'Wicked' make-up, hair designer on re-inventing green and Cynthia Erivo's nails

It was a discontinued tube of green eyeshadow, only available in Canada, that ended up unlocking one of the most iconic visuals in Wicked – Jon M Chu’s sprawling film adaptation of the hit stage musical which has already passed $500m at the box office for Universal.

“I stumbled upon it in my search,” explains the film’s make-up and hair designer Frances Hannon. “We just tried a little bit of it, because I didn’t even have enough for the overall skin, and it just worked no matter what light I walked through. It became the inspiration for Elphaba’s green.”

The designer, a frequent Wes Anderson collaborator and previous Oscar winner for The Grand Budapest Hotel, was no stranger to the musical, having taken her two daughters “many, many times”. So, when the opportunity to reunite with Chu, following 2016’s Now You See Me 2, came along “it was like a gift from God” she says.

“There’s stuff you can get away with in a theatre production [make-up wise] because of the distance,” Hannon says of drawing from the Broadway and West End shows. “But [Chu] wanted everything to shoot up close-up so green skin had to look like green skin.”

Discovering green

The hunt for the perfect green began long before Cynthia Erivo was even in the country for rehearsals, which began late in 2022. Several models with matching skin tones helped Hannon test a variety of different greens in all different lights.

“The [right colour] just didn’t exist,” she admits. “Sometimes the models would walk into a shadow and they'd look grey rather than green. Then they'd walk into a different colour light and it would change again, but it wouldn't look green. So, we had to design and discover a new colour.”

The discontinued product from Canada had the fluorescent quality Hannon needed but it still was not quite the right shade or, of course, quantity. Respected make-up manufacturer David Stoneman was called in to create a new formula using the eye colour and a mix of several other greens.

“Then we found small bottles worked better than large so [Stoneman] had to make it up more regularly and we were using many, many bottles,” Hannon continues. “It was quite the science.”

Transforming Erivo each day also became a science when production began at the UK’s Sky Studios Elstree, with the team working hard to get it “down to two hours and 15 minutes”. Green was usually only applied to the face, neck, arms and hands while costumes were often lined with green fabric to give the illusion of skin. As Hannon stresses: “You always want to take into account what adding to the look may take away from the production.”

Nailed it

Then came building out the rest of Erivo’s look. After early test shoots proved that black wigs were too stark against Elphaba’s green, dark browns were used to warm up the hair. Three or four braiders spent between seven to 11 days braiding each of the four wigs Erivo wears across Part One and Part Two of the films, which shot back-to-back between November 2022 to July 2023 before pausing for the strikes and resuming in January 2024.

“The braids got looser and the hair longer and darker as the story progresses,” Hannon reveals. “It was about showing she’d gained a sense of being and sense of freedom in every way.”

As well as Elphaba’s hair, her nails grow longer and more personable too. It is part of the look that Erivo - a nail enthusiast herself as has been showcased on the film’s press tour - was heavily involved in. “[The nails] were always there in The Wizard Of Oz and the Wicked stage show but Cynthia really brought them to life and brought her story into them,” says Hannon.

Pretty as a Princess

It was important that Ariana Grande, who shares the screen frequently with Erivo as the fuchsia-enthused antithesis Glinda, incorporated that same reflective glow in her make-up “as it was much easier to light the two girls next to each other”.

“We used this opalescent foundation on [Grande] that had this very light, subtle reflective quality to it and matched so well next to [Erivo],” Hannon continued.

That subtly was the key to Glinda’s look. Grace Kelly had provided an early inspiration, with her quaffed waves and understated flourishes. “It was about keeping her accessible and soft but also giving her a beautiful princess-like quality,” explains Hannon.

Grande added touches of her own make-up from her brand R.E.M, and of course the singer’s several hand tattoos were religiously painted over every day, but it was Hannon who opted for accentuated eyelashes “We wanted her to have these big, doe eyes,” she says. “It was all about creating this fairy likeness about her.”

While Grande wore wigs throughout production, her real hair was also dyed blonde, including her eyebrows. “Ariana is naturally very dark haired with very dark eyebrows, so it added much more depth if her own hair was blonde, as opposed to using a plastic white cover,” explains Hannon, who adds that her hair had to be dyed quite frequently.

“We started her with a warmer blonde and slightly shorter hair,” she continues. “And then as she progressed to be Glinda in the bubble, we went for a much longer blonde and paler.

“But for every style, it was about ensuring anybody would be able to [replicate the look for] themselves if they wanted to. None of our lead principles were removed from what could be everyday life.”

Elsewhere

Not surprisingly, research drew heavily from the original stage production as well as 1939’s The Wizard Of Oz and both of the original book series. But it also came from more unexpected places too. “I used buildings like the Leaning Tower of Pisa for the Emerald City scenes,” Hannon reveals of the green-tinged cosmopolitan hub of Oz.

“Emerald City is very tall and thin, so I carried that through into the hair of the background actors with these statuesque hair styles that were sometimes leaning slightly to one side.”

In fact, care was taken with the look of each and every background actor to maximise the “world building” of all the Wicked locations – whether it be the sharp architecture of the Emerald City or the earthy oranges of Munchkin land.

“Often the story is told more with the background characters,” explains Hannon. “When you have just one or two principles, you can never really give [the film] a proper foundation.

Hannon is full of praise for the film’s production designer Nathan Crowley and costume designer Paul Tazewell with whom she worked closely with on the overall aesthetics. “It was one of the best working experiences of my life,” she gushes. “Everything worked so well to complement each other.

“We tried to give it a quality so that in 30, 40, years’ time, people will watch our Wicked and it will look timeless.”