How The Iron Claw ’s Hair and Makeup Team Manifested All the Mullets, Tans, and Sweat

A24

Last July, A24 released an image of The Iron Claw’s main cast—featuring Zac Efron, Harris Dickinson, Jeremy Allen White, and Stanley Simon as the Von Erich brothers, a real-life quartet of ’80s-era Texan pro wrestlers—that immediately set Twitter and Instagram aflame. A large part of the appeal was the actors’ absurdly buff physiques bursting forth from their tight retro costumes, of course. But their glorious mullets and golden tans were what really kicked the internet thirst machine into high gear.

The period-accurate grooming was the brainchild of Natalie Shea Rose and Elle Favorule, The Iron Claw’s hair and makeup department heads, respectively. To prepare for the film, the pair dove deep on the script, researched the Von Erichs online as much as possible, and studied a series of photos selected by director Sean Durkin to get a better sense of how to portray the brothers over the two decades covered in the film. “We couldn’t give them 10 to 15 looks over the 20-year span, so we distilled it down into one look for each of the boys and then we went from there,” Favorule told GQ.

The Von Erichs grew up working on their family’s Texas ranch, which meant the actors all needed natural-looking tans. Favorule didn’t have to do a thing to the sun-kissed Efron. “Zac's tan is completely natural,” she says. “Which I appreciated, because it gave us less of a concern when it came to wrestling and friction and touch ups and sweat.”

Dickinson and White, however, needed some color boosting—a process complicated by the pair’s many tattoos. The tats were erased via “a multi-step, multi-layer process” involving Bluebird Tattoo Cover Inks; both actors’ shades were custom mixed and every layer had to be sealed to the skin. That was then topped with a spray tan, a combination of mauve pink (to simulate the type of flush a wrestler develops during a match) and chocolate brown, all applied using a special method. “A colleague of mine in LA showed me this spatter technique years ago,” Favorule says, “where you put the pressure all the way down on the compressor, you loosen up the gun, kind of tilt it, and it gives this beautiful freckling effect.” The color was focused on their shoulders, arms, backs, and chest—all areas one would see plenty of sun after long days of outdoor labor. The real trick was ensuring the spray tans could withstand the friction of wrestling while also not getting on their costumes. “Everything was custom made and there was only one of each [costume],” she says.

The other pro wrestling staple Favorule’s makeup team was responsible for? Sweaty full-body sheens. To achieve that, however, Favorule had to forgo the usual movie-set suspects like glycerin and baby oil. “The boys would have slid right off of each other,” she says, “and it's so dangerous when they're wrestling and picking each other up.” The solution was a mix of Weleda Hydrating Body & Beauty Oil with a smear of African shea butter over top. “It was actually great at not breaking down the tattoo [coverage], and then the water [sprayed on the actors to simulate sweat] kind of beaded up nicely over that.”

To nail those incredible ’80s hair styles, Efron and Dickinson wore custom wigs which were handmade by wigmaker Rob Pickens. (White, meanwhile, wore extensions.) Once Rose received the wigs, she trimmed them to suit each actor and added highlights to Efron’s. “There's several photos of Kevin [Von Erich, played by Efron] where his hair looks really blonde because he’s been outside in the sun all day,” Rose says, “but you can still see that [base] color underneath.”

Rose’s background in theater and ballet, meanwhile, proved especially handy when it came to ensuring the wigs stayed secure during the wrestling scenes. “It's all about pinning,” she says. Once the actors’ real hair was wrapped tightly with strong hold gel and blow dried, Rose would place a number of anchors to hold the hairpieces tightly in place. Because the wigs were made of real hair, they also required products to keep them nourished and control frizz. “There was a little cocktail in every wig,” says Rose. To battle the Louisiana humidity, Rose misted the wigs with Davines Love Curl Revitalizer and used R&Co Flexible Hairspray to “keep it from being wispy.”

As the shoot went on, the actors all grew especially attached to their mullets. “Surprisingly they were always sad to have their wigs off,” says Rose. “I was like, Man, you never hear guys say that,” she says. Normally, Rose explains, men want their hot and itchy hairpieces off as soon as possible. “But they said, No, this feels great.”

Originally Appeared on GQ

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