The Who What Wear Podcast: Wednesday Hair and Makeup Artists Nirvana Jalalvand, Francesco Pegoretti, and Lynn Johnston on Moody Colors, Gothic Foundation, and Dark Circles

0:10Kaitlyn McLintock:Welcome to the Who What Wear podcast, your direct line to the designers, stylists, beauty experts, editors, and tastemakers who are shaping the ever-evolving world of fashion. I'm Who What Wear, Editor-in-Chief, Kat Collings, and today I'm passing the mic to our beauty editor, Caitlin McClintock, who is sitting down with the hair and makeup masterminds behind Netflix's hit show Wednesday. We have Nirvana Jalaldan, Francesco Pegaretti, and Lynn Johnston. Part two of the show's highly anticipated second season dropped earlier this month, reuniting us with our favorite students at Nevermore Academy.

0:47Kaitlyn McLintock:me. Today, you'll hear how the team designed the Addams Family moody color palette and used makeup to reflect Wednesday and Morticia's shifting mother-daughter dynamic. They give us the inside scoop on what products they use to create realistic dark circles on Jenna Ortega for her signature gothic look, right down to the exact brand of foundation. Plus, the team shares how they built on the aesthetics of season one to show how characters like Enid have grown and where they have yet to go in their journey. It's all coming up on Who What Wear.

1:22Nirvana Jalalvand:Well, hello, everyone. Like I said, I'm so excited to be chatting with you. I just watched the first four episodes of Wednesday, and I have so many questions. So obviously, The Addams Family is one of the most iconic movie and or TV series of all time. And the characters are so distinct, and they each have such a distinct look. So I would love to hear from each of you, how did you go about creating a new and modernized version while still paying homage to the original and like putting your unique spin on it aesthetically?

1:58Lynn Johnston:Yeah, I loved the old black and white TV series. I suppose the makeup that we've used this time is some of it's kind of a lot of classic lines that have been around for a really long time, like eyeliners and slightly different shapes of things. And then some slightly different products so that they're in keeping with whatever way the camera is seeing things.

2:19Francesco Pegoretti:As Lynn says, I saw the first time when I was very, very young the Black and White series after the movie with Angelica Yusso. I never spent in my life that once I had to work with the Addams families because also I didn't do the first season. So when they called me to do the second one, oh my God, I have to do this project with Tim Burton and the family Addams. So I was scared and very emotional because it was amazing. So I try to follow for the second season What they decided in the first one for the main characters, but we changed a lot of things with Colleen Atwood. So we create some of the characters.

2:52Francesco Pegoretti:Some one has to be new. We have more characters than the first one. The grandmother Varikos is a woman version of Lurch. It's very iconic characters. So for me, it's very different than the first season and then the other movies before and the original one. We keep the iconic details from each character. We do something new too.

3:12Lynn Johnston:And the looks were very strong, I thought, in the first season. So tweaks that we made were just something that was going to work with camera. You know, if something was a bit shiny, we mashed it down or did shading in slightly different places. But it's not that different for makeup, I think, from the first season.

3:28Francesco Pegoretti:technically also i did something different for example catherine was a very small part in the first season and they said what the cut is bigger and so i changed because in the first season they used their own hair for morticia and we decided together with colin and catherine to make wigs for her for me they work much better because also to create the color because even the palette of the family adams usually is very dark it's very black but talking with the op we decide to find the color with some light inside. It's not solid. Even in Morticia's hair, at the end, it looks dark. It looks black, but it's not black at all.

4:04Francesco Pegoretti:It's with a lot of different nuance inside, even for Gomez and for the other guys as well. So it was nice to recreate the family palette for the Adam's color, I should say, yeah.

4:17Nirvana Jalalvand:Yeah, and that's something that I was wondering while watching this series, is their palette is always really dark. It's grays, it's black, it's maybe some berry tones. Makeup wise, was that hard to bring like dimension and have that show up on camera when you're sticking to a very specific color palette?

4:35Kaitlyn McLintock:I find that it lends itself quite well because when they're in the house or in Wednesday's room, everything's pretty gothic and pretty dark and pretty moody. So I think it lends itself well to lean into that. But then equally, when they're not in their environment, I think it stands out really nicely as a contrast against the normies and the normal world. So sometimes when they're in colourful spaces, I think it amplifies their moodiness and their grey tones.

5:03Lynn Johnston:Yeah, I definitely think it is that. And even when we see in Morticia's room, the warmth that's in there is really red. Even with her makeup, there is a tiny bit of warmth in her cheeks and on her eyes, you know, just so it's not so completely flat, just to bring a tiny bit of light in. But the overall look is dark. Yeah.

5:23Nirvana Jalalvand:And I think one of the things that I really enjoy out of any series is seeing how the characters, their look will subtly change between season one and season two, whether that's to show the passage of time or get them deeper into their character. I know Morticia started wearing the wigs. Was there any other tweaks that you made aesthetically to any of the main characters between season one and season two that we might not have caught?

5:50Francesco Pegoretti:Yeah, first one, Emma, we changed completely the look because also for the story, she's more a teenager. So we need to see her different than the first season. So with Colleen, at the beginning, we decided together to change a bit of the palette of the colors. So basically she's blonde, but the crazy colors in the end, we decided to use a more intense color. The light blue, the sky, and the pink, purple are more intense, more strong than the first season. Even the haircut, she's a wolf, so it's a little bit greasy sometimes. So she plays a lot with the hair. Of course, we use some accessories with many different colors, but something always a bit wild to remind a bit that she's a wolf inside.

6:33Francesco Pegoretti:We try to keep in general the details for each character from the first season. And the big challenge was more to create the new one and to illustrate the new characters, you know.

6:44Nirvana Jalalvand:Right, absolutely. And what about from the makeup side? Like, were there any small tweaks either on Jenna Ortega or any of the other main cast members between season one and season two?

6:55Kaitlyn McLintock:For Jenna, a lot of the products I switched out because a lot of them were discontinued. So then I had to go around trying to find the same thing, but different. The Pat McGrath Sublime Perfecting Foundation, whatever it's called, that was my favorite for her this season. but otherwise I did keep her pretty true to season one just put on slightly less makeup actually because the more makeup I put on her the more grown up she looked and I wanted to make sure that she still looked like a teenager so that was all really pretty similar for Jenna hair and makeup wise.

7:28Lynn Johnston:We just kind of softened her lip tone and her look slightly because she's coming back from the dead and Colleen had changed her costume colours to be slightly paler as well so we We were looking for just something to soften that strong red lip that she had in the first season. And then Tyler, because the monster isn't hidden anymore with him, we were able to bring some tiredness into his eyes or try and show his emotional state, whether he was a bit more broken down or a bit up and down as his character went. And then, as Francesco said, Enid's look was such a change because she is talking about how she has changed over the summer.

8:06Lynn Johnston:and then Marilyn Thornhill was a big change compared to the first season you know I love the glimpse that Wednesday clocks her in the corridor when she goes past and realizes yeah I think they were the main changes anything else was small tweaks you know.

8:21Nirvana Jalalvand:And speaking of product because I'm a beauty editor I love to know specifics across both hair and makeup were there any like really just standout staple products that you loved using on this season?

8:34Kaitlyn McLintock:Yeah I mean everyone has heard me bang on about my little night moth lip balm pot situation still stand by that the pat mcgrath foundation was incredible also the pat mcgrath under eye powder i can't remember the name of it but i actually just used that all over jenna's skin and it just gave like this really beautiful airbrushed finish quality to her skin which i thought worked really well lash dry shampoo mascara that's really good for topping up people's mascara during the day because sometimes it goes a bit dry and like lashes lose their lip but that is a really good little top up love that so yeah those were probably my standouts so many products across

9:15Lynn Johnston:so many casts but we did use a lot of matte products we used some charlotte tilbury products sculpted by amy glossier armani luminous silk of course some tom ford some of the chanticaille reflective powders and cheek gels and then on the special effects side we use some of the bluebird palettes and the skin illustrator palettes the ombre elise moisturizer is great for just breaking up any makeup if it's kind of a cakey during the day it's great for pulling it back and then

9:43Francesco Pegoretti:working on top of again honestly i like a lot marianila was great and oribe for example for gala when we have something structure i like a lot this brand blix for hairspray e-word blix i I don't know if you know, works very well, actually.

10:00Nirvana Jalalvand:Wow, I'll have to check out that hairspray. I love product recommendations. This is my favorite part of any interview. And I know there's probably hundreds and hundreds of products that are used throughout these episodes. So I appreciate you.

10:15Nirvana Jalalvand:One thing I really thought was interesting in this season is that it's really like a study of a mother-daughter relationship between Wednesday and Morticia. And I think what's interesting is like aesthetically, their look is somewhat similar. I've noticed that their makeup look tends to almost mirror each other. It appeared as if they both have kind of a light like berry lip, some of the smoked out shadow. Can you share how you differentiated between Wednesday and Morticia's look and if there were any specific references you pulled from?

10:46Kaitlyn McLintock:Yeah, I think it's interesting, like you say, because the storyline is very much that they're like going through this struggle at the moment where Wednesday's sort of doing that teenage thing where she rebels against her mum and she's like annoyed by everything she's suggesting but I think that what's nice about their makeup is that it does kind of bring this element of unison to it even though Wednesday doesn't want to be like her mother she kind of is very influenced by her mother and has grown up in that family and there's definitely elements there that hark into one another that the whole Adams family have a very specific colour palette like we were saying.

11:22Lynn Johnston:yeah no their palettes are quite similar I think there's maybe a little more pink in Morticia that

11:28Kaitlyn McLintock:Wednesday doesn't have but also Morticia's a lot softer than Wednesday is isn't she so

11:33Nirvana Jalalvand:it kind of lends itself nicely obviously the Addams family they're known for this power to their skin it's slightly ghost-like and I was wondering how are you achieving that look and what complexion products are you using to do so because it's very subtle in some scenes especially when she's in the dark rooms and she's in the dark settings. Once she's outside or, you know, in some of the more colorful settings, it really seems to pop.

11:59Kaitlyn McLintock:That Pat McGrath Foundation I was telling you about, that worked really well because you can layer that really nicely. And Jenna obviously has gorgeous Latino skin, but we still want her to have that goth, ghostly look, like you were saying. What I have always done to find her Wednesday shade is look at the lightest part of her complexion and I kind of matched to that to give an overall hue of slight fairness and I know that you guys did the same with Catherine Lynn it's a case of adding that colour to their hands to their neck to their ears making sure that colour's diffused everywhere so it really does look like they are these ghostly otherworldly creatures in this family.

12:38Lynn Johnston:Dorothy Campbell looked after Catherine and she used a lot of different products I suppose the main base on her face is the Armani luminous silk and there are different concealers in different places that have different textures or slightly different tones just to try and blur the whole complexion to make it really nice and pale and reflective and then on the neck and chest I think it was the Estee Lauder double wear because it tends not to rub off onto the clothes too much and also because Catherine you know her skin is naturally more like the type of skin that appreciates the sun. So we really need to knock back and try and cover her color.

13:17Lynn Johnston:But again, there's a few products layered, one to try and block out the color that's there, but then also to make it reflective and try and not look like there's too much makeup on.

13:27Nirvana Jalalvand:Yeah. And I imagine it's such teamwork creating these characters because just when you said that, I was thinking, you know, wardrobe department, they're wearing all black. And if they're wearing makeup, that's more pale or you're using powders, it must be hard. So it's just so interesting to get the behind the scenes secrets on the makeup and how you make it work. One thing I wanted to talk about this season, especially, I am very impressed with the dark circles. The characters who have the dark circles, they're so natural looking, they look so tired, whether it's Tyler when he's locked up, or even Jenna with her dark circles.

14:01Nirvana Jalalvand:How do you create such realistic looking dark circles on

14:04Kaitlyn McLintock:these characters for Jenna because hers is a lot more subtle and it is just that Tim Burton-esque hollowed out eyes I literally just don't put any product under her eye and then I just bring the base color up to where her under eye is and it creates that illusion of shadow once you get rid of the warmth and the skin tone then it really allows the bluey tones under her eyes to pop out and Jenna loves it when they're popping out sometimes if she was well rested she'd be like oh, I look too well rested today.

14:36Lynn Johnston:For some of the guys, we used either tones in the MAC Pro palette that are very lacking in warmth, or sometimes it might be the Ben Nye matte foundation. It just depended on who it was going on to and what their own skin colour was and if they had any base. But anything that's very thick or heavy, we tended to mix it with the MAC Pro makeup mixer to try and thin it out. And sometimes there would be more than one colour used, so it doesn't look so blocky. It looks more kind of like something that's real.

15:07Nirvana Jalalvand:Season two is also when we meet Wednesday's grandmama. So Hester Frump, played by the wonderful Joanna Lumley. I was really interested in seeing how you guys created a look for grandmother Adams here. Were there any specific references in both hair and makeup for her? Because I personally was getting a very cool sort of Bride of Frankenstein reference. from her. And I would love to know what it was like working together to create her look.

15:36Francesco Pegoretti:That's what I have to say. It was an amazing opportunity to work with Joanna Lombly, guys. I love her so much. It's unbelievable. With Colleen Atwood, we start to think about some idea for her. At some point, not about Frankenstein, but about Daphne Guinness, because she has to be also very elegant. Something dark, something very high-class woman, and the shape has to be very iconic. I like a lot this idea there to be two different colors. So the white and the black, because this is still in the palette of the family. We tried with Joanna. I used a wig, of course, for her. It was a beautiful wig, to be honest, made in Rome.

16:15Francesco Pegoretti:And I created a base inside the hair to create this volume. At some point, my expression was the body of the spider. So something to remind an ink set for her to mix these two colors and this shape. And so something also very elegant, something strong and iconic. And I think it works very well. And also, I like a lot this color for her face because she was really blonde in the real life. I think with the white, she's beautiful. She's with the hair highs also and the beautiful makeup too as well. I think they match very well.

16:47Lynn Johnston:Elaine Hopkins was looking after Hester and I think was Colleen wanted quite a winged eye on her, which I think works really well with one of the collars of the costume was very angular and just to bring her slightly away from the softness of Morticia but she is a bit harder so her lip color is a bit cooler and Joanna herself kind of felt like the Addams family are almost like cartoon characters in that they never change they're kind of timeless you know so that's where her look came from.