Beetlejuice Makeup Magic: Tim Burton’s Creative Process

Tim Burton gives you free rein to enter his world and create; you judge whether he’s enjoying it by the look on his face,” says Oscar-winning British hair and makeup designer Christine Blundell, who collaborated with Burton for the first time on Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Among the film’s accolades are three nominations (best special makeup effects, best period and/or character makeup and best period and/or character hair styling) at the Make-Up Artists & Hair Stylists Guild Awards and a nom in the fantasy feature film category at the Art Directors Guild Excellence in Production Design Awards. We talked to Blundell, now working on Andrew Bernstein’s Jack Ryan in Dubai, ahead of the two awards shows in L.A. on Feb. 15.

What was your process like with Tim Burton?

The call to do Beetlejuice Beetlejuice came at a paramount point in my life. I was starting to feel that I was being pulled down a corporate avenue and wasn’t quite enjoying my career as much as I should. My first talk with Tim was that he wanted to do as many things as practical effects and to camera as possible. It was such a eureka moment for me. The filming literally revived my love for hair and makeup.

How did you approach Beetlejuice’s hair and makeup?

You can’t change Beetlejuice’s look; it’s iconic. But I wanted to put my stamp on it, so everything was a bit more crumbly and decayed. His skin was more textured. When Michael [Keaton] arrived, he had his own variation, as he was instrumental in the initial look. He wanted decomposed fingernails, so we made up crusty old nails, and he’s very definite about how he likes Beetlejuice’s hair to perform, so I was dressing the wig practically in front of him.

I imagine you worked closely with Neal Scanlan, head of creature effects?

Yes — I was at fittings for any afterlife characters who had contraptions holding weight, like the javelin lady or Jeremy’s parents, with the saw and whisk in their heads. Those were proper tools, not fiberglass or polystyrene. For the cat lady, we hid the actor’s legs in the couch and created dummy legs; then we added Pro Bondo bites where the cat had been eating away at her.

The creativity is quite genius.

Everything’s meant to be tongue in cheek to give you a chuckle. It’s Tim’s dark humor. You’ve got to forget the rules. There’s no such thing as a definite “period.” You’re walking into Tim’s world and have to see what he’s seeing. Tim is so impulsive, as he’s such a visionary. He told us one morning that he wanted Beetlejuice to look up at the sun and have his eyes explode like a “kapow” moment in a cartoon. So we came up with a quick fiberglass mask with ping-pong eyes and popped it on Michael.

Which looks were most challenging?

In the afterlife, the lighting is completely different in the waiting room, the immigration hall and on the soul train. Dead and alive characters travel through, so we had to gauge their levels of makeup to create consistent looks. It took time to get the pallor of Danny DeVito’s green skin correct and that mad yellow gunk around his face. When Willem Dafoe arrived, he said, “Let’s do one side where I’m like Jack Lord from Hawaii Five-O,” perfect hair and super-tan as the Hollywood idol of the time. Since he was a stuntman gone all wrong, the other side was a deliberate ploy to make the prosthetics like the old-fashioned Phantom of the Opera.

This story appeared in the Feb. 12 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.