Rufus Sewell’s butt made headlines earlier this yr when it was inaccurately reported that he wore a prosthetic butt to play Prince Andrew in Netflix‘s “Scoop,” the juicy dramatization of his disastrous interview concerning a friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
“There’s an account of him sporting bum prosthetics and physique prosthetics, however he was actually joking to a different journalist,” “Scoop” prosthetic make-up designer Kristyan Mallett informed IndieWire. “That may be a physique double [when you see him naked from behind]. I’m certain a great deal of folks would love to stay on Rufus bum prosthetics, however I didn’t get the luxurious this time. Perhaps subsequent time.”
However regardless of the absence of a prosthetic posterior, Mallett and hair and make-up designer Kirstin Chalmers had their arms full. “The 2 faces are very, very totally different,” Chalmers informed IndieWire. “Andrew’s could be very lengthy and Rufus could be very chiseled and nearly like a diamond form. Rufus has a really wonderful chin, and Andrew doesn’t.” After taking a look at photographs morphing the 2 faces collectively to establish whether or not a metamorphosis for “Scoop” could be attainable, they moved forward with a digital scan of Sewell’s face for Mallett to work on.
“We then had a plaster solid of Rufus in our workshop, which we may then go forward and begin modeling on,” Mallett stated. “You take a look at pictures, and also you kind of assume, ‘He’s naturally good-looking and he’s chiseled,’ so we knew it was going to be a problem. However it’s actually a case of dialing Prince Andrew into Rufus and negotiating a glance that isn’t rapidly you’ve bought an actor sporting a full-on masks who can’t carry out.”
In the end, Mallett’s work encompassed neck prosthetics, cheek prosthetics, nostril, eye baggage, eyelids, and brow. However it wasn’t till these have been full that Chalmers may design the wig as a result of the burden modified the form of Sewell’s head. The primary design was fairly good, they each remembered, however not fairly proper for Sewell’s efficiency. “When Rufus was performing as Prince Andrew, he likes to tuck his shoulders up and pull his chin in rather a lot,” Mallett stated. “And what occurred was that when he pulled his chin in, it made it seem like his mouth was being pinched as a result of there was simply an excessive amount of materials on the jowls. We needed to negotiate that extra. And we’re speaking like millimeters of a distinction, however sadly, we needed to resculpt that entire factor as a result of all of them overlapped.”
Mallett claimed the prosthetics course of was “simply very a lot sticking on rubber and making an attempt to mix it in and ensuring that works.” (“You make it sound so easy!” Chalmers chimed in with fun; watch the complete course of within the video under.)
Chalmers’ work was “little touches, you recognize, when you get the hair and the wig. Rufus’ eyebrows have been fairly darkish and fairly raised, so I needed to bleach them right into a extra ginger shade. And due to the best way that his would go up and Andrew’s go down, I needed to lay in particular person hairs to vary the form as effectively. The eyebrows took a very long time. It took us a while each single day to be sure that it was as correct as the day past. So yeah, it was delicate work. Lovely paintwork, lovely, delicate work.”
Regardless of the in depth course of (although the group bought its software down to simply two-and-a-half hours a day), each Mallett and Chalmers raved about Sewell’s dedication. “He was wonderful. He was so good,” Mallett stated. “He taken care of it. He didn’t sweat. He lived to the accreditation of what Prince Andrew would do.”
“Scoop” is now streaming on Netflix.