12 Unexpected Behind-The-Scenes “Stranger Things” Makeup Facts, Straight From The Show’s Makeup Artist
Fabiana Buontempo
6 min read
12 Unexpected Behind-The-Scenes “Stranger Things” Makeup Facts, Straight From The Show’s Makeup Artist
Just a few short weeks ago, the world was given the gift of Stranger Things Season 4, Vol. 1 on Netflix. There was a lot to unpack and discuss in the seven episodes, including — in my opinion — the show’s beauty looks.
Tina Rowden / Tina Rowden/Netflix / Via Netflix“Because everyone’s playing way younger than their actual age, it’s really easy to accidentally make them their own age. So we have to be really careful,” Amy told BuzzFeed.
2. However, Amy said in some instances, depending on the character and their storyline, she and her team are instructed to make some of the characters look more mature. “When we did Nancy and Robin’s look for when they went to the asylum, we were supposed to make them look older and more academic,” Amy said.
Courtesy of Netflix3. In that same scene with Nancy and Robin, Amy said it took her and her team three separate makeup trials to nail the characters’ final looks because, in each test, the actors were still “too recognizable.”
Courtesy of Netflix“I was like, ‘Well, you cast really beautiful women,'” she said. “But there is a fine line — especially in this day and age when people use social media a lot. Everybody knows what these [actors] look like in their day-to-day,” she said.
“I have to make sure that we don’t accidentally make them into them as a person — versus them as their character,” Amy continued.
One ongoing example? “I’ve been changing Natalia’s eyebrow shape since I started. I was just like, ‘You look too much like you still.’ So every new person that comes in to do her makeup, I’m always coming back in and just making a couple of tweaks [to her brows],” she said.
Tristar Media / WireImage / Via Getty Images4. Amy said it’s a collaborative process when putting a character’s beauty look together — and her team looks at a ton of sources, including old yearbooks from the time period the show is set in.
Courtesy of Amy L. Forsythe“I love collaboration. It’s how I work best. We’ll put look books together and I’ll pull inspiration from yearbook photos and magazines from the time,” she said.
5. The actors were very involved in the process of evolving their characters’ makeup looks in Season 4.
Courtesy of Amy L. Forsythe“A character like Karen Wheeler evolves because she’s going to the salon a lot, so she’s flipping through those magazines,” Amy said. “She’s watching TV and kind of bringing that into her look. She’s also got that gaggle of girls she went to the pool with — so they’re a little bit more like outsiders at Hawkins.”
6. Some actors’ looks only change in very subtle ways from season to season. “Nancy, for instance, has always been the same color palette. We just changed her lip color this year to be less of a berry and more on the coral side,” Amy said.
Netflix7. For others, the change is more noticeable. “For Robin, Maya [Hawke] and I discussed her character a lot because she wanted [her beauty looks] to be different than the previous season. In the prior one, we had only really seen her in the Scoops Troop outfit,” she said.
Netflix“The most fun I have is creating the character for the first time — and finally getting to see it come to life with all of the different parts,” Amy said.
Netflix“And then even more so when it’s a show like this, where you get to see the characters evolve.”
8. In order to see each character’s progression throughout the seasons, Amy relies on a wall of Polaroid photos.
<
blockquote>
Courtesy of Amy L. Forsythe
“Every actor prefers different brands — and every actor’s skin reacts differently to different products,” Amy said. “We’re all over the place with the brands we use — but it’s anything that has a nice satin finish.” She listed Lancome, MAC, Nars, and Fenty as some brands that are used on set.
“We don’t want them too matte and we don’t want them too shiny,” she said. “For some actors, I have to use a mattifying primer because if not, we’ll need to blot them. In person, it looks fine. But on the monitor, it can read as really oily.”
Amy L Forsythe10. For scenes where actors — like Max (played by Sadie Sink) — look like all the color has been drained from their face, Amy used a specific correcting cream to make them look intentionally washed out.
Courtesy of Netflix / Via Netflix“I use Dr. Jart+ Cicapair Tiger Grass Color Correcting Treatment on all the kids in the lab — so that all the color was out of their skin. It’s a really cool product to use. I’m not using it for its intended purpose of just canceling out redness. I’m really putting it all over their face to really cancel everything out,” she said.
11. Of all of the looks created for Season 4, Amy had several favorites. Two of them were Chrissy and Angela’s.
Amy L ForsytheAnd that was because Amy and her team often got to experiment more makeup-wise with secondary characters versus lead characters. “It’s too distracting sometimes on the leads because we already know who they are. Instead, we go a little bit different with new people,” Amy said.
Amy L Forsythe“Jason was fun. The jock boy, going off the rocker. Eddie was fun — his tattoos and hand scribbles. And just getting into the detail of each character and who they are,” Amy said.
Courtesy of Netflix / Via Netflix“And then when you see them for the first time on camera and see what the actor is putting into the character, it just really makes it come alive and it’s the coolest thing,” she said.
12. The prosthetic work done on Steve (played by Joe Keery) this season took the longest for several reasons. There was both the hour-long detail of the actual look — plus the fact that the show started shooting in 2020, paused for the pandemic, then picked up again. Through it all, Amy and her team had to keep a close eye on logistics and continuity.
View this photo on Instagram
@amylforsythe / Via Instagram: @undefined
Amy said in addition to all of Steve’s prosthetics — which included a lot of blood and dirt work in the scene when he was dragged into the lake and bit by the bats — the timing of when they shot those scenes was incredibly spread out.
“We started shooting that in 2020. When we came back from the pandemic, we usually would shoot in order, but because all of the beginning scenes had such big crowds, we didn’t know how to approach that with COVID yet,” she said.
“And because the [larger creative team] had all the time during the shutdown to write the scripts, [the show] just started bouncing around wherever we could catch things and film,” Amy said.
“It was so many different people having to cover [Steve’s look]. We also had to go to different locations — Atlanta and Albuquerque — to shoot,” she said.
“It got kind of bonkers, but I feel like everyone did a killer job that had to take over that look, and we had a good time getting to know Joe for that long every day. And he would play podcasts, so we got to know what he likes a little bit more, which was fun,” she said.
For more from Amy L. Forsythe, follow her on Instagram.
What’s been your favorite look from Stranger Things so far? Share in the comments!
Related News & Content
-
How to optimize ‘select found_rows()’ query? Several ‘high load average’ alerts daily
How to optimize 'select found_rows()' query? Several 'high load average' alerts daily,I have 5,000 regular posts, 6,000 posts in one post type and 2,000 posts in another post type. Needless to say, that has made the wp_posts table quite large. Not to mention, I have custom taxonomie... -
How to Use JSON With AJAX?
How to Use JSON With AJAX?,I've defined a PHP callback function to handle the communication between server-side and client-side: function json_render_modal_body() { check_ajax_referer( THEME_PREFIX . '-modals', 'nonce'... -
Filtering context for render_block function
Filtering context for render_block function,I am trying to use render_block within a function called from the WP admin via AJAX The render_block returns null/empty however if I run my function using the wp hook returns the rendered HTML for ... -
How do I hide submenus from the top menu bar?
How do I hide submenus from the top menu bar?,My website is wiki-style and has a lot of pages that should only be reached through links on other pages. Having these all accessible from the top menu bar under their respective headings leads you... -
Register users without confirmation
Register users without confirmation,I'm looking to register users without requiring confirmation of their emails (and even better, no password when they register). Basically, I want them to subscribe their mails using wp registration -
How to use AJAX in wordpress front end?
How to use AJAX in wordpress front end?,I have two inputs in an HTML Widget block on a post. What I need to do: send the inputs (from the html widget) value to AJAX, construct and execute a query, render a table with the results back on ... -
Display posts from Custom Post Type, group by term, arrange term groups and arrange items within groups by menu order
Display posts from Custom Post Type, group by term, arrange term groups and arrange items within groups by menu order,I have a Custom Post Type 'my_cpt' and a custom taxonomy 'types' which has several terms, all of which have posts. I want to do is be able to control both the order of the groups (terms from my cus... -
How do I know if the custom theme is a child theme or a full-custom theme?
How do I know if the custom theme is a child theme or a full-custom theme?,Inherited a custom built WordPress site. How do I know if the theme it uses is a child theme or a full-custom theme? I would like to delete the unused themes for security and to free up space, but ... -
getEntityRecords/useEntityRecords: How to use CPT metadata?
getEntityRecords/useEntityRecords: How to use CPT metadata?,I use getEntityRecords as described in the official data API tutorial (https://learn.wordpress.org/lesson/retrieving-wordpress-data-records/). I.e.: const [searchTerm, setSearchTerm] = useState... -
Carol Kirkwood stuns in figure-hugging dress amid BBC Breakfast technical chaos
Carol Kirkwood stuns in figure-hugging dress amid BBC Breakfast technical chaos,CAROL Kirkwood stunned in a figure-hugging dress amid a technical blunder. BBC Breakfast was flung into chaos this morning after a string of sound issues. However Carol, 61, was all smiles as she p… -
Families ‘to sue prison’ where loud inmates ‘terrorise kids’ with screaming
Families 'to sue prison' where loud inmates 'terrorise kids' with screaming,Residents living next door to a new prison who say their kids have to sleep wearing headphones and some leave during weekends due to the racket are threatening to sue the prison service -
Doctor Strange’s Secret Wars Role May Be More Important Than You Thought – Looper
Doctor Strange's Secret Wars Role May Be More Important Than You Thought - Looper,According to entertainment leaker Alex Perez, Doctor Strange will find himself confronting his inner struggles as he headlines "Avengers: Secret Wars." -
Blondshell and Bully Team Up For New Single “Docket”
Blondshell and Bully Team Up For New Single “Docket”,Blondshell has teamed up with Alicia Bognanno of Bully for the newly released single "Docket." Listen to the track here. -
I’m a clown for not trying Korean beauty secret for glowy skin sooner – don’t worry, I’m not putting cheese on my face
I’m a clown for not trying Korean beauty secret for glowy skin sooner – don’t worry, I’m not putting cheese on my face,A BEAUTY influencer has regrets about not trying out Korean beauty advice for glowy skin sooner. Although the trick can look a little strange at first, she assured viewers that she was not putting … -
‘We are at risk’ – health expert in urgent warning for Irish people over Easter
‘We are at risk’ - health expert in urgent warning for Irish people over Easter,AN URGENT warning has been released to those jetting off over the Easter break. With measles already on the rise, there is an increased risk of a more widespread outbreak in the coming weeks. Trave… -
Black Holes Are Even Weirder Than You Imagined
Black Holes Are Even Weirder Than You Imagined,It’s now thought that they could illuminate fundamental questions in physics, settle questions about Einstein’s theories, and even help explain the universe. -
The odd history of on-hold music
The odd history of on-hold music,We've all been put on hold when we've tried to reach someone. Have you ever thought about the music that plays while you wait? -
‘What Jennifer Did’: Netflix doc explores shocking Ont. murder-for-hire case
'What Jennifer Did': Netflix doc explores shocking Ont. murder-for-hire case,Most of Jennifer Pan's entire life was made up of lies. When her parents began to catch on, she decided to bring in hired hitmen. -
Martin Scorsese to Spearhead Doc Series on Christian Saints for Fox Nation
Martin Scorsese to Spearhead Doc Series on Christian Saints for Fox Nation,Martin Scorsese signed a deal with Fox Nation to host and executive produce an eight-episode docudrama titled 'Martin Scorsese Presents: The Saints.' -
Man Accusing CPAC Chair Matt Schlapp of Sexual Assault Was Paid $480,000: Report
Man Accusing CPAC Chair Matt Schlapp of Sexual Assault Was Paid $480,000: Report,The GOP strategist who accused Matt Schlapp of sexual assault last year reportedly received a hefty financial settlement to drop his lawsuit against the CPAC chairman.
