Sharon Martin On How Putrid Colors and Rotten Fruit Inspire the Makeup & Hairstyling of ‘Hedda’

Think about how you doll yourself up for a party. Do you like to try something new to impress a crowd of strangers, or are you to nervous to break out a new shade of lipstick or pin your hair up in a new fashion. In Nia DaCosta’s alluring and dangerous drama, Hedda, everyone is made over to make sure no one can stop looking at them with their host catching the most eyes. Hair and makeup artist Sharon Martin was inspired by the colors of fruit for some of the film’s most delectable designs.

One of the biggest challenges for the entire team behind Hedda is designing something impressionable the majority of the film takes place over the course of one evening. The powers of the makeup, hairstyling and costuming teams went into overdrive for a vision of how one party descends into antagonistic and decadent chaos. For the hostesss of the evening, Tessa Thompson’s Hedda Tesman has to make sure her husband’s colleagues have a good time while also having a little fun herself. Thompson sports an updo to keep her hair out of her face and exposing her neck, and Martin reveals who cut Hedda’s short bangs.

“The whole film started with that main look,” Martin admits. “We have the beginning where she’s instructing the staff and preparing for the party. If you notice, though, that she is never in a state of unreadiness–she always has the facade and everything is perfect at all times. One of the big things about her character, with her hair, is keeping it straight when she doesn’t have straight hair. It’s a throwback to her being a little girl and not fitting in. She’s half Black, so it’s finding a way to show that she can fit in. Everything about Hedda is controlled. With the fringe, and Americans call it a bang, that was kind of the trickiest part. We have Audrey Hepburn and Lena Horne as our inspirations, but we had this thing about having this awkward fringe that she probably cuts herself. It’s shorter than it should be.”

Thompson’s lips draw everyone’s attention–even ours. Her hair is dark and the dress she is wearing is a traditional silhouette with deceptive, colorful layers. Martin gives her such an impressionable shade of red that she could tempt anyone from across a crowded room. To find a singular shade, Martin mixed colors, but she was inspired by some of nature’s juiciest riches.

“With Tessa’s skin tone and the green dress, the lipstick was the next part,” she says, with a smile. “Red can be whatever you want it to be. A red lip has to suit the person, and we tested probably 50 red lipstaicls. We got sent makeup from Armani, we bought some–we played around. We decided we’d have to custom blend to find our color, because we wanted a real depth to this shade. The lighting of the film begins very warm until it gets really cold, like in the cold light of day when everything goes blue. If there’s blue in the lipstick, at that point, we’re probably not looking great. We didn’t want blue in Hedda’s lip.

We wanted to keep that deep, almost putrid color that we played around in the film. Rotten fruit was a big thing with the palette throughout the designs–Cara [Brower], our production designer, came up with that. We thought about rotten plums and mixed with a rotten strawberry.”

Whenever Nina Hoss’ Eileen Lovborg enters, we realize how deeply she is the object of Hedda’s desire. Hoss glows in the role, but there are so many differences between her and Hedda. She is slightly older and a recovering alcoholic. Since she is up for a promotion at the university, she, out of almost all of the guests, would be hoping for a calm, successful evening. Hoss glows.

“Eileen is wearing a different mask, and even though she has this facade, I feel like there’s a nervousness to her going to Hedda’s party,” she says. “She will try, once again, to be as perfect as she can. I feel with the length of Eileen’s hair, it’s of the time, but it’s slightly shorter than it would be–it’s a tad playful but not too set. She’s from the university, but she’s not really part of George’s crowd. The whole design of the film is to differentiate between the two crowds, Hedda’s crowd and George’s crowd. Eileen kind of straddles the line betwen the two. She can be academic and grown up, but Hedda’s crowd is like the influencers of the day and very forward thinking. Hedda’s crowd takes more risks and tries new things. Eileen hasn’t been drinking for a while so her skin looks great, and her lipstick is brighter. She is wearing more of a fresher strawberry. Eileen is hopeful.”

When we get near the dance floor or the bar, you will notice that George’s colleagues like to observe while Hedda’s guests tend to be the center of attention. Martin was sure to cater to both sides to visually showcase the difference between them.

“Even with the background actors, there was such a divide between them,” she says. “Saffron Hocking play Jane, and she had really slicked back hair and those sort of 1960s capri pants. I made the piece on the back of her head to lift the hair away from the outfit, and there’s a bit of masculinity in that look as well. For Mrs. Greenwood, she’s so lovely, and I wanted to show off her amazing face. You can tell that her updo makes her look older, so she’s not part of Hedda’s crowd. If you really dive into the background guests at the party, you can find a clear differences between them.”

As the party rages, more guests drink and let their emotions gets the better of them, and that affects the makeup and hair. If you take a dip in the lake, it will change how your hair rests across your forehead or it might even wash away some powder from your cheeks. Think about how we sweat and how alcohol changes our perception of ourselves.

“The biggest struggle was maintaining that continuity,” she admits. “We filmed as linear as we could, but it’s never going to be entire straightforward. With Nina, we had two wigs for her, and we always have one that was wet and one ready to go. When we switch scenes and she’s back to the beginning of the film again, then we can go back into the fresh wig. When they all go for a swim, it’s lovely and everyone is having a good time. For Tessa, she reused their own hair, and Hedda’s curls and the tendrils in the back were soft. As we all know with curly hair, it grows and grows and grows as it dries. Maintaining that gradual grows throughout was something we kept a close watch on.”

Martin and I mused at how, through all the stress, Hedda can adapt better than anyone. Her makeup stays mostly in tact.

“And it keeps it color,” she says. “We shoud make that [into a] commercial, shouldn’t we?

Hedda is streaming now on Prime Video.