Lawrence Davis on Charting Cora’s ‘The Underground Railroad’ Character Arc Through Hairstyling

Years in the making, The Underground Railroad has finally arrived. The 10-part Amazon limited series adapted from the Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead and directed by Barry Jenkins tells the story of a slave girl named Cora [Thuso Mbedu] and her quest for freedom. Every aspect of the series is meticulously crafted, and deliberate in its imagery, from Jenkins’ poetic directorial choices to the epic production design imagining a literal system of trains underground.

Another element of Railroad‘s rich visual palette is the hairstyling, spearheaded by hair department head Lawrence Davis. In an interview with Awards Daily, Davis details how each chapter of Cora’s journey is reflected in her hairstyling. And the difficulties of bringing the antebellum south to Jenkins’ Savannah set.

Read our full interview with Lawrence Davis below:

Awards Daily: The Underground Railroad has quite the pedigree of talent behind it. What were your thoughts when you first heard of the project?

Lawrence Davis: When I first heard of the project, I thought it was already in production, so I thought, ‘Okay, that’s a great project. I would have loved to have done that.’ Then I found out that it actually wasn’t in production. And, ironically, shortly after that, I got the call. I just think that some projects are meant for me or meant for the person who actually gets them. 

AD: Tell me about your collaboration with Barry Jenkins and the entire team. 

LD: Amazing, absolutely magical. Barry just has a way of telling you exactly what his vision is and has a way of letting you know exactly what feeling he wants to evoke—whether he wants it organic or dreamy. There are a lot of elements that he throws at you, but it’s the language that he speaks that gets you going and lets you know exactly what he wants you to do. He just gets it. And it also comes from the vibe of the entire crew. A lot of the crew have been with him through various projects. I was the new kid on the block coming in but got it right away. There’s just a great feeling of harmony and a great feeling of sisterhood and brotherhood that lets you know, ‘Okay, this is a great place to be.’

AD: Barry has spoken about how raw The Underground Railroad is and how unflinching some of the imagery is. And his efforts to cultivate an environment of support on set. What can you tell me about your personal experience on the project?

LD: I thought it was both empowering and difficult. What I mean by difficult is that, well, there were a couple of things— working in Savannah in the heat, in the middle of summer makes it difficult, but it was also something that added to the grittiness and the originality and the organicness of the project. 

Sometimes the subject matter was very difficult, but everyone was very sensitive to that. There were counselors for any crew members who had a problem with the content. And I think that set the tone, and you knew that you were going to be taken care of no matter what circumstances we had to encounter during this project. So, it was all so good. 

AD: With Cora, her hair in every episode is very much a reflection of her character and where she is in that moment, both physically and in some ways, emotionally.

LD: Yes!

AD: How did you make sure Cora’s character arc was reflected in your hair designs?

LD: Definitely. Cora’s hair had to reflect what she was going through. And I think that it also added to the organicness of the project, the character, and the storyline.

Barry let me know that in the second episode, ‘South Carolina,’ when she comes up from the railroad, she’s in a place where she sees black women for the first time with straight hair. And they were forced to do it in that particular episode, for that storyline. And Thuso’s character evolved into that because that’s what was required of her to be a part of that institution that she became a part of. 

Thuso was a great muse to transform. And I got pleasure out of using her natural hair for her journey through the underground railroad, through slavery, through running, through being at the school. She was a great canvas for every look that I needed. Her hair definitely reflects her journey from being on the run and having loose, sweaty tendrils when she’s being chased by Ridgeway—and then having to be more groomed for the institution where she was being educated. She was the perfect muse for everything that I needed. 

AD: Which chapter or element of the project did you find the most challenging?

LD: I think one of the most difficult things for me, and it may be strange to say, but making a person like Thuso, or in general, making a character look bad, is a difficult thing for me as a hairstylist. My mind is wired to make everything beautiful and keep them neat, clean, and looking glamorous. But I think it’s about knowing when to step away and leave it alone. Because, in my mind, I’m like, ‘This has to be messy.’ But my hands are constantly fixing what my mind says to mess up. 

And I have to highlight the formal dance in episode two. As I said before, many of those hairstyles were straight and straightened out for that particular episode. My fear was that the heat and humidity in Savannah would cause the hair to revert back. So, we had an excellent collection of synthetic wigs that we could make into these beautifully sculpted up-dos for that formal.

AD: I wanted to ask you about the hairstyling on the men. We tend to focus more on the women because that hairstyling is more elaborate and eye-catching, in some ways, but the men’s looks can be equally as challenging. 

LD: It was challenging as well because a lot of looks required facial hair. With the collaboration between hair and makeup, some of the characters came to life as soon as the facial hair was put on. So, those who could not grow it in time or just didn’t have what we needed, adding facial hair, blending in the sideburns to what they already had gave us a total look. And those who we needed to wig, we wigged, but you know, it was all in having the right type of wigs and the right type of hairstyles, right out of the gate. 

With the guys, it was a little bit easier than the women because some of them wore hats. For most of them, we were able to use their own hair and use different pomades and things like that, depending on what the scene required. 

AD: And in terms of the wigs and supplemental pieces, how did you go about making those? 

LD: Some of them we had to make on the spot or a few days ahead of time. And those pieces were hand-laid and required a lot of blending with natural hair that the actor already had. For some of the characters, we had to rebuild the hairstyling every day. And I think what added to the intensity of it was that they had to be sweaty and just a mess because they were running from the slave catchers, or they were on the plantation, just basically rolling around in the dirt—that added to the look and it made it authentic.

AD: Do you have a preference for something like The Underground Railroad that’s based in history versus contemporary hairstyling?

LD: I do. I love period pieces. It’s so transformative. When you put all the elements together, whether it’s hair, makeup, costumes, or even placing a car from that period in front of a building that we see every day, it’s definitely more magical. And it’s definitely more of a storytelling element. 

AD: And, what’s next for you? What are you working on right now? 

LD: What will come out next is Respect, the Aretha Franklin story, that will be out in August of this year, starring Jennifer Hudson. And that was a very magical project. It was such an honor to work on that because it’s a true story of a wonderful singer who gave total permission to producers to tell her story. And that made it so wonderful because it was her story that she said, ‘This is what I like. This is what I want.’ 

In a few weeks, I’m going to go to Boston to do a project with Halle Berry called The Mothership, so look out for that.

All 10 episodes of The Underground Railroad are available now on Amazon Prime Video.