Spoiler Alert: This article contains major spoilers for the plot, cameo, and ending of “Wicked: For Good,” now in theaters, and mild spoilers for the “Wicked” stage show.
“Wicked” makeup designer Frances Hannon did a perfect job for her.
After successfully finding the perfect shade of green to make Cynthia Erivo green, she needed to continue each character’s story for the film’s conclusion, Wicked: For Good.
“For Good” does more than just continue the story of Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) and Glinda’s (Ariana Grande) friendship. It also tells the backstories of Dorothy’s friends, the Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow.
Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), who is in a love triangle with Elphaba and Glinda, becomes the Scarecrow, and Me, the munchkin (Ethan Slater), transforms into the Tin Man. All conversions were done in real life.
Here, Hannon explains how Slater and Bailey transformed into their characters.
my transformation
In “Wicked,” Boku falls in love with Glinda the moment he sees her on his first day at Shizu University. However, Glinda has her eyes set on Prince Fiyero, and persuades me to court Nessarose instead. Nessa believes that I truly care about her.
In “Wicked: For Good”, Nessa becomes the governor of Munchkinland after her father’s death. When Bok tries to leave, she uses her powers to suppress Munchkin and force him to stay with her. When Elphaba learns of this, she visits her sister and tries to help her. However, things go awry, and Nessa casts Grimly’s spell to obtain my heart. The situation ends when Elphaba regains control and intervenes.
During the scene, I begin to feel my heart shrinking and the metal begins to attach itself to him. Elphaba tells Nessa that she is asleep and leaves. After she leaves, he wakes up and breaks down the door with an axe. I am now a tin man without a heart, and his transformation is complete.
In pulling it off, Hannon explains, Jon M. Chu and Marc Platt were very specific about what they wanted. It also required collaboration with production designer Nathan Crowley, costume designer Paul Tazewell, and prosthetic make-up designer Mark Courier. “The most important thing was that no matter what we did, we never forgot to make the characters relatable and able to express all their emotions,” says Hannon. “He was covered in prosthetics, all of which were practical, but I could still see me underneath them.”
Aside from keeping his feelings intact, the details of what made him the Tin Man were equally important.
Courier began by making a plaster cast of Slater’s face. A few weeks later, Slater saw a Styrofoam head with a Tin Man design on it. “He doesn’t look like me. He looks like the Tin Man,” he remembers thinking. Mr. Courier assured him that the parts would stretch to fit the contours of his face.
Slater said a total of 11 parts were added to the face, including a cheekbone prosthesis to change the cheek line and additional parts to change the jawline.
The application process took 4 hours. “I went to sit in the prosthetic chair with the team and they started applying glue to hold my eyebrows in place,” Slater explains. “They put these pieces of silicone on top of each other, one by one. It took great care and precision.”
Mr Slater’s eyelids and lips were painted silver and he wore false teeth. “I was wearing contacts to give my eyes a greyish-silver color,” he added.
The actor remembered his own reflection in the mirror for the first time. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It looked like me, but it didn’t look like me. What really surprised me was that the Styrofoam head had completely morphed into my face. When I lifted one of my eyebrows, it rose and you could see my dimple showing through.”
The Tin Man’s body was developed using metal pieces from Nessa’s office. Hannon said: “The small square where his heart was placed was part of the fireplace. On the tray was a sugar bowl and a milk jug, and the handles of the jug were his ears. In his fingers were salt and pepper jars, a thimble, and pieces of the fireplace.” “The small rivets around the edges are very delicate and were carefully chosen by John,” she added.
Hannon worked with Courier to find a balance that kept Slater’s performance visible through the design. “We want him to still have some humanity, so we don’t give him a bulging nose coming out of a teapot or anything ridiculous. He has to meet all the criteria of a human being bringing the Tin Woodman into a performance.” When designing him, they wanted to nod to previous films rather than copying what came before. “We started by considering silver. The arms needed to match the face. Mark (Courier) pre-painted the part. It matched the rest of the body, but didn’t look different than the rest.”
By the time of “March of the Witch Hunters,” his makeup had progressed a bit.
After he was out in the rain, fine rust had started to appear on the tin can.
As for Slater’s hair, he had to scrub it and smooth it out before donning the bald cap. I was given extensions to make my hair “three-dimensional and larger.” Mr Slater said the bald cap was tied as tight as possible. “It took about 30 minutes because I have a lot of hair. I feel like I have a lot of hair now, but it was three times that long.”
Hannon added, “The little funnel continued at the last minute.” In total, “it took about four hours. Once he put the suit on, he stood almost the entire time, so the suit lasted a long time.”
In addition to practical makeup, VFX was also used. Chew praised the VFX team’s work, saying, “The mechanical joins of the Tin Man’s body were done by VFX, and some seams were cleaned up.”
Fiyero’s transformation
universal
Fiyero’s transformation is foreshadowed. The lyrics of “Dancing Through Life” hint at his future, and costume designer Paul Tazewell weaves Easter eggs into the Emerald City security guard’s costume.
In “No Good Deed”, Elphaba casts a spell to protect Fiyero from being tortured when he is captured by a wizard’s guard. This spell turns him into a scarecrow and allows him to live.
Hannon says he definitely referenced the movie when creating the scarecrow.
“We didn’t want it to look like a big rope tied around the neck and a big bag on top of the head. What Paul Tazewell did was brilliant. He did the straws coming out of the seams and all the things on the uniform,” she added. “Mark had made a linen collar so that all the buttons on the shirt could be undone.”
Hannon made the scarecrow’s wig and eyebrows out of grass and straw.
“I used the blonde in Fiyero’s hair as a very strong point to stick with that change. The blonde in his own hair in the opening of movies one and two then develops into a straw quality from the field.”
The wigs were made from wheat ears and sewn on, but they had very little hair in them,” she added. “And then there were those cute little hats that Paul designed out of bark.”
Additionally, Hannon points out subtleties in Jonathan’s eyes. Fiyero comes from Winkie Country, where the color is deep blue. Hannon says, “He had blue contact lenses. When he went to Scarecrow, we went back to Jonathan’s own colored eyes, which were a really deep dark brown and brought back that earthy quality.”
