Interview: The Hair and Makeup Team of ‘Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3’ Discuss Breaking a World Record

*Warning: the following interview contains MAJOR SPOILERS for Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol.3. Proceed at your own risk.*

James Gunn‘s Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 has broken a world record held by Ron Howard‘s How the Grinch Stole Christmas for the most prosthetics used in a movie, with over 22,500 prosthetic appliances used on over 100 actors and 1,000 background artists. Speaking to Awards Radar on Zoom, Makeup Department Head Alexei Dmitriew explained that he did not know they were setting a world record while working on the movie, as he was accustomed to having collaborated on previous Marvel films:

“As we were getting hired, everyone kept telling us, “This is going to be a huge show.” But on every Marvel movie, everyone goes, “This is a huge show,” and you’re like, “Alright, cool.” But once we got into it, we were like, “Oh, snap. They weren’t lying. This is a huge show.” I didn’t know we had broken a world record until we saw James tweet about it, and that’s when everyone was like, “Oh, my gosh, look at what we’re doing!” And we were in the thick of it at that time. We knew it was a lot because every day, we had up to 150 hair and makeup people applying, doing makeup and hair, just day in and day out. We knew it was a lot, but we didn’t know how big it was until James sent that tweet.”

Hair Department Head Cassie Russek expressed her excitement when she saw James’s tweet:

“As Alexei said, we were in the thick of it, and I think it was right when we were starting the humanimals, and we all saw that tweet. And we were like, “Yeah, that makes sense. It does sound like we are doing that.” There was a lot of prep and tests involved. James likes to test everything and see everything on camera before we shoot it. It was great because we were as organized as possible and prepared to set up everyone for success.”

Russek also discussed her collaboration with director James Gunn on the movie and stated that “he is so fun to work with. We would have characters we would parade in to show everyone, and you could hear these collective, “Oh my gosh, look at that.” And James just comes up with his phone, and he’s snapping pictures and going, “Oh my god, guy, this is so fun!” It’s great that he gets excited because we are all excited. He’s such a fun collaborator, we had so much time to do presentations. Even if we couldn’t do a presentation on a person, we would bring out all the wigs and present them to him. He would get so excited about what he was seeing. He also knows everything about each character. If there ever was a question about why a character will look the way they do, he will tell you why because he knows the backstory to everything.”

On expanding the main characters’ looks through the makeup, Dmitriew explained that the makeup department has to stay true to the characters while making a few adjustments along the way:

“Through the years, everybody’s face changes a little bit, so we had to approach everything from that aspect to make sure it looked exactly how it was, but with the correct technical update, it needed. From a makeup standpoint, Nebula [Karen Gillan] got the biggest change, because Rocket [Bradley Cooper] has been helping her. They have had a really tight connection since Avengers: Endgame. She no longer has the metal part along the left side of her head. This is the first time in this movie that we see a Nebula without a metal plate and with an eyebrow. It’s the same look, but it’s just a little bit different. But she had the most updated look out of all of the Guardians.”

On designing the character of The High Evolutionary [Chukwudi Iwuji] through his two stages, Dmitriew explained that, through the makeup department, “it was always the second stage that was discussed. We didn’t know if it would just be him for the first stage, but we loved the idea of the recorder guards. He had his tech on the side of his head, which helped set the guards aside. We thought it was a really cool idea, and I remember pitching it to Legacy Effects and to James. When we did a camera test, James thought it looked super cool. That helped him set the character’s tone because he is experimenting with himself through that technology. He’s touching it up and figures it out as he goes. It was a really cool design and thought process that we stuck with after doing the camera tests.”

For the hair department, Russek explained that they “wanted to make sure that Chuk stood out as a very unique villain. The first stage was cool because of the tech piece, so we needed to clear any hair that was going to be around that tech piece just so that it could look polished and perfect. We wanted to create something super cool that he looked good in and that Chuk liked but could also be different from any other villain.”

So how about the moment where the Guardians rip The High Evolutionary’s face off and reveal what he actually looks like? Was it prosthetics or CGI? Alexei Dmitriew said it was “a great mix of both!”

“We did a full makeup on him with this really cool denture piece that would carry his upper lip. All of that was practical. We had a practical face that we would dress with blood and everything of the sort. The only visual effects were where his eyes sunk in and his nose got pushed in. We blocked that out for visual effects, and they did their work. But when they peeled his face off, all of that was practical. With every take, we were set to get the face back on and dress it with some slimy blood underneath it.”

Dmitriew added that “one of the harder makeups we did for this film was the second stage of The High Evolutionary because James really wanted to make sure that Chuk’s face was visible throughout the whole thing. We had to see all of the motion and nuances of his face, so we took some unconventional places to put the prosthetics on his face. That was a bit of a challenge with where we placed everything and how we built the prosthetic to ensure we see Chuk, but I was really happy with the result.”

On designing the look for Adam Warlock [Will Poulter], Cassie Russek discussed that the hair department “researched the ever-loving daylights out of the comic just to ensure we had everything. I had photos upon photos printed out and even fan art. We made a book so that we could go through it and see what everyone likes and what we could do to make it look like the comic. It was very important to test the hair color. I was in my kitchen going through different gold paints and different gold colors so I could nail it before we got to designing the character. It was a lot of prep and testing.

We got to spend a lot of time with Will to create that look. He went through the process every four weeks, through a three-hour hair color process, because we lifted his hair to be very blonde. When we put the gold on his hair, it would be golden. We were lifting in and putting the gold in the hairline to ensure everything read perfectly. We also got his hair golden through a gold spray we created. He was such a trooper through the whole process because he went through a lot of hair and makeup but did great.”

There was a lot to talk about in this interview, and even more topics to discuss in the audio conversation, such as crafting the looks of the Orgosphere, the humanimals in Counter-Earth, and reimagining the look of Gamora [Zoe Saldaña] as a Ravager.

You can listen to the full conversation below and see Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 exclusively in theatres:

[Some quotes in the article have been edited for length and clarity]