliment the lighting or vice versa too.
233
00:10:12.394 --> 00:10:15.144
[dramatic music]
234
00:10:18.050 --> 00:10:19.350 line:15%
I'm gonna talk to Nucky.
235
00:10:20.793 --> 00:10:23.530 line:15%
I don't know, two years killing Jerries
236
00:10:23.530 --> 00:10:25.880 line:15%
doesn't exactly prepare you for a whole lot else.
237
00:10:25.880 --> 00:10:29.770 line:15%
I love period projects, because you can really paint,
238
00:10:29.770 --> 00:10:33.260
you can really like, evoke a different era, different time,
239
00:10:33.260 --> 00:10:36.030
it's like time traveling, it's so exciting to me.
240
00:10:36.030 --> 00:10:40.550
When I was called in to interview for Boardwalk Empire,
241
00:10:40.550 --> 00:10:43.060
for the pilot that Martin Scorsese was directing,
242
00:10:43.060 --> 00:10:45.270
I was like, oh my God, I wanna do this so bad,
243
00:10:45.270 --> 00:10:47.570
I wanna work with Martin Scorsese, God.
244
00:10:47.570 --> 00:10:49.940
I did research like I've never done before.
245
00:10:49.940 --> 00:10:52.200
When I was called in, to come in for an interview,
246
00:10:52.200 --> 00:10:56.290
I had pages and pages and pages of research
247
00:10:56.290 --> 00:10:58.500
of my suffragettes about the time period,
248
00:10:58.500 --> 00:11:00.520
about the politicians at that time.
249
00:11:00.520 --> 00:11:02.640
So I went in for the interview,
250
00:11:02.640 --> 00:11:04.260
and, you know I nailed it,
251
00:11:04.260 --> 00:11:06.880
because I guess, I just had the best research.
252
00:11:06.880 --> 00:11:09.120
Martin is an incredible collaborator,
253
00:11:09.120 --> 00:11:10.810
that was the first time I worked with him.
254
00:11:10.810 --> 00:11:14.630
I mean, he was so serious about every little detail.
255
00:11:14.630 --> 00:11:17.430
And that's what makes him really such a great filmmaker.
256
00:11:17.430 --> 00:11:19.100
In the case of Boardwalk Empire,
257
00:11:19.100 --> 00:11:21.770
he showed us Splendor in the Grass.
258
00:11:21.770 --> 00:11:23.370
I wasn't quite sure, why he would show us,
259
00:11:23.370 --> 00:11:24.203
Splendor in the Grass,
260
00:11:24.203 --> 00:11:26.080
because it wasn't really the right period.
261
00:11:26.080 --> 00:11:28.300
What he came down to, is that he said,
262
00:11:28.300 --> 00:11:31.640
see this big scenes, see all these background people,
263
00:11:31.640 --> 00:11:33.760
the one very back in that corner,
264
00:11:33.760 --> 00:11:36.430
the person looks great, the person looks perfect,
265
00:11:36.430 --> 00:11:39.740
and I wanna make sure, that on Boardwalk Empire,
266
00:11:39.740 --> 00:11:42.380
that every single background person
267
00:11:42.380 --> 00:11:44.380
is treated like a principal actor,
268
00:11:44.380 --> 00:11:45.730
because they have to look perfect,
269
00:11:45.730 --> 00:11:47.210
because if they don't look perfect,
270
00:11:47.210 --> 00:11:48.710
the whole picture won't look perfect.
271
00:11:48.710 --> 00:11:50.910
And that really taught me a huge lesson,
272
00:11:50.910 --> 00:11:53.270
when you do a big period movie,
273
00:11:53.270 --> 00:11:54.390
you really have to make sure,
274
00:11:54.390 --> 00:11:57.410
that every single detail is perfect.
275
00:11:57.410 --> 00:11:59.770 line:15%
Y'all remember Jimmy Darmody,
276
00:11:59.770 --> 00:12:00.603 line:15%
[crowd murmuring]
277
00:12:00.603 --> 00:12:01.740 line:15%
Welcome back kid.
278
00:12:01.740 --> 00:12:04.660 line:15%
Gave him handsel I heard, sure did.
279
00:12:04.660 --> 00:12:07.130
You do realize if you choose to join us,
280
00:12:07.130 --> 00:12:09.450
the work will be hard and the hours long,
281
00:12:09.450 --> 00:12:11.660
the results slow and agonizing,
282
00:12:11.660 --> 00:12:14.250
and we will see no shortage of [indistinct]
283
00:12:14.250 --> 00:12:15.800
at our own hands.
284
00:12:15.800 --> 00:12:16.810
But the rewards.
285
00:12:16.810 --> 00:12:20.350
When I started prepping for The Knick,
286
00:12:20.350 --> 00:12:23.750
I pulled together photographs of paintings
287
00:12:23.750 --> 00:12:28.750
from American realists like Sargent and Eakins,
288
00:12:28.820 --> 00:12:32.350
who was really famous for these beautiful paintings
289
00:12:32.350 --> 00:12:35.530
of hospital theaters where all the doctors would sit
290
00:12:35.530 --> 00:12:39.060
in arena like settings where the surgeries would take place.
291
00:12:39.060 --> 00:12:41.530
So I collected all these paintings,
292
00:12:41.530 --> 00:12:44.050
and I invited my core team,
293
00:12:44.050 --> 00:12:48.570
and for a week we tried to copy these portraits,
294
00:12:48.570 --> 00:12:53.570
to learn about color, tones, highlights, lowlights,
295
00:12:54.550 --> 00:12:59.080
the mood, so we can take that and translate it
296
00:12:59.080 --> 00:13:01.760
onto our actors, by making them up,
297
00:13:01.760 --> 00:13:03.770
just like a painter would on the portrait.
298
00:13:03.770 --> 00:13:06.100
The tools that we used on The Knick and the makeup,
299
00:13:06.100 --> 00:13:09.000
we try to really replicate products
300
00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:11.980
that women use back then, we got beeswax,
301
00:13:11.980 --> 00:13:14.600
we had a juicer, we made our own mascara.
302
00:13:14.600 --> 00:13:18.520
So we try to keep everything as natural toned as possible,
303
00:13:18.520 --> 00:13:21.480
no crazy colors, just really colors and hues
304
00:13:21.480 --> 00:13:24.710
that were available back then and in nature.
305
00:13:24.710 --> 00:13:27.700
When the blast of war blows in our ears,
306
00:13:27.700 --> 00:13:29.930
then imitate the action of the tiger,
307
00:13:29.930 --> 00:13:30.930
Shakespeare.
308
00:13:30.930 --> 00:13:33.950 line:15%
Your majesty, Mr. Phineas T. Barnum,
309
00:13:33.950 --> 00:13:37.730 line:15%
and his oddities from America!
310
00:13:37.730 --> 00:13:40.330 line:15%
When we started on The Greatest Showman,
311
00:13:40.330 --> 00:13:45.060 line:15%
which was my most favorite job ever.
312
00:13:45.060 --> 00:13:49.290
Personally, I'm still depressed that I'm not working on it,
313
00:13:49.290 --> 00:13:53.070
that it couldn't go on forever, but I gotta let that go.
314
00:13:53.070 --> 00:13:55.180
When we started on The Greatest Showman,
315
00:13:55.180 --> 00:13:58.210
I started doing a lot of research about that time period,
316
00:13:58.210 --> 00:14:00.040
about all the oddities,
317
00:14:00.040 --> 00:14:02.560
and I put a great research book together.
318
00:14:02.560 --> 00:14:05.650
And then when Jerry Popolis, the hair designer and I,
319
00:14:05.650 --> 00:14:08.620
went to have our meeting with Michael Gracey,
320
00:14:08.620 --> 00:14:12.430
love him director, the best, oh my God!
321
00:14:12.430 --> 00:14:13.710
We were like ready to show him,
322
00:14:13.710 --> 00:14:16.320
all this great research we had, and he's like,
323
00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:18.800
we're not gonna do period.
324
00:14:18.800 --> 00:14:20.820
And we're like, oh, we're not?
325
00:14:20.820 --> 00:14:21.670
Okay!
326
00:14:21.670 --> 00:14:24.810
So he basically told us, what I want for this movie,
327
00:14:24.810 --> 00:14:27.230
I want it to be period inspired,
328
00:14:27.230 --> 00:14:30.030
but I want it to be like a crazy fashion show.
329
00:14:30.030 --> 00:14:34.630
And Jerry and I were like, oh my God, this is amazing,
330
00:14:34.630 --> 00:14:35.850
cause that's our strength,
331
00:14:35.850 --> 00:14:38.090
we can do period, we can do fashion.
332
00:14:38.090 --> 00:14:39.980
And this is like the perfect marriage,
333
00:14:39.980 --> 00:14:41.800
of two things that we're really good at,
334
00:14:41.800 --> 00:14:44.650
that really excites us, it's super challenging,
335
00:14:44.650 --> 00:14:48.030
but it's also so creative, it was amazing.
336
00:14:48.030 --> 00:14:50.640
So rather than doing a lot of prosthetics
337
00:14:50.640 --> 00:14:52.320
to make it authentic,
338
00:14:52.320 --> 00:14:55.800
we wanted to show the beauty in them,
339
00:14:55.800 --> 00:14:58.750
rather than the sad ugliness.
340
00:14:58.750 --> 00:15:01.290
And some of these looks were really challenging,
341
00:15:01.290 --> 00:15:03.210
for example, Dog Boy,
342
00:15:03.210 --> 00:15:05.470
we had to build like all these hair pieces,
343
00:15:05.470 --> 00:15:07.110
and then glue in his face,
344
00:15:07.110 --> 00:15:09.130
and incorporate them with a wig and everything.
345
00:15:09.130 --> 00:15:11.420
For example, the tattooed guy,
346
00:15:11.420 --> 00:15:13.770
which we all know what he really looked like,
347
00:15:13.770 --> 00:15:16.950
because he did exist, Prince Constantine, as he was called,
348
00:15:16.950 --> 00:15:18.740
we had to make a suit for him,
349
00:15:18.740 --> 00:15:21.350
because we couldn't put transfers on him everyday,
350
00:15:21.350 --> 00:15:22.930
because his skin couldn't have handled it,
351
00:15:22.930 --> 00:15:24.820
and besides, it would have taken us hours and hours,
352
00:15:24.820 --> 00:15:26.800
just to cover his body in tattoos.
353
00:15:26.800 --> 00:15:29.750
Everything we did was like, handmade,
354
00:15:29.750 --> 00:15:33.790
Michael gave us such an amazing freedom to create,
355
00:15:33.790 --> 00:15:37.510
which I so appreciated and was incredible.
356
00:15:37.510 --> 00:15:38.940
Did I tell you guys,
357
00:15:38.940 --> 00:15:40.940 line:15%
that I really loved working on that job.
358
00:15:45.740 --> 00:15:47.480
Come on, Murray.
359
00:15:47.480 --> 00:15:50.560
Do I look like the kinda clown that could start a movement?
360
00:15:50.560 --> 00:15:52.793
I killed those guys because they were awful.
361
00:15:53.730 --> 00:15:56.330
Everybody is awful these days.
362
00:15:56.330 --> 00:15:58.570
It's enough to make anyone crazy.
363
00:15:58.570 --> 00:16:02.700
Joker was a really challenging job,
364
00:16:02.700 --> 00:16:06.130
we met with Todd, and we were talking about Joaquin,
365
00:16:06.130 --> 00:16:08.520
not only what the look is going to be like,
366
00:16:08.520 --> 00:16:10.890
but how to best deal with Joaquin,
367
00:16:10.890 --> 00:16:14.150
cause he's gonna have a really hard role to play.
368
00:16:14.150 --> 00:16:18.800
And so Todd showed us a photo of what they came up with,
369
00:16:18.800 --> 00:16:21.167
they thought Joker should look like.
370
00:16:21.167 --> 00:16:24.230
And it was basically the working clown look,
371
00:16:24.230 --> 00:16:26.290
which is a very simple look.
372
00:16:26.290 --> 00:16:31.290
And from that, look, we need to evolve him into Joker,
373
00:16:31.300 --> 00:16:34.280
which is like a version of that working clown look,
374
00:16:34.280 --> 00:16:39.280
but a very kind of distraught, messy, wilder version of it.
375
00:16:39.430 --> 00:16:42.280
And it's a little different to take a photograph
376
00:16:42.280 --> 00:16:47.280
and trying to replicate a design on a picture onto a person,
377
00:16:47.810 --> 00:16:51.110
because sometimes certain colors may not work
378
00:16:51.110 --> 00:16:52.960
or the sizing may not work.
379
00:16:52.960 --> 00:16:55.490
So you really have to play and work out,
380
00:16:55.490 --> 00:16:57.630
what the final design will be,
381
00:16:57.630 --> 00:16:59.900
and so what we did is like we had Joaquin,
382
00:16:59.900 --> 00:17:02.040
coming for a couple of weeks,
383
00:17:02.040 --> 00:17:04.740
to basically just play with the makeup,
384
00:17:04.740 --> 00:17:06.900
until we got where we all felt like,
385
00:17:06.900 --> 00:17:08.390
this is the right look.
386
00:17:08.390 --> 00:17:12.310
Again, this was a really amazing collaboration project,
387
00:17:12.310 --> 00:17:16.780
Todd, Joaquin and I, coming up with this really cool look,
388
00:17:16.780 --> 00:17:20.230
you starred him as Arthur fleck, the working clown,
389
00:17:20.230 --> 00:17:22.480
and then slowly throughout the movie,
390
00:17:22.480 --> 00:17:24.670
he gets degraded, degraded, degraded,
391
00:17:24.670 --> 00:17:26.480
and then turns into the Joker,
392
00:17:26.480 --> 00:17:29.660
which is the final mad makeup look,
393
00:17:29.660 --> 00:17:32.620
which in itself had a lot of different stages as well,
394
00:17:32.620 --> 00:17:36.200
like being smeared, running away from the cops,
395
00:17:36.200 --> 00:17:40.730
arriving in Murray Franklin Show, killing Murray Franklin,
396
00:17:40.730 --> 00:17:43.300
then being taken away in the police car, having car crash,
397
00:17:43.300 --> 00:17:45.120
and then, the resurrection.
398
00:17:45.120 --> 00:17:47.900
So these are all different stages within the same look.
399
00:17:47.900 --> 00:17:51.060
And that was really hard in terms of like continuity,
400
00:17:51.060 --> 00:17:53.440
because when you shoot a film,
401
00:17:53.440 --> 00:17:55.770
you don't really shoot scene one,
402
00:17:55.770 --> 00:17:57.400
and then you shoot scene two, three,
403
00:17:57.400 --> 00:18:00.530
we always shoot totally out of sequence.
404
00:18:00.530 --> 00:18:01.760
That means one day,
405
00:18:01.760 --> 00:18:03.760
we actually started with the working look,
406
00:18:03.760 --> 00:18:06.200
and then we did a Joker look,
407
00:18:06.200 --> 00:18:08.440
in the middle of the Joker script,
408
00:18:08.440 --> 00:18:11.720
where we hadn't had shot anything yet,
409
00:18:11.720 --> 00:18:12.660
we weren't quite sure,
410
00:18:12.660 --> 00:18:13.710
we're gonna do it like that,
411
00:18:13.710 --> 00:18:15.540
and it's really hard when you work that way,
412
00:18:15.540 --> 00:18:18.640
because you have to be incredibly organized,
413
00:18:18.640 --> 00:18:20.770
you have to match everything you're doing,
414
00:18:20.770 --> 00:18:22.510
you have to go backwards forwards,
415
00:18:22.510 --> 00:18:23.810
you need to know what's gonna come,
416
00:18:23.810 --> 00:18:25.490
even though you haven't done it yet,
417
00:18:25.490 --> 00:18:27.560
so it was really challenging.
418
00:18:27.560 --> 00:18:31.210
Joaquin was really incredible, and the strategic way
419
00:18:31.210 --> 00:18:33.360
of keeping his makeup messy,
420
00:18:33.360 --> 00:18:35.170
throughout the filming processes is that,
421
00:18:35.170 --> 00:18:37.600
I had to use different products
422
00:18:37.600 --> 00:18:39.730
that look the same when you put them on
423
00:18:39.730 --> 00:18:42.610
but have a different life on the skin,
424
00:18:42.610 --> 00:18:45.140
meaning sometimes I needed the makeup,
425
00:18:45.140 --> 00:18:48.630
to be able to smear, when he touches it would smear,
426
00:18:48.630 --> 00:18:52.700
and sometimes I needed it to be staying put
427
00:18:52.700 --> 00:18:54.880
that even if he brushes up against something,
428
00:18:54.880 --> 00:18:56.780
or touches it, that it won't move.
429
00:18:56.780 --> 00:18:59.150
And I needed that because of continuity reasons,
430
00:18:59.150 --> 00:19:02.340
so I wouldn't have to constantly reset it.
431
00:19:02.340 --> 00:19:03.870
There's this one scene,
432
00:19:03.870 --> 00:19:07.200
the bathroom scene when after he kills this subway guys,
433
00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:10.830
he runs into this bathroom and he does this incredible dance
434
00:19:10.830 --> 00:19:14.320
and he's all smeared, so I had to match that smeared thing,
435
00:19:14.320 --> 00:19:15.680
from when he shoots the subway guys,
436
00:19:15.680 --> 00:19:16.980
but we shot this subway scene,
437
00:19:16.980 --> 00:19:18.930
after we did the bathroom scene
438
00:19:18.930 --> 00:19:21.990
so I kinda had to make sure that I take a lot of pictures,
439
00:19:21.990 --> 00:19:23.450
so I can recreate something
440
00:19:23.450 --> 00:19:26.800
that we haven't done yet, basically, right?
441
00:19:26.800 --> 00:19:28.530
But in that bathroom scene,
442
00:19:28.530 --> 00:19:31.640
he not only dances but the scene goes on,
443
00:19:31.640 --> 00:19:33.800
which was cut out later from the movie,
444
00:19:33.800 --> 00:19:35.810
where he goes to the sink and washes off his face,
445
00:19:35.810 --> 00:19:37.040
and it was all one shot,
446
00:19:37.040 --> 00:19:40.790
so I had to redo it, like I think 16 times,
447
00:19:40.790 --> 00:19:43.520
comes in, does the dance, washes his face, cut,
448
00:19:43.520 --> 00:19:45.890
okay, reset, I had five minutes to do it.
449
00:19:45.890 --> 00:19:48.620
Do the makeup again, watching my pictures that I took
450
00:19:48.620 --> 00:19:50.840
to make sure that I copied exactly the same
451
00:19:50.840 --> 00:19:52.860
and then doing it over and over and over.
452
00:19:52.860 --> 00:19:57.000
So I had to use makeup that is really easy to wipe off
453
00:19:57.000 --> 00:19:59.330
or wash off, so I could reset it,
454
00:19:59.330 --> 00:20:00.940
but there's other times when he's in the subway,
455
00:20:00.940 --> 00:20:03.800
I had to use makeup that had to look smeared,
456
00:20:03.800 --> 00:20:04.890
but it had to be waterproof,
457
00:20:04.890 --> 00:20:06.760
so I wouldn't have to reset it all the time
458
00:20:06.760 --> 00:20:08.090
because it would just take too long.
459
00:20:08.090 --> 00:20:10.710
If I had to go in between every single take
460
00:20:10.710 --> 00:20:11.920
to fix things differently,
461
00:20:11.920 --> 00:20:13.360
it would have taken too long.
462
00:20:13.360 --> 00:20:15.770
Joaquin would have never let me do it in the first place,
463
00:20:15.770 --> 00:20:18.360
so I had to be really creative with the materials I used.
464
00:20:18.360 --> 00:20:20.980
It was a really wild experience I had,
465
00:20:20.980 --> 00:20:24.600
working on a job like that, creating such an iconic look,
466
00:20:24.600 --> 00:20:26.260
that was wild.
467
00:20:26.260 --> 00:20:28.280
Yeah, it was really wild and difficult
468
00:20:28.280 --> 00:20:30.270
and interesting and exciting.
469
00:20:30.270 --> 00:20:33.020
I'm really blessed with the projects that I worked on.
470
00:20:33.020 --> 00:20:36.430
When you find a crew that is very good in collaborating,
471
00:20:36.430 --> 00:20:38.270
a kind of is infectious,
472
00:20:38.270 --> 00:20:40.510
I find it also incredibly exciting,
473
00:20:40.510 --> 00:20:41.920
and I'm really looking forward
474
00:20:41.920 --> 00:20:43.898
to see what will come next.
475
00:20:43.898 --> 00:20:46.481
[gentle music]