‘The Little Mermaid:’ Oscar-Nominated Hairstylist Camille Friend Worked Closely With Star Halle Bailey To Update Ariel’s Signature Locks

Camille Friend is no stranger to designing hair that works well under water.

Previously Oscar-nominated for 2022’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Friend’s designs swam back into cinemas for the smash-hit film The Little Mermaid, starring Halle Bailey as the titular mermaid Ariel. The live action film introduces Bailey as the first Black Ariel, and critics and audiences raved about her star-making performance. But as great as Bailey is, the filmmaking team behind the film knew that, even though they were making steps toward inclusivity with a different approach to Ariel, they still needed the character to feel somewhat based in the original classic animated film.

Enter Friend who, as she describes to Awards Daily, partnered closely with Disney, director Rob Marshall, and Halle Bailey herself to render Ariel’s signature red locks in an updated and inclusive way. Here, she talks about the process of using Bailey’s natural hair and developing a special hair color that would look great on Bailey and underwater as well. She also talks about the extensive partnership she had with other crafts departments to ensure everything flowed.

Pun fully intended.

Awards Daily: The Little Mermaid was a fantastic opportunity for you, and it comes cinematically on the heels Black Panther: Wakanda, Forever for which you were Oscar nominated. We have seen many more projects recently that have focused on inclusivity and much more of the Black experience. How does that impact you?

Camille Friend: I feel like we still have a long way to go. I want to see 25, 30, 50 great Black department heads doing $100 million movies. There shouldn’t be two of us. There should be much more, and we have to continue to grow. Internally, I’ll say this as hair and makeup artists, we have to equip ourselves and be better ourselves. We have to understand all skin tones and textures, all hair textures. So whoever sits in your chair, you should be able to do their hair. That’s part of what my success has been because I can do any texture or do anything that needs to be done. As a whole and as a business, we just all have to be better to raise the standard.

Awards Daily: Specifically with The Little Mermaid, the importance of this film is that we do see an Ariel who is of different representation than traditional images of Ariel. Of course, she still has that iconic red hair. How did you adapt that for her? I’d read that she was very insistent on using her natural hair, so talk to me about building that look for her.

Camille Friend: It was really a great experience. I was called by Disney, and I first talked to [director] Rob Marshall about what he wanted to see. One of the main things he wanted was to see the movement. He was fine using her natural hair, but that hair needed to dance. It needed to move. It needed to come alive. So how do we create that? Second, I went and had conversations with Halle and her family. Once I met her and understood that they’re a family that all wears their natural hair. It was something that was not only cultural, but it was also hereditary in her family.

My job is to meet the filmmakers and the actor where they are. So that’s where I came in — the middleman — to create the look. That’s how we got started in how I created the look. I just went in and started looking at Halle and thought about the color red. The red that you see in the cartoon is a very strong red. On Halle’s skin tone, that didn’t look best. Anytime I design a actor or a character, I start looking at certain things. What’s the facial shape? What’s the skin tone? What’s the undertones? What’s the color of the eyes? What’s the hairline? There are a lot of things that go into designing hair. I started there, and then we just started sampling hair colors to get to what color actually looks good on her. That’s how I started working out the look.

Awards Daily: You mentioned wanting that hair to flow under underwater. You obviously worked on Black Panther which had underwater sequences as well. What did you learn from that experience to then help influence some of the work that would be done on The Little Mermaid?

Camille Friend: Funny enough, The Little Mermaid actually came first. It’s just the way they came out into theaters. I actually learned from Little Mermaid going into Black Panther about water. Water is something that you have to respect. It’s a living, breathing thing. I’ve worked in water in different places, but once we got Halle in the tank, we were able to see how the hair is going to move. Some of the tricks that we did, especially with hair when it’s in the water, we sewed it in certain positions. The director doesn’t want to see the hair go [in front of the actor’s face]. So, we’re sewing it to stay off the face, and you have more flowing action. That’s just one of the things that I’ve learned as I’ve gone along in the process.

Awards Daily: How did the Caribbean setting influence your style for Halle’s hair?

Camille Friend: The Caribbean did a lot of influencing. Some people calling this the ‘Easter eggs,’ but we planted a lot of things in her hair. She has seashells. She has Jade pieces. She has all these little things that she found in the sea all in her hair. Those are all things that were influenced by being in the Caribbean. The beautiful thing that Disney did as well is to integrate many different cultures in her sisters. I love that like her sisters were all nationalities, all races, to make it all inclusive. [Friend focused only on Halle Bailey’s signature locks for The Little Mermaid. Other hairstyles were provided by Peter King.]

Awards Daily: What were some of your biggest challenges on the project?

Camille Friend: Being in the water for sure and finding the look for Halle. Figuring out how we were going to make it work. With the red hair color, we decided on three shades of red. Then, I took custom colored hair, which was like 30 inches long which is like unheard of, all custom done. especially for her. You’re not going to go out and get that hair color because we customized that color just for her. That is Ariel. That’s Ariel red. It’s all those beautiful things that we were able to create and then going through and actually wrapping her locks so we didn’t have to color her whole head. We wrapped her locks with three colors. Then we added the loose hair. That’s what really gives you that Ariel flowing look in the water, and that’s what really makes it look beautiful. Once we put her in the tank, I knew that we found what we were looking for. Everybody loved it, and it moved, giving her a realism under water. When she was going to go on land, it gave her that human aspect as well.

Awards Daily: What was your relationship like with the costume department?

Camille Friend: When I first arrived in London, [costume designer] Colleen Atwood was one of the first people I went to go see. I wanted to see what she’s building out. What was it going to look like? I wanted to share with her what we were going to do with the hair. So all of those things worked hand in hand together, even picking out her head scarf that she was going to wear. We had so many different fabrics and were trying different colors. We needed to see how the fabric was gonna move and bend. Every detail is thought about.