Frances Hannon’s ‘Wicked’ makeup and hair magic: From Elphaba’s complexion to Galinda’s ‘old Hollywood’ glam

“ I feel so lucky to be nominated, by your peers, particularly to this stage. So it’s a wonderful recognition of some very hard and unusual work I feel,” Frances Hannon says of her Oscar nomination for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for Wicked. It’s her second nomination in the category, following her victory a decade ago for The Grand Budapest Hotel.

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“It is entirely fresh in its own way,” Hannon says about her Wicked work, though she does nod to the stage musical and the 1939 classic film The Wizard of Oz. “One of our nods towards it was for the braid that Elphaba has. We used that in the opening of the film, and it worked perfectly in that occasion.” From the much earlier Wizard of Oz film, “we took the nails from Margaret [Hamilton] — you know, the original very long silhouettes that they did then. But as you can tell, we didn’t use the original green imagery from that witch, because it wasn’t where [director Jon M. Chu] wanted us to be, or any of us wanted us to be, with the story that he wanted to tell about Wicked.” Watch the new featurette featuring Hannon above, and our complete video interview below.

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For Cynthia Erivo‘s role as Elphaba, “ the main thing, of course, is making the green skin look real and not look face painted. … I worked really hard with trying to crack the green skin, really.” Using a neon yellow base color, “we came up with a product that made Cynthia’s skin look very reflective.” From there, “ we work very much on the surface with contouring and freckles and tattoo transfers for her eyebrows because Cynthia shaves hers. And really to embed the green. And I think in every single frame, it worked within the film. And of course, then we had the small challenges of it not transferring onto Galinda, lasting a 12 hour day, not running with sweat or tears.”

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To contrast Elphaba with Galinda (played by Ariana Grande), Hannon and her team gave Grande an “old Hollywood” look. “ We kept her makeup really simple, very accessible. We wanted everybody to be able to relate to the characters, very much something that Jon had asked for. And quite iridescent or opalescent so that she had her own reflective quality.” So when they both appeared on camera, “ the balance with the lighting worked extremely well, with Alice Brooks‘ lighting.” And the work with Erivo and Grande was highly collaborative. “Every single day, the artists would say, I see her as this today for this scene, you know? I just lay out the basic plan and supply all the goods, and Cynthia might take the lipstick she felt like wearing that day, add to the depth of the eyes. Ari likewise might change her lipstick, or add a clip in her hair, it was always her look. Everything the artist brings to the table is paramount to have the stories told visually.”

There were a lot of artists at this particular table with “ 88 speaking parts, and we had 3,500 supporting artists roughly, and 98 percent of those people wore wigs or fake hair or facial of some kind within the story, so it was certainly the biggest film I’ve ever worked on and the biggest challenge,” she admits. “And I think one of the big challenges was to find all the different worlds within Oz, but make them all be believable and real and all connect to each other.” She found inspiration “ in everything in nature, you find it in buildings, you find it in the sets, and just to bring it all and make all these different worlds, but actually make the story all link and be believable and make it timeless was really important.” Achieving timelessness was especially critical for Hannon, “ so in 50 years when people are still watching it, they’ll still be involved and love it and it won’t be pushed away by being dated from any artistic point of view.”

Defying gravity and standing the test of time.

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