How did you come to work on The Iron Claw?
I was lucky to work on The Staircase with director/showrunner/writer Antonio Campos, who was kind enough to introduce me to Sean Durkin, Iron Claw’s director. After a FaceTime with Sean, I knew I needed to be part of this amazing project. The script was so powerful, and the actors were amazing.
What was the most important detail in nailing the look of the Von Erich brothers?
My favorite question to ask directors when creating characters based on real people is, are we going for likeness makeup, the essence of the character, or our own direction? Sean and I worked closely to determine the best course to take; we decided to get them as close as possible with characteristics, finding the essence of each character and translating that into makeup. We wanted to make sure the Von Erich brothers stayed 100% period-appropriate, so they didn’t have tattoos, and their facial hair was character and period-correct. It’s small details that go unnoticed, but in the best way because my intention with makeup like this is never to take people out of the movie or distract them from the acting.
Tell us about the tattoo cover-up process required for this project.
We knew our biggest battle was going to be covering tattoos on all of our wrestlers. .Jeremy Allen White and Harris Dickinson needed their tattoos covered every day. Our first thought was we needed to use lots of very thin layers, and we needed to seal them to outlast friction, real sweat, fake sweat, blood, and body heat. We started by color-correcting the tattoos with Bluebird ink through the airbrush. Then we went in with a lighter BB ink color to feather the edges of the color corrector and a super thin layer over the whole tattoo. After that, we went in with a color that was as true to their skin tone as possible, followed by opening up the gun with a super low pressure to create a spattering effect taught to me by Sonia Cabrera. The spattering allowed us to add freckles and texture to the skin. We even spattered over with mauve because when the body changed temperature, their skin would change. Adding the spatter on top allowed us to texture the makeup to mimic skin. The last thing we did was seal with Bluebird sealer and then Kryolan fixing spray to top it off. This multi-step process allowed us to add loads of color without it looking like makeup, and more like skin.
Did you face any challenges combining the body makeup with sweat, blood, and the friction of wrestling?
We tried our best to work through any challenges and took each match moment by moment. There were days the tattoos and makeup didn’t budge, and there were days we were touching up a lot more. Wrestling is such an insane contact sport, there was no avoiding it. There was a lot of layering involved with adding blood into the mix. When Jeremy gets extremely bloody during the leather strap match, I applied alcohol-activated blood colors from EBA and then Fleet Street drying blood and then a flow blood on top for movement. That combination allowed us to have a rough map of where we always needed to reset the blood, but adding the flow blood on top allowed it to have movement like in a real match.
As the film spans 20 years, what were the keys to aging Zac Efron’s Kevin Von Erich? Sean and I discussed not taking the aging process too far, as we didn’t want it to be distracting. Using a different wig, which was longer and colored differently by our amazing hair DH Natalie Shea Rose, did a lot of the time transition. We opted for using more moisture in his skin, as well as concealer and bronzer in his younger days. As he aged, we used a lighter moisturizer, removed the concealer, and bumped up the darkness under his eyes.
How did you transition Lily James’ makeup throughout the film?
Lily’s makeup was a lot of fun to execute. She starts young and in love, but slowly, through the tragedies in her life, her age starts to show. The colors and finishes for her cheek and lipsticks were all thanks to Gucci makeup, which was perfectly period-appropriate. For anything from a wash of color to a full ‘80s glam moment, I used the Makeup By Mario matte palette. As Lily aged, we stopped using foundation, did a hint of spot concealing, and opted for brown mascara. We changed her cheek to a mocha color as if taking a bit of life out of her face. I took it a step further after she had children and used only clear mascara, added forehead lines, crow’s feet, and other blemishes with alcohol-activated makeup from the Bluebird Character palette.
What products could you not have done this project without?
I think this film would have been impossible without Bluebird. From tattoo cover to aging makeup and some other FX we had to do, Bluebird by Allied FX was essential.
What did you enjoy most about working on The Iron Claw?
I enjoyed the creative collaboration the most. I love collaborating on creating characters and FX. From Sean Durkin, who was so open and trusting throughout this whole process, to our amazing actors, Zac, Jeremy, Harris, and Holt, our ladies Maura and Lily, they trusted my team and me to bring the overall vision to life. It’s an honor to work on characters that are based on real people who are revered and massively respected and have an entire team of people who trust your work to do the story and characters justice. Huge shoutout to my team, Courtney and Ashely. I could not have done this without their collaboration as well.
Words: Shannon Levy
Photos: Courtesy of A24 Films
