When we think about royal power struggles we want the tension to be as tight as a corset. If you can’t have a little fun as you galivant around court, then what is the point, right? Starz’s Mary & George garnered attention for the lusty motivations from its characters, but when you look at its crafts, you will be bowled over. Makeup Department Head Paul Gooch charts the salacious lives of one of history’s most raucous courts with sweat and grit.
Before we dove into some character looks, Gooch and I couldn’t help but revel in how honest Mary & George’s approach to sexuality is. For so many years, sex between men has not been portrayed in a realistic way, but Mary & George (and fellow royal, Nicholas Galitzine-fronted Red, White & Royal Blue) are changing that conversation. The salacious physicality is not just in there to get views–it’s a tool and tactic used by many characters to move themselves forward and upward.
“Oliver [Hermanus]’s vision for this was very out there and a lot of the references in his office were haute couture models, so I knew we were in the world of a royal court,” Gooch says. “Everyone wanted it to be fabulous. Even how it’s lit, everything is so lush. I think it’s groundbreaking with how it makes gay sex a regular, normal thing. When I read it, I wondered if the general public was ready for it.”
Since Mary & George aims for authenticity everywhere that it can, even the lighting feels of the period. With characters lit by candlelight, one would assume that it would be a makeup artist’s worst nightmare, but Gooch reveals that it actually helps with the story.
“It helps us in period shows, actually,” he says. “The dim light creates a real atmosphere, and they placed real candles in the room. Sometimes they wouldn’t add much of anything, so our light was coming literally from a candle. When it’s a wider shot, they may have to change it, but the sets were dark. As makeup designers, we clip lights to ourselves to help us with touch-ups and things like that. Candles also, though, have a pleasant smell usually, and that helps with atmosphere too. There were hardly any set builds since we filmed in stately homes or had old barns turned into brothels or hovels for the poor. What a gift to do this show.”
Mark O’Halloran’s Sir Francis Bacon finds himself thrown out and stripped of his titles after a power struggle with Sir Edward Coke after Julianne Moore’s Mary marks him as a traitor. Gooch shows his physical deterioration as his status descends by adding syphilis marks on his face. By the end of the season, he has lost cartilage on his face, and the image of his lush beard and coiffed hair feel like a distant memory. When the series begins, O’Halloran’s visage is so handsome that he could pluck anyone he wanted from your neighborhood gay bar.
“The fashion for these big ruffs is like having your head on a platter,” he says. “I only noticed it when I did this show, and it serves almost like a reflective surface for everyone. From the get-go, Mark said he wanted his character to be very vain and very regal. He has a bit of hair, so I blew it up in the air. He had no beard before we started, so he left it alone so it would grow in. We shot this for six months and it filled out. For that character, he always had some syphilis sores. It’s not the focus for all of the show–it would start down on his neck–and then it grew towards his nose. By the time Julianne [Moore] comes to the hovel to slit his throat, the syphilis really attacked the soft tissue of the face. The metal cover on the nose was basically a prosthetic nose, so they would remain somewhat presentable. That’s such a fun arc to do.”
Nicola Walker’s Lady Hatten has some of the series’ biggest and most ornate hair. You should not be surprised if she has pearls or jewels dangling on her forehead or woven in, and the effect surely intimidates some of the members of James’ court. Hatten is, in a lot of ways, a character who knows how to present herself in a way that sets her apart from other members of the royalty’s company.
“If you ever want to meet someone amazing, she’s the one,” Gooch says, of working with Walker. “When we first conceived her hair, I thought it was going to be too big, but once we got it on her, it was a bit ridiculous. Even the most accomplished actors can be swallowed by clothes, but you have to balance the colors and stance. The wealthiest people have the biggest hair like our queen. We were so lucky that we had time to test things. The wig for our queen had to have her wig put on on the set, because she couldn’t sit in a car with it on.”
When I first saw pictures of Tony Curran out of his King James garb, I only recognized him by the shape of his face, and you can see how Gooch and his team transformed him into the freewheeling King. Think about how wild court gets before he retreats back to his chambers to host some group activity. There might be a sheen of sweat on his face or the back of his neck, and his frolicking, red locks are free to fly around his head or stick to any place with moisture.
“Apparently, the real King James didn’t like to wash, and he would only wipe himself down with a damp cloth on his fingertips,” he says. “Can you imagine that? When Tony came in, I had a box of stock wigs to try on to see shapes and length. He put on this long red wig, and it looked like it was growing out of his head. James’ hair wasn’t that long, and we cut it by degrees to see what he liked. When we got to about his chin, Tony said that he didn’t want it any shorter, because he wanted to playing the part very physically.
He didn’t really have a beard, but in the prep we had enough on his face that we made do. Then we took glue and pushed hair into parts, and, as the months went by, he kept trimming and we didn’t have to stick more in. For his makeup, we took out some of his redness, since men with his hair color tend to have a lot of color in their faces. Tony truly owned it, and he’s quite a raucous in the morning. I loved what he did with the part, and, without that long hair, he probably wouldn’t have been as powerful.”
As the series draws to a close, we see an older version of Galitzine’s George, his hair shoulder-length and his face showing signs of age. The length of his hair even reminded me of James’ as if he was holding onto some physical part of him.
“I was a bit nervous with the wig on Nick, because he hasn’t worn one for any other part of the series,” Gooch says. “You can’t stick them on anyone, but he embraced it very well. We experiment with some facial hair, but once you do that, you are changing their entire face, so we aged him with makeup by flecking imperfections on and bringing brows together. George was more jaded and more drunk, so it was a nice marriage of makeup and performance.”
Mary & George is streaming via Starz.
