“It’s a very complicated, difficult thing to do,” notes Luisa Abel of the challenge of working on “Oppenheimer” and specifically of “aging” the characters “over many decades.” Christopher Nolan’s epic film about the Manhattan Project and its architect J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) had “73 speaking roles” and “18 agings” that included “three to five leaps of decades.” The head of the makeup and prosthetic department collaborated closely with head of hair department Jaime Leigh McIntosh, and they both discuss their process in a new video that Gold Derby is debuting exclusively. Watch the “Oppenheimer” exclusive video featurette above.
As the film chronicles decades in the life of Oppenheimer, McIntosh had to tailor Murphy’s hair to reflect his aging. The haircut that marks his transition from Ph.D. student to his time on the Manhattan Project “ended up taking five hours,” says McIntosh, because “Chris was there the entire time.” Murphy recalls the director’s involvement, sharing, “It was like he supervised cutting every single hair on my head until he got the desired effect.” Robert Downey Jr., who plays Lewis Strauss, also had a hair transformation to get into character, and he comments, “For me, the funniest thing was shaving back my hairline and starting to remind myself of my dad.”
If Abel and McIntosh’s attention to detail was not already incredibly precise, working on a film in IMAX just heightened their dedication. As Abel notes, “Doing aging on IMAX, it’s got to be perfect… I ended up going to an optician’s and got a pair of my glasses magnified, and then I do my checks with those glasses… You have to be able to see detail when you’re going to be working with IMAX because its ginormous.” Cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema applauds her efforts, sharing, “Luisa made it extremely easy for us. Her makeup is the easiest makeup to photograph. Every time we put it under full scrutiny, we shoot actors in the biggest format possible — in sometimes fairly harsh light — and it always holds up.”
The video also features an interview with Emily Blunt, who plays Kitty Oppenheimer and who also underwent a transformation via prosthetics. She reflects on the experience, “It’s amazing how they were able to craft a prosthetics journey with people that was so subtle and so well observed.” Watch the full video to see footage of the prosthetics, makeup, and hair work being done with Blunt, Murphy, David Krumholtz, Josh Hartnett, and others in their makeup chairs, as well as more behind-the-scenes footage.
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