How ‘Scoop’ makeup team Kirstin Chalmers and Kristyan Mallett transformed Rufus Sewell into Prince Andrew [Exclusive Video Interview]
When “Scoop” director Philip Martin called hair and makeup designer Kirstin Chalmers about the Netflix film, the Emmy Award-winning filmmaker hadn’t yet cast Rufus Sewell to play Prince Andrew in the project. But once Sewell came aboard the film, which focuses on the Duke of York’s infamous interview with BBC Newsnight about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, Chalmers knew the task at hand would be a challenge.
“They look very different in every aspect of their physiology,” Chalmers tells Gold Derby in an exclusive video interview. “So we started with photographs of morphing the two men together and it became a question of how can we keep the essence of Rufus and get the essence of Prince Andrew?”
To answer that question and help execute the elaborate prosthetic makeup required to transform Sewell into his real-life counterpart, Chalmers enlisted the help of prosthetic makeup designer Kristyan Mallett.
“Kristyan made all the pieces and then decided, ‘Well, I think this could work or that could work.’ But we also had the luxury of doing a couple of tests, which worked very well,” Chalmers explains. The pre-production period also helped in terms of ironing out details that were necessary for the makeup process.
“It’s always a negotiation, essentially trying to get as real prosthetics as we can on the actor with getting the look of the character that we want to do,” adds Mallett. “So when I was sculpting it, I had many references of Prince Andrew around me, including the interview on a loop. It was quite sickening actually, but watching that whilst trying to sculpt and just trying to get the essence of the character.”
Based on the book by Sam McAlister (played in the film by Billie Piper), “Scoop” focuses on the negotiations that went into Prince Andrew’s interview with BBC anchor Emily Maitlis (played by Gillian Anderson). Sewell doesn’t look like the royal son – an aspect of the project that made Chalmers’ and Mallett’s jobs much more difficult.
“If there’s too much makeup or too many prosthetics, you suddenly just see a face of rubber or piece of plastic,” Chalmers says. “So when it’s done very finely and very perfectly, it’s almost like it is like a second skin. And when the weight of the silicone has been sculpted correctly for the actor’s face, then it works with their own musculature. It becomes this sort of hybrid person that has all the right elements of the character that you’re trying to portray. If it were not done well, you’d notice it the whole way through and it drives me crazy.”
“I think having the benefit of Rufus having makeup tests and getting used to it and being in front of the mirror and, and rehearsing with it and playing around with cameras and even taking video footage of himself – he was just playing with it and seeing what his limitations could be,” adds Mallett of the fine line they had to tread. “Rufus was brilliant in the chair. He was brilliant at being able to have those test moments to work out what he could do with the prosthetics. And we had the ability to negotiate a couple of times and make tweaks and changes to get it exactly where we wanted it to be.”
That’s where it ended up – with not just Chalmers and Mallett happy with the work, but audiences and critics as well.
“This kind of makeup, you can’t do tomorrow. They take time, and they take a lot of very, very tiny little changes and little tweaks to work,” Chalmers says. “Without that, it could fall apart. But it didn’t. It looks amazing.”
“Scoop” is streaming on Netflix.
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