The Artisans Behind ‘Weapons’ Break Down Gladys’ Red Lipstick and Their Dream Prequel Looks: ‘Underneath Needed To Be A Ferociousness’
From the moment her copper red hair sticks out against the backdrop of an elementary school, you can’t look away from Aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan) in Zach Cregger’s “Weapons.” After the disappearance of 17 children from Justine Gandy (Julia Garner)’s classroom, audiences are left guessing for clues about their whereabouts until the third act begins, introducing us to Gladys as she poses as Alex Lilly (Cary Christopher)’s aunt. With the small town of Maybrook searching for the lost children, it’s revealed that Gladys is harvesting and feeding off of their energy to stay alive, all while keeping their bodies in Alex’s basement.
In order to create Aunt Gladys’ look as she begins to visibly age throughout the film without the energy of the younger kids, special make-up effects designer Jason Collins began researching archives from the 1960s and photographers that were prominent in the era. “Upon conversations with Zach, we looked at Diane Arbus and Cindy Sherman photographs where it looked like your aunt was visiting Florida in the ’60s and played into those looks.”
To help amplify Gladys’ face shape, Collins created prosthetics that unlocked the inner darkness that lurks behind her rimmed glasses. “Underneath the look needed to be a ferociousness to her and needed to be an animal that was preying upon its victims. As a baseline, what we decided to do was change her profile up a bit and give her a beak. Amy’s got a really soft round face, so it gives her a little bit more of a hardness. We narrowed down her pupil so it looked like she was a sort of a bird of prey that was focusing on her victims. We also brought the gumline down and showed the nubs of the teeth.”
As Gladys attempts to blend in with the Lilly family and speak on behalf of Alex’s parents who are in a trance inside their house, makeup designer Leo Satkovich revealed the process in creating Gladys’ signature red lip that worked with the cinematography of the film. “Zach and Larkin [Seiple] wanted a very specific look. They designed their own LUTs (digital color profiles) for the film, which makes their oranges and their reds pop more. We played around with a lot of different colors for her lips.”
“We applied the signature red lipstick which is Mac Retro Matte in Ruby Woo,” said Satkovich. “It had the right amount of blue in there to make everything else really pop and stand out against the rest of her makeup, especially since she was wearing the signature mid century robin’s egg blue eye shadow and the dark graphic eyeliner. Nothing about Gladys was subtle, but we tried to keep all the tones hot so that way they read accordingly on camera.”
Even though audience members are first introduced to Gladys with her red wig, hair department head Melizah Wheat, who was recently nominated for a Critics Choice award for the film alongside Satkovich and Collins, created multiple wigs to highlight the character’s silhouette as she lurks around Maybrook. “We had one to four wigs of different looks. But then we had like three in rotation for those scenes like the nightmare sequence,” Wheat said. “The hair color was different to amplify the scene. The nightmares were in dark lighting and I really wanted it to pop, so I had to push to the naked eye. It’s still the same silhouette, except it’s a little more electrified.”
With the recent news of an Aunt Gladys prequel film, the “Weapons” artisans have their own dream ideas for Gladys’ origins before arriving to Maybrook. “I would love to see Gladys as a Pan Am flight attendant in 1968 based out of Boca Raton,” reveals Satkovich. “That’s where she based her look from!”
In order to create Aunt Gladys’ look as she begins to visibly age throughout the film without the energy of the younger kids, special make-up effects designer Jason Collins began researching archives from the 1960s and photographers that were prominent in the era. “Upon conversations with Zach, we looked at Diane Arbus and Cindy Sherman photographs where it looked like your aunt was visiting Florida in the ’60s and played into those looks.”
To help amplify Gladys’ face shape, Collins created prosthetics that unlocked the inner darkness that lurks behind her rimmed glasses. “Underneath the look needed to be a ferociousness to her and needed to be an animal that was preying upon its victims. As a baseline, what we decided to do was change her profile up a bit and give her a beak. Amy’s got a really soft round face, so it gives her a little bit more of a hardness. We narrowed down her pupil so it looked like she was a sort of a bird of prey that was focusing on her victims. We also brought the gumline down and showed the nubs of the teeth.”
As Gladys attempts to blend in with the Lilly family and speak on behalf of Alex’s parents who are in a trance inside their house, makeup designer Leo Satkovich revealed the process in creating Gladys’ signature red lip that worked with the cinematography of the film. “Zach and Larkin [Seiple] wanted a very specific look. They designed their own LUTs (digital color profiles) for the film, which makes their oranges and their reds pop more. We played around with a lot of different colors for her lips.”
“We applied the signature red lipstick which is Mac Retro Matte in Ruby Woo,” said Satkovich. “It had the right amount of blue in there to make everything else really pop and stand out against the rest of her makeup, especially since she was wearing the signature mid century robin’s egg blue eye shadow and the dark graphic eyeliner. Nothing about Gladys was subtle, but we tried to keep all the tones hot so that way they read accordingly on camera.”
Even though audience members are first introduced to Gladys with her red wig, hair department head Melizah Wheat, who was recently nominated for a Critics Choice award for the film alongside Satkovich and Collins, created multiple wigs to highlight the character’s silhouette as she lurks around Maybrook. “We had one to four wigs of different looks. But then we had like three in rotation for those scenes like the nightmare sequence,” Wheat said. “The hair color was different to amplify the scene. The nightmares were in dark lighting and I really wanted it to pop, so I had to push to the naked eye. It’s still the same silhouette, except it’s a little more electrified.”
With the recent news of an Aunt Gladys prequel film, the “Weapons” artisans have their own dream ideas for Gladys’ origins before arriving to Maybrook. “I would love to see Gladys as a Pan Am flight attendant in 1968 based out of Boca Raton,” reveals Satkovich. “That’s where she based her look from!”