10 Fascinating Insider Secrets About The Evolution Of The Addams Family On “Wednesday” That Will Make You Appreciate The Show That Much More
The Tim Burton–produced Netflix series Wednesday has everyone talking — including myself. Once it dropped on Netflix, I immediately binged it and loved every second of it.
If you aren't familiar with what the supernatural mystery series is about, it focuses on Wednesday Addams' years as a student at Nevermore Academy and all that comes with it.
While there have been various renditions of the Addams family — both in shows and movies — throughout the years, this current series introduced the famous characters to a new, younger generation.
If you watched the show, I'm sure you noticed that Wednesday — and the rest of the Addams family characters — have an updated, modern look, thanks to Wednesday's head makeup and hair designer, Tara McDonald. Everything from Morticia's signature red lip being swapped for a berry lip color to Wednesday's "goth glam" look was created by Tara and her team.
We spoke to Tara about all things Wednesday and behind-the-scenes beauty — including which actor took the longest in the makeup trailer to get into character, how she made Wednesday and Morticia's skin look washed out, and more.
Please note: Mild spoilers for Season 1 ahead!
1.It was important for Tara and her team to give Wednesday a fresh and modern look, especially when introducing her to a younger audience.
"We were bringing Wednesday into this current time, and it was the first time that people of this generation were going to meet Wednesday — Wednesday as a teenager," Tara told BuzzFeed.
"So I wanted to keep with the original Wednesday, of course, but also update her look. So the director [Tim Burton] was quite keen for her to not be so typical goth — to make her a little more accessible, and a bit more fashion-forward. And so I started with the idea of her wearing not too much makeup," Tara added.
2.To create a natural-looking berry lip on Wednesday, Tara and her team tested 10–15 different colors until they found their favorite.
"In regards to Wednesday's lips, I wanted them to look sort of natural, almost like they were her own lips. I did not want her to look like she was wearing lipstick," Tara said.
"So I wanted to get that kind of fresh, soft goth look. After a lot of time playing around with a lot of colors — almost a week — I think we were trying 10 to 15 different colors on her. We finally settled on MAC's Nightmoth Lip Pencil," Tara said.
"The idea was just to mix it in with a bit of balm — Dr. PawPaw Balm — and just dab it on her lips to give her that fresh soft look rather than a harsh lipstick," she continued.
3.A combination of two different foundations a few shades lighter than Jenna Ortega's skin tone were used to make her skin look washed out.
"We did use various foundations on her. It was always going to be a matte makeup look. We didn't want her to look glowy. Some of the other characters' assignments were very glowy, so it was important that Wednesday was quite matte," Tara said. "Occasionally, we used Estee Lauder Double Wear Stay-in-Place Foundation in Porcelain but applied it with a damp sponge and extremely sparingly. So it was very sheer, as we wanted her skin to sort of shine through."
"We just went one or two shades lighter [with the foundation]. We didn't want to put thick white goth makeup on her. We also used a little bit of Armani foundation sometimes. It was very, very light coverage. I wanted her own skin color to come through and it was more about the lips and the eyes that we really focused on," Tara said.
4.To give Wednesday's face a sharp, sculpted look, only specific areas of her face were contoured.
"It was a contour under the hollows of her cheeks up to her temples just to give that sharper, stronger, more angular look," Tara said. Tara specifically used MAC Sculpt and MAC Shadowy Lady for contouring.
5.Tara purposely didn't conceal any under-eye darkness Jenna naturally had.
"One of the other things that we did was never put concealer on her. It was very important to sort of leave her eyes as is and embrace her natural under-eye darkness. We let that sort of shine through and we didn't try to conceal that at all," Tara said.
6.A lot of purple and maroon colors were used on Morticia's eyes to give her a "glossy goth" look.
"With Morticia, I was going more for what I would call a kind of 'glossy goth.' So I wanted to sort of step away from the original Morticia colors. Catherine [Zeta-Jones] was very keen as well to do that," Tara said.
"We put a lot of Clé de Peau foundation on her face and used fake lashes from Ardel. I went down this route of using purple, smoky maroons on her eyes. There was always a hint of purple somewhere with everybody because Tim [Burton] loves purple."
7.For this series, Tara and her team swapped Morticia's usual red lip color for a more plum shade.
"We decided on a plum lip rather than the original red lip [that Morticia always had]. We used Tom Ford Bruised Plum lipstick, which unfortunately is discontinued, but I also used a little bit of Charlotte Tilbury Love Liberty lipstick as well. So we mixed them together a little bit [to get the perfect plum color]," Tara said.
8.Transforming Catherine Zeta-Jones into Morticia took Tara and her team the longest out of all the characters.
"She would come in the morning and have her hair blow-dried and then I would do her makeup, which would take easily an hour, maybe sometimes a little bit longer," Tara said.
"Then I had to put foundation on her hands, chest, and neck [to make Catherine's skin tone paler]."
9.Catherine used some of her own hair extensions to achieve Morticia's signature long black hair.
"Then [Catherine] would take a little breather, and then she would come back in again, sit in the chair, and then we would start the process of adding all her hair extensions," Tara said.
"So we had a lot of hair extensions — waist length — that she brought with her that she actually had. She was very prepared and she's really collaborative. She's very interested in how she looks and she's got fantastic taste."
"We worked together to create this [modern] Morticia. So Catherine would come in and it was two of us — me and another woman, Margo [Stefan, the show’s hair stylist] — and we would start the process with the hair. That would take easily another hour. So I would say Catherine was in the chair most mornings for about two and a half hours."
10.For the blood rain shower scene in Episode 4, several backup wigs were used for some of the characters, since the blood easily stained.
"For the blood rain shower, it was promised that it would all be done in one take. Obviously, once that blood hits them and stains their skin, you can imagine how long it takes to get the blood out of [the actors'] hair and skin," Tara said.
"But of course, we didn't do one take — we did a lot of takes. And so we had backup wigs for Enid and the pink wig — we had three or four different backup wigs for [Larisa] Weems. So we used various duplicates, which were just synthetic platinum blonde wigs, so if it got the blood on them, that was okay because we'd rake it off and then put another one on," Tara said.
