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Nikki Gooley: Making Memorable Faces

High Pressure Atmosphere

Whether she’s transforming an actress into an otherworldly kind of beauty or creating elaborate hairstyles from fantastical concept drawings, Episode III Makeup Supervisor Nikki Gooley understands all too well the magical qualities of makeup and hairpieces.

Working as a makeup artist and hair designer in such films as The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Matrix, Queen of the Damned and Peter Pan, Gooley has a special knack for using makeup and hair to add dimension and personality to a character whether it be an iconic children’s character or a terrifying vampire.

For Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Gooley and her team found themselves guiding the look of Hayden Christensen as he made the metamorphosis into Darth Vader, as well as perfecting the intricate hairpieces and headdresses for Natalie Portman, not to mention numerous Senators who needed constant primping and preening.

With all the characters who needed complicated makeup and hairstyles, it’s not surprising that Gooley and her team, who arrived on the Sydney set during pre-production eight weeks before filming, would be at the set each day long before most of the cast and crew, and stayed for hours after filming to prepare for the next day’s shooting.

“As a makeup artist and running a department, we start very early in the morning,” Gooley explains. “If they want to start filming at 7:30 in the morning it might take an actor hours, not just with makeup, but they have to get dressed, and fed, and rehearse and everything. Often we’re there from like 5:00 in the morning through until after the filming’s finished. We have to clean everybody up and put everything away and then set up for the next day. We work maybe 14, sometimes 16 hours a day, five days a week. And if you’re on location, it can be six days a week.”

Timing is everything, especially if you only have an actor sitting in the makeup chair for a set amount of time before he or she is asked to be on the set. Because of these stopwatch deadlines, Gooley had to master the art of time management in an extremely busy situation.

“We would tell the Assistant Directors how long we need to do a hairdo or a makeup,” Gooley says. “If we say an hour, that’s fine, that’ll give us an hour. But then after that hour the ADs would schedule something else for the actor, whether it be breakfast or rehearsal. If the actors needed to be on set at 8:30, they have to be there at 8:30. And sometimes if the set is ready earlier then they might try and squeeze them on earlier; which means if the hair and makeup ends up taking an hour and a half, I can’t go past the time limit. I have to say, okay that’s the hour, ready or not. So we often need to use shortcuts if something’s taken a little longer than is anticipated so that we can fix it on set and buy time somewhere else later on.”

It’s exactly this kind of high pressure atmosphere that keeps Gooley on her toes, making for a rather interesting work environment.

“Nobody realizes how tough the hours and demands are — it’s relentless,” Gooley confesses. “Once you’re here at work you can’t always take the usual lunch or dinner breaks. If something needs to be done then that needs to be done no matter what. And if it’s not finished by 6:00 p.m., when you think it’s knock-off time, well then that’s your tough luck. You need to stay until it’s finished which can sometimes be at 11:00 p.m. There are a lot of demands on people. So if it’s not really in your blood, then I think a lot of people have a hard time coping with it.”

Hair Today, Vader Tomorrow

One of the first projects Gooley and her team encountered on the Sydney set involved not only implementing the changes in Anakin Skywalker’s appearance as he was last seen in Attack of the Clones, but also accurately portraying his stunning transformation as Darth Vader.

“We had to keep him very handsome and strong,” Gooley reveals. “So to go from the short hair, younger Anakin to the older more mature Anakin we wanted him to look slightly older in the face so that it was an easier transformation into the darker Darth Vader.”

Director George Lucas could be spotted in the makeup and hair department monitoring Gooley’s progress and offering his ideas regarding Anakin’s new look.

“George is a very interactive director when it comes to hair,” Gooley smiles. “I think he had a very strong image in his head, and there were very detailed concept drawings of how Hayden should look. Sometimes it’s very difficult to make a drawing come to life because there are other people involved. The actor has to have his say, or in the texture of the hair may be different than expected, or it doesn’t resemble how it looks in the drawing. But we were fortunate enough with Hayden. The final look just evolved from conversations with George and from George playing with it, and combing Hayden’s fringe. Plus Hayden was very definite about how he wanted his hair to sit.”

The concepts regarding Anakin’s appearance ran the gamut from a harsh Mohawk to a long pirate-like ponytail, before deciding on the final longer-hair version.

“We had made a long haired wig with a ponytail which looked great but it just wasn’t strong enough for Anakin,” Gooley explains. “Having a long ponytail would have been a little bit too swashbuckling. So it gradually got shorter and shorter, and then we arrived at the length and that was it. I think it was the right decision because it makes him look strong, it gives him a great jaw.”

After the decision with Anakin’s hair had been made, Gooley tried in vain to get different opinions of other crew members. Everyone seemed to love not only the hair, but also the actor.

“When we did some makeup tests in the beginning with Hayden, and we had the dilemma of whether we should use a short wig or go with the longer hair pieces, we’d ask the girls on set what they thought of Hayden’s hair and they’d say, ‘Oh he looks gorgeous! I love that look!’ Then we’d go and ask somebody else. And they’d reply, ‘I love him, I love him! I think he looks fabulous!’ So I think no matter what you did to Hayden, all the girls would be in love with him anyway. He’s so gorgeous.”

Original Trilogy Tie-ins

Anakin wasn’t the only character getting a new look. Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi had to begin his subtle transformation to look less like actor Ewan McGregor and more like the original trilogy actor Sir Alec Guinness.

“With Obi-Wan’s character, we had to bridge between him being quite young to matching him to the late Sir Alec Guinness,” Gooley recalls. “We decided rather than aging him to make him look a lot older, and closer to Alec, we just gave him a few little tweaks here and there. Instead of giving him a wig with gray hair, we gave Ewan some little hairpieces on the temples to make him look gray.”

Luckily for Gooley and her team, McGregor grew his own beard for the role, making many of the required hair elements easier to work with.

“He has a lot of colors in his beard as well and we were fortunate enough that there was enough time for Ewan to grow his own beard,” Gooley says. “So we didn’t have to put one on every day — which makes it more comfortable for the actor as well as it’s just easier to maintain. There’s a lot of fighting and a lot of water and sweat, so if you can be as realistic with makeup and hair for the actor, it’s a saving grace because otherwise you’re up there touching them up all the time. Having to fix and maintain a wig or a beard with glue and everything when they’re hot can be quite irritating for an actor.”

In addition to the two Jedi, Gooley and her team also concentrated on the intricate headpieces for Padmé Amidala played by Natalie Portman. The headpieces were designed and constructed by Ivo Coveney’s Costume Props Department, but had to work in concert with the hair and makeup design.

“Padmé’s various looks came about through concept drawings, and Costume Designer Trisha Biggar had had a lot of meetings and fittings with Natalie and George about her looks,” Gooley says. “So a lot of it had already developed once I came on board. Our team was left to do the fine fitting and logistics of the hairdo including the creation of a dreadlock-style piece.

“The weight of certain headpieces had to be distributed somehow, and had to fit onto Natalie’s head perfectly,” Gooley continues. “It was almost like working on a motorcar, having to make it function and be comfortable and practical but look fabulous, and not do too much damage to Natalie’s hair. And I think we escaped without too much damage. Natalie was incredible and so patient. She would just sit here for hours with sometimes over 100 pins in her head and not complain once.”

Gooley decided to approach Padmé’s makeup with a more natural look due to the lavish ornate qualities in Padmé’s costuming for Revenge of the Sith.

“Natalie as Padmé had so much going on with her costume and her hair, I tried to keep her makeup as natural as possible,” Gooley says. “I didn’t want her makeup to compete with everything that was going on, just so that her natural beauty came through. Because of Padmé’s pregnancy I wanted to give her a radiant, natural glow — that very healthy look that pregnant women have.”

Even with this new approach to less theatrical, a more natural-looking Padmé, Gooley still managed to have a little fun with the makeup and pay tribute to another sassy and beloved Star Wars heroine.

“Natalie and I played homage to Carrie Fisher with some 70’s lip gloss in the bedroom scene,” Gooley laughs. “She wakes up looking very glossy.”

A Makeup Artist’s Dream

The primary characters weren’t the only ones taking their turns in the makeup and hair chairs. Some of the more intricate makeup and hair pieces were often found on various Senators making their debut in Episode III. “We had some great fun doing some different types of makeup with the Senators,” Gooley admits. “Fang Zar, played by Warren Owens, had this fabulous big beard and hairdo that we just tied up into a top knot. Again, I think because the costumes are so elaborate it’s very important not to try and compete with them but to just let it flow. We had another Senator, Malé-dee, that had a red Mohawk, and so it was great fun. It’s a makeup artist’s dream really there were so many things we could do.

George has been very clever with his makeup ideas in the Star Wars films because there’s nothing really that can date; nothing is a trendy fashion item,” Gooley adds. “He’s been very smart with his choices to keep things very timeless so that in 10 years time, it won’t look dated.”

Though Gooley and her team work on various actors first thing in the morning and throughout the day to prepare them for the filming ahead, she also administers touch-ups on the actors throughout the day to make sure their characters look their best in between shots. But with constant powder puffs and hairbrushes being aimed at the actors, Gooley says she’s hyperaware of when to fix unruly hairpieces, and when the let the actors have their space.

“When you have to look after the actors on the set there’s a very fine line between being annoying with them and not being in there enough,” Gooley says. “I think a lot of actors like to know you’re there and they can see you. Some directors and actors want you to be in there all the time, and then there are other jobs where they like you to leave them alone. So it’s just knowing; finding out that balance, and knowing when to go in and when not to go in. I mean even if it’s a big wide shot, sometimes an actor would still like you to go in and just make sure that they’re okay. And it’s just a reassurance.”

Along with that reassurance is a level of camaraderie between the cast and crew that can be essential to a smooth and positive atmosphere.

“You’re forging a relationship there and you have time to have a joke and laugh, as well as if they’re feeling down about something, whether they’re away from home,” Gooley explains. “You get to know people as well as make sure that your work looks great and holds up against whatever it has to hold up against.”

One of the most important working relationships Gooley formed on the Sydney set was with the director.

“George deals with every department, and he has an answer for every department,” Gooley says. “Even when things go wrong and everything on set is turning bad, you look to George and he’s like ‘Okay, well we can fix it’. He’s just very calm, and I think he just knows how it is all going to fit together. He really cares about everything.”

“I felt quite privileged because I was asked to join the Star Wars family,” Gooley continues. “And that I was asked to do something that has created a culture almost. I never knew that there were websites and fans that traveled the world and went to conventions and things like that. I was completely blown away. I feel very honored to be a part of history.”