Göran Lundström on His Oscar Nominated House of Gucci Makeup

We chat with the prosthetics designer about wrangling Jared Leto’s large mane, step one in remodeling the actor into Paolo Gucci, and the way it differed from his work on ‘The Batman.’

Universal Pictures

By Brad Gullickson · Published on February twenty sixth, 2022

Welcome to World Builders, our ongoing collection of conversations with the most efficient and considerate behind-the-scenes craftspeople. In this entry, we chat with prosthetics designer Göran Lundström concerning the few weeks he needed to safe Jared Leto’s radical transformation in House of Gucci.

Facial transformations can mainly go one of two methods. You can drive a brand new face atop an previous face, or you possibly can exaggerate the face it’s important to uncover an emotional fact. For House of Gucci, there was dialogue and dispute when it got here to reshaping Jared Leto into cousin Paolo. The particular person they initially tasked with designing the prosthetics was not figuring out, so the actor personally obtained Göran Lundström on the telephone. After the impromptu interview, the Swedish make-up results geek propelled himself into his lab. He had three weeks to design one thing Leto and director Ridley Scott would approve.
As carried out by Leto, Paolo Gucci is a screaming, uncovered nerve. To bury him in latex would sever his connectivity with the character. The actor couldn’t disappear, however the viewers couldn’t acknowledge Leto from their quite a few different cinematic encounters with him both. And, oh, yeah, Leto rejected the concept of shaving his head. He’s obtained a protracted, sumptuously flowing mane, and Paolo is sort of bald. Three weeks, Lundström. Make it work.
And make it work, he did.
Collaborating with wigmaker and hairstylist AnnaCarin Lock, Lundström concocted a technique to suppress Leto’s actual hair so they might assemble Paolo’s receding dome above. On day one, it appeared a technique; on day two, one other. They tinkered constantly, letting fear give option to necessity. This is the job.
“You don’t actually wish to take into consideration all the issues you possibly can run into,” says Lundström. “You do it routinely. Then, you go like, ‘If I’m going to say sure to this, let’s not take into consideration difficulties. Let’s attempt to determine what I can do. But, of course, it’s not supreme to get the job that late. So, I had no time, no warning.”
With weeks as a substitute of months, Lundström leaned into his expertise and craft. He needed to belief that he had the ability to perform what the movie demanded. He satisfied Jared Leto that he would pull Paolo from the actor’s bodily construction. He wouldn’t pile on; he would sculpt.
“You need to belief your intestine instincts,” he says. “You need to go along with one thing you imagine in. It’s a matter of not second-guessing your self. The essential factor I did with this one was attempt to not create Paolo Gucci. I attempted to create a brand new particular person. We checked out the actual Paolo Gucci, and I took some inspiration from him.”

Universal Pictures

House of Gucci is just not Dick Tracy. Lundström didn’t create Pruneface, Flattop, and the gang. He stayed away from Leto’s eyes, sustaining the actor’s connection to the viewers. Restraint is vital to creation. Do much less; apply much less.
“The good factor is that Jared has a really chiseled jawline,” says Lundström. “It’s very sharp, and he has a skinny neck. Paolo didn’t actually have a jawline. He was not fats, however he didn’t have that jawline. He had that further flabby bit below his chin. I used to be like, ‘Okay, what can I do to vary Jared? I can take away that jawline.’ Then it’s not going to be Jared anymore. We actually didn’t do far more.”
Leto’s hair grew to become the biggest hurdle to cross. Compacting it beneath the standard bald cap wouldn’t work. Invention was required.
“Jared turned 50 final yr,” Lundström explains. “He doesn’t have something bodily that claims that he’s 50. He appears so younger. His hair is so thick. His hair was so lengthy. I’ve by no means seen a person with that a lot hair. When I obtained the job, I noticed him on Zoom, however usually, you’d meet the actor, you get to the touch their hair. And you’d go, ‘Okay, that is going to be an issue.’ And then, I met him on the primary day, and I went like, ‘Oh, I knew his hair was lengthy, however I didn’t realize it was this thick. Where will we disguise this hair?’”
Lundström designed a three-piece silicone bald cap. Underneath, he inserted Leto’s hair right into a balloon that appeared one thing like a condom, and it held the mane down. The silicone bald cap, in three phases, is extraordinarily versatile, and it additionally suppresses any lumpiness attributable to Leto’s precise hair beneath.
“I didn’t know the place his hairline was,” he says, “as a result of I by no means met him. I did all the pieces based mostly on a scan, which can also be actually uncommon. I did the bald cap in three components. I did the temples individually so I may transfer them alongside and match over his hairline. Then, the highest half goes the place it ought to sit, hiding the hair. We modified that daily. We did make-up, the hair, daily.”

Universal Pictures

During the design course of, throughout these first three weeks earlier than capturing, Lundström by no means found an ah-ha second. He merely reached a spot the place they might begin. Solving the issue of Jared Leto’s hair was an ongoing exercise.
“The manner we rolled up the hair,” he continues, “when AnnaCarin did it, it appeared totally different. She tried to determine how one can get the silhouette to look as finest as attainable. I bear in mind on the primary day; she would hold saying to me, ‘I don’t just like the silhouette. Oh, I don’t prefer it. Don’t present him from the aspect.’ Then, the following day, she modified it. But that’s what we do. For this job, it was mainly not figuring all the pieces out from the start, however doing it whereas we have been filming.”
Jared Leto’s instruction to Lundström was that he didn’t wish to acknowledge himself within the mirror. He wanted entry to the skin world, unburdened from a latex coffin, however Paolo additionally demanded mutation.
“That’s a extremely uncommon one,” says Lundström. “Most of the time, producers and administrators wish to see the actor, however this was all pushed by Jared. If you do Coming 2 America, the entire idea is to place these well-known actors in make-up, so they might play different characters, and we learn about it. But the viewers is just not speculated to know there’s any prosthetics in House of Gucci.”
The viewers’s focus ought to stay completely on Paolo as an individual. Lundström’s software needs to be the furthest factor from their minds. That’s not essentially the case for different jobs like Colin Farrell‘s Penguin, as seen in The Batman, one other character Lundström lately accomplished alongside designer Michael Marino.
“People don’t count on to not acknowledge Colin,” he says. “But it’s additionally a fantasy film. It’s nonetheless a comic book e-book film, so you have got some leeway there. He’s speculated to look not 100% plausible. He’s speculated to seem like a grand character, a larger-than-life character. That helps a little bit bit, even when it’s a actually good make-up. It nonetheless helps that you simply don’t need to make it plausible, that folks need it to look actually cool, and I feel that coolness is one thing we’re fighting as make-up artists.”

Warner Bros.

Göran Lundström delights in his occupation the best way many followers do as they devour it. When his consideration is laser-focused, and he’s discovering options to inconceivable issues, it’s straightforward for him to get misplaced within the artistry. The pleasure takes over, and marvel clouds his imaginative and prescient. Shedding the nice and cozy sensation that takes over is a legit problem.
“We make artwork in a manner that we admire it ourselves,” he says. “We do it till we’re pleased with it. Sometimes that shines by, and it appears unreal, however it may be actually fairly, although. I discover that troublesome.”
Recalling these three weeks after receiving Jared Leto’s telephone name, Lundström doesn’t marvel on the pace at which he produced Paolo Gucci’s design. It’s merely proof that he can ship on a dime. It’s one other instance to assist shed the doubts that inevitably bubble up all through a profession.
“When you begin questioning your self,” says Lundström, “you foresee the problems that may come alongside. I do know from expertise there are at all times points, at all times issues that aren’t going to work the best way you need them to. Once you begin pondering like that, it simply brings you down. If I begin evaluating myself to others or pondering, ‘What are folks going to consider this make-up?’ That’s only a recipe for failure. You can’t suppose like that. That’s stage fright. I attempt to not suppose like that in any respect. It’s actually arduous.”
Göran Lundström makes folks into different folks. Preserving humanity is the mission regardless of the job, however with every new one comes issues and difficulties. As lengthy as he strives by indecision, the options at all times current themselves. And with them, so do extra jobs. He simply retains working.

House of Gucci is now out there on DVD, Blu-ray, and VOD.

Related Topics: home of gucci, Jared Leto, World Builders

Brad Gullickson is a Weekly Columnist for Film School Rejects and Senior Curator for One Perfect Shot. When not rambling about motion pictures right here, he is rambling about comics because the co-host of Comic Book Couples Counseling. Hunt him down on Twitter: @MouthDork. (He/Him)

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