In creating the world of Nia DaCosta’s Hedda, hair and makeup artist Sharon A. Martin created a new phrase to describe the world of mid-century English aristocracy.
“I coined the term ‘classic modern’ because it’s a very period film, but it’s also a (mixture) of modern times and the era that we had to work in,” Martin said on Variety Artisans Spotlight, hosted by Amazon MGM Studios and hosted by senior Artisans editor Jaz Tancay.
“We had two groups of friends, so we had a lot of room to play around with shapes and looks because we decided they might be influenced by the day,” Martin continued. “George’s friends are a little more classic, and Hedda’s friends are more forward-looking. It gave us a good playground.”
Martin was joined by fellow Hedda craftsmen: editor Jacob Schulsinger, costume designer Lindsay Pugh, and production designer Carla Brower. Based on Henrik Ibsen’s play of the same name, the film follows Hedda Gabler (Tessa Thompson), who is torn between her past and present life with her ex-lover. During the location hunt, Brouwer and DaCosta were joined by Gabler, Irene Lovborg (Nina Hoss), and George Tasman (Tom Bateman) to create a whimsical landscape.
“Nia is very specific about how she writes the script, how she envisions environments, occlusions, and how rooms connect,” says Brouwer. “She had some specific ideas that she wanted, including a ballroom with a balcony around it and a grand staircase. We were very open-minded about what the style of the house would be, and we knew we wanted something that had a different worldliness, a romantic quality, and looked a little quirky that she hadn’t seen before. When we walked into Flint Hall, it had almost everything she wanted, so we just had a gut feeling that it was the right place.”
In her version, DaCosta turns the classic on its head by gender-transforming Gabler’s ex-lover Eilat into Irene.
In the early stages of creating the looks for Gabler and Irene, Pugh wanted their styles to be very different in order to emphasize the emotional journey that both characters go through in the film. Pugh says, “There were points in the script that had to be worked around and that had to be worked into the design. I had to think about it in a very subconscious way (but) in a very feminine way to replicate a man’s suit and shirt.[Eileen]was going to be in this world and she was going to be in a man’s world without anyone noticing it.”
“[Hedda]controls everything. She controls everything, and I wanted the dress to be camouflaged,” Pugh says.
The costume designer also talked about finding the perfect green dress for the title character. “I wanted her to be camouflaged so she could walk around the room and do whatever she wanted to do with people. There was green underneath, but above that was a branded silk tool and a branded lace top. The wrong green could actually wear her out. She has to keep her mask on, and the whole thing about her makeup and her hair is that she keeps it very tight and it has to be perfect all the time.
Martin specifically noted that Pugh found the perfect green to complement Thompson’s skin tone. She, too, found the perfect shade of red for Thompson’s lips, which remained the same until the end. Martin explained how she found the right shade by mixing different lip liners and lipsticks and observing what Pugh created. “It’s about finding a balance. The wrong green can actually drain her, so getting that green perfect gave me even more things I wanted to do to keep her warm, because she has to keep her mask on.” The thing about A is that she wears a mask and her hair is so tight and she keeps it so tight. Her lipstick, it’s always perfect and it’s always on.
In the movie, another scene shows a chandelier colliding. It was originally planned to be held in either the ballroom or the entrance hall, but neither space worked, especially with the location at Flintham Hall. Brower and DaCosta liked the idea of moving the scene into a glass greenhouse. Only Gabler has such wild ideas. “Now we have a reason to use that space,” Browser goes on to explain how they did it. “We had an engineer come in and make sure that when it fell, it wouldn’t just fall, it would completely cascade down.” In addition to working on the logistics, Brouwer and her team laid down the entire floor so it wouldn’t destroy the house. “It was hung very carefully…Everyone was standing behind the monitors in the producer’s room, just waiting. And[cinematographer]Sean Bobbitt had two cameras set up so he could shoot from both angles,” Brower continued. “It was smashed.”
