Louise Coles on ’The Great’ Challenge and Fun of Period Hair and Makeup

Hair and Makeup Designer Louise Coles spoke to Awards Daily’s Shadan Larki about how she used styling to aid in the development of The Great‘s eclectic cast of characters.

Louise Coles is no stranger to period hair and makeup. Her recent credits include The Crown, Mary Queen of Scots, and Black Sails. But Hulu’s The Great did, in fact, provide Coles with an interesting challenge: Marrying historical fact with Tony McNamara‘s satirical take on Catherine The Great (Elle Fanning)’s rise to power in 18th century Russia.

If you’ve seen The Favourite, you’ll know that McNamara has no interest in a by-the-book period drama. Far from it. Thus giving Coles and her team the opportunity to have more than a little bit of fun bringing royal fashion to life. The result? Hundreds (quite literally hundreds) of intricately styled wigs helping to tell the story of Russia’s feminist awakening.

Awards Daily: Let’s start at the beginning. What research did you do and how did you go about the process of determining the characters’ overall look?

Louise Coles: It’s important to mention that the pilot was designed by Sian Grigg. I then did episodes two until 10. There were various stages of development and research as we went through because there are so many amazing story points in terms of hair and makeup, but the initial research is based on a lot of historical facts, portraits, and extensive research into the time.

But, of course, with the script and the show being satire and playing with history in quite a fun way, we were able to also use modern references and textures, use the shapes, but play with them in a way that works for the characters. The characters are so richly written. There’s so much you can do if you don’t completely marry yourself to the time period, and you can actually play with it a little bit.

AD: In what ways you did stick with the 18^th century period, and in what ways did you modernize the looks? And what modern touches did you apply?

LC: I suppose I’ll start with the wigs because there’s the use of hard fronted wigs, which traditionally would have been made with horsehair during the time. They used to set them with lard and flour, which is petty horrible and probably pretty smelly. The wigs would be full of lice so they would boil them to kill off the lice and then reset them and dress them. So, we had all these wigs made, but with the modern materials we use now — usually a mixture of human hair and animal hair.

We [also] used the wigs in the same way they would use them then; we weren’t trying to make it look more glamorous than it was, so in that way, it was close to history. We had these wigs showing their hairlines underneath to show that they had been applied, and weren’t perfectly measured and didn’t fit precisely. The wigs were supposed to look like they were there. We had a lot of fun with those in terms of twisting them in a modern way. Throughout the show, we used the styling to bring in some slightly different shapes so that we could make the characters stand out, and as the series develops, some of the characters develop more of their personal style and we use some modern shapes.

And with the makeup, at the time, the ladies wore quite pale bases that were made out of a pretty poisonous lead, so we did play around with different shades and different ways of showing that they were wearing it. We did use more modern makeup and not anything that looked cakey. We let them be a bit dewier and a bit fresher so that we could have kind of a, I guess, slightly grungy feel at times. And then when we took the wigs off, we were able to strip them back and make them look really natural and show that these are real people under these wigs.

Elle has a fantastic team that works with her all the time. [Fanning’s hair was styled by Lorraine Glynn. Makeup artist Erin Ayanian-Monroe did Fanning’s makeup.] They did very beautiful looks, in contrast to the courts, a more natural style which was very much shaped for the period, but suited to Elle to make her look different from the peculiar world that we created around her.

AD:  I think we can think of the ladies of the court sort of like our own modern-day social media influencers and celebrities.

LC: Right.

AD: Catherine does stand in stark contrast to that.  Can you talk to me about that and some of the specific differences we saw in terms of hair and makeup?

LC: Yeah. Actually, we played a little bit with the idea of ‘the greatest form of flattery is imitation.’ So we had Elle being so natural. She arrived. She felt natural, and obviously her wigs were her own hair. The idea being that as the show progresses, and as the storyline slightly changes and the world goes toward Catherine with the art and the science that she is introducing, and things are going well— we actually have some of the ladies also a little bit more relaxed. We didn’t always have them in their wigs. We had some ladies in court more in the background, sort of imitating her style. We tried to kind of create a realistic world where they act as influences on each other. There’s sort of a little journey within each person. And we tried to reflect with the ladies of the court.

For example, and it’s probably my favorite of the looks to work out — the ladies tea dance in episode four where Elle goes to the dance that Lady Svenska has invited her to. The ladies are all dressed in pretty decadent, but slightly overly-attired, outfits and wigs. We did a sort of pastel palette between myself and Emma Fryer, the costume designer. We kind of wanted it to look pretty sickly sweet, in contrast to the horrific action that they do in the dance where they start to push Catherine around —all set to this amazing choreography and that beautiful music. It was quite a fun way of showing how different they were, that they had all these wigs, all these beautiful colors, but actually what they’re doing is pretty nasty.

And in contrast, Catherine just looks so beautiful, innocent, and natural. There’s so much in every episode and so much development with each of the characters. Across the board, we discussed that it was good to show that although they use wigs, and makeup, and the costumes, and everything else to show some status around the court; there were also times where they were stripped back, they didn’t have them on and looked more natural and more accessible when there were kicking back in their private quarters. There was a lot of development in the different sides of each character and how they interact with each other.

AD: It seemed to me watching the show that with Elle’s character it’s almost like, as the show progresses, she starts to look older and more mature and almost more powerful. Was there a deliberate transition in her hair and makeup throughout the show?

LC: Yeah! When she arrived, she’s obviously very natural and not intricately styled. Then she goes through a phase where she’s trying to really fit in with the court under the guise that she’s actually starting to plan behind the scenes of it all, and she has quite intricately styled updos. And then from there, she has a softer look for a while when things start to go her way and she feels she’s winning Peter over. From there, when it becomes obvious that’s not happening, and she’s going to have to take a tougher stance, then yes, across the board, her styling changed. Particularly I loved how her costumes changed. Her palate changed.  It went from beautiful, soft colors, to what ultimately was that hot pink dress in the last episode, married with a quite heavily styled, dramatic look when she was at her birthday with her wig, which was beautifully dressed by Lorraine Glynn who did Elle’s wigs.

It’s a bit more of a power look then you see her having at the beginning. It goes really from a very soft, innocent look; to a look where she’s trying to fit in and it’s slightly more structured; it becomes looser when she starts falling in love and things are going her way through trying to manipulate Peter, and bringing the art and science, and trying to do it her way. But then when she realizes that’s not working, she has to take a harder stance. There was definitely a shift in her styling.

When you actually look at episodes one, two, and three, and then you jump to that incredible image of her in that hot pink dress with that incredible style that Lorraine did, you can really see that she’s gone from a young, innocent girl to a kind of powerful, informed, and incredible woman who is ready to make really hard choices.

 AD: I love the idea that Catherine uses her hair and her makeup, as well as her clothes, as a sort of armor to protect herself and also as a mechanism to project whatever image she wants to portray.

LC: Absolutely. And certainly, I think that really comes across well in episode 10, because she dresses for her birthday, but obviously she knows what she’s going to do. And it’s a really strong and beautiful look which is nice to see because she really blossoms throughout the series.

AD: I was looking through projects that you’ve done, and you have a really interesting mix on your resume. How do you think your work on one project might inform the other? Perhaps even in some sort of subconscious way.

LC: I’ve done a lot of period work. And actually, I’ve done a lot of 18^th century because I worked on (Starz’s) Black Sails for three seasons. I think in terms of period dramas, what’s so fantastic about it is you learn so much about history, but you’re able to work that into bringing the character together with what suits the character. It’s a really interesting process. With The Great, there was a lot more flexibility. And with Black Sails, it was a mixture of fiction and nonfiction, and you get to really delve into history. I do love that about period dramas. You get all the rules and then you can break them a little bit depending on the artistic license. I’ve done quite a few jobs like that which is great.

I’ve also done things where you have to imitate a specific historical character, which is also amazing because you’re trying to bring two people, the actor and their character, together without taking too much from either side. You have to find a middle ground that works, that’s not distracting. I think my main body of work is period drama, and it gives you quite a lot to invest in. It’s quite satisfying.

AD: Is there anything else you wanted to touch on that I haven’t had the chance to ask you about?

LC: You know, some of the most fun things about The Great was that we were able to show some of the rawness of the period. We didn’t have to worry about just making things beautiful, in terms of the court and making it an interesting visual world.

For example, with the Tatyana character (Florence Keith-Roach), we were able to really establish her journey. She is very heavily styled with the wigs, and in history, they were quite rough on the hair, lots of people would cut their hair really short, or their hair would be falling out underneath. The idea behind her character was that she was trying so hard with the wigs—we actually saw her three times in the series without her wig on and we gave her a bald cap and a thinning wig to show what was happening to her hair. It was the extreme beauty processes of the time and what they were actually really like, and what they actually did to people. That was something fun that we did, you only see it a few times, but it’s just nice to know those tidbits of history and be able to put them in there somewhere. And in this world of The Great, we were able to go for it with those things. That was a real treat and I enjoyed that being able to actually go for it.

I also have to give a shout-out to my department. We had about 500 wigs on location on the show between the cast and extras. Pretty much every woman was wearing a wig. It was an amazing creative team and definitely a collaborative effort.

AD: Wow. Can I ask how much time you had to prep?

LC: [Laughs]. It was a fast show. I had six weeks of prep, and some things I obviously inherited from the pilot and things that Sian had set up, but it was quick!

As you can see, every episode is very different and there’s a lot of new things— new characters, new tones, things involving heavy makeup and hair at every moment. I would be shooting one episode and I’d be prepping the next one. it was a busy, busy shoot.

AD: Well, it all came together beautifully. Thank you for your time!

LC: Thank you! It was fun reliving it all with you!

Season one of The Great is available now on Hulu. ICYMI: The Awards Daily team has done several interviews with the cast and crew of The Great including Elle Fanning, writer Tony McNamara, and costume designer Emma Fryer.