The 95th Academy Awards Race: Best Make-up and Hairstyling

| February 19, 2023

 

The Nominees are . . . 
• Heike Merker and Linda Eisenhamerová for All Quiet on the Western Front
• Naomi Donne, Mike Marino and Mike Fontaine for The Batman
• Camille Friend and Joel Harlow for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
• Mark Coulier, Jason Baird and Aldo Signoretti for Elvis
• Adrien Morot, Judy Chin and Anne Marie Bradley for The Whale

This year’s nominees for Best Makeup and Hairstyling reach a broad scope with aging (Elvis), weight gain (The Whale), mud blood and scars (All Quiet), fantasy culture (Wakanda Forever) and uglifying lean and good-looking Colin Ferrell (The Batman).  It is hard to call.  All of the nominees deserve to be here and each stands out for a particular reason.

The two frontrunners stand out even more.  For Elvis, makeup and hairstylist Shane Thomas, makeup artist Angela Conte, and hairstylist Louise Coulston pull actor Austin Butler through the various stages of Presley’s short life, from the dreamy 1950s with his trademark pompadour and dreamy pallor through the later years of the 70s which the withering of his health and mental state.

The other comes courtesy of prosthetic makeup designer Adrien Morot who used all-digital prosthetic make-up to display Brenden Fraiser’s 600-pound weight gain without burying his face in rubber.  That gave the actor much more freedom of movement in his face to be able to act without fighting the makeup.  The digital effects, said Fraiser in an interview with FilmMonger, allowed Morot to have complete control over the character’s body, how it looked, how it moved, and how it breathed; everything down to the pores.

The Winner: The Whale
The Runner-Up: Elvis



About the Author:

Jerry Roberts is a film critic and operator of two websites, Armchair Cinema and Armchair Oscars.
Filed in: The Oscar Nominees
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