Spider-Noir Unmasked: Hair, Makeup, and the Art of Noir Storytelling

0:07 Welcome to look behind the look the celebrated podcast that explores your favorite looks in film television and fashion history through conversations with the fashion world's elite and award-winning hair makeup and costume designers on sets around the world you will see and hear exciting tales from behind the scenes career origin stories and tons of advice and tips i'm your host tiffany bartok hey everybody welcome to look behind the look I am talking today about Emmy contender Spider Noir. This is a show that you might not be watching yet, but you definitely need to be. It's Nick Cage's new show about a film noir version of Spider-Man. This is one that's familiar. In The Spider-Verse There's a graphic novel that it's based on It's incredible artwork And it really comes to life in this television show on Amazon Prime I'm talking today with makeup department head Lana Horachowski Hair Department Head Teresa Rivers and Prosthetic Designer Vincent Van Dyke all three of them join me in this talk and we're celebrating their creativity and execution and in this talk we also refer to the director of photography's work that's Darren Tiernan who is also the DP on The Penguin I just wanted to put that out there because I don't believe I said his full name when we were talking about him in the interview So enjoy this conversation.

1:29 It's a quickie. We get right to the point. And I really want you to check out the show and tell me what you think of it. Have fun. Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for joining me at Look Behind The Look. Vincent, you and I are the ones that are camera ready here. but we also have Lana and Teresa here which is so exciting the entire team that made this amazing series visually stunning and I'm so excited to talk to you about it this is extraordinary spider noir and I feel like not enough people have been talking about all of the amazing levels that are in this There's glamour and prosthetics and beauty and I just I want to talk to you about how you guys the three of you came together to really bring that to fruition everything is beautiful even the gore so was that something that you guys talked about how you were going to get all of these nods to film noir and still make it exciting for us to watch today Well, this is Teresa, and I'm the boss.

2:36 I direct everyone on what to do. Nice, nice. No, we came together working. Lana and I have worked together off and on for many years, and this was my first time working with Vincent. So I'll Just Start There And I'll Let You Guys Jump Into It Yeah So Vincent When They Approached You What Was The Discussion About How You Were Going To What Were The References And What Was The Goal That The Three Of You Had Yeah, I had actually just come off of a film or a project with Lana and she brought me along with this, which was amazing and super, super exciting. The initial conversation was interesting because I'm not a comic book lover or I don't understand the world of superheroes.

3:24 And so I remember telling... I mean, I kind of think none of us are, right? We were all like... that might have been really helpful and part of it part of what made it so great because it's just so accessible to us you know even if we're not comic book nerds you know well and I think that that's you know the showrunner Oren that was one of the things I feel like actually did kind of excite him as he was like yeah I I didn't really know either he's like I'm diving into this in this really cool way as well and and so I think that that was like a fresh take on it I mean my my whole world is always at As Like Realistic As Possible I Want To Ground Everything As Much As I Can And So I Think Coming Into A Project Like This I Was Really Excited That They Were So Open To The Idea That Even Though We're Doing You Know A Sandman That We Can Figure Out A Way To Make That Real And So Like A Great Example With That Is That You Know Oren Described That To Me As As Get In The Headspace That It's An Ailment That It's Like Psoriasis That He Has Something Wrong With His Skin That's Exactly What It Looks Like Yeah and then that's how we kind of ran with it so it's it was great for me because I'm so I'm so logical and so unless I can have bits like that that I can run with um you know I can I can easily get lost in the sauce of like you know this is just too fantastical so it was a great example of something that really grounded the direction of of a character for us to run with and go okay now I can understand how we can design and approach this from a from a kind of a reality standpoint Well I think that was like I think that was also like at the start of it when we first came on it was definitely like because Teresa and I were

4:57 so like we don't know anything about superheroes we only know 1930s like we've done a lot of period shows together so I'm like we really like we have a we have a handle on like the hair and makeup of a period show but we were like the superhero thing so when we started having meetings at first they were talking about all these you know these villains and like Everything Was Gonna Be Visual Effects Like Oh The Sandman Is Just Gonna Be Like It's All Visual Effects And Then It's Visual Effects And We Were Just Like Well You Know Is There A World Where It's Not All Visual Effects Cause That To Me Is Gonna Make It Look Like It's Gonna Take You Out Of The Period Yes You Know So That's When They Started I Was Just Like You Know Let's Meet With Vincent Is He Like Let's Just Get A Take On It And You Know I Think A Lot Of People Are Scared Of Prosthetics A Lot Of Times Because Sometimes It Can Look It Becomes Like The Makeup Doing The Acting You Know And I Think That's What Vincent Is So Strong And It's Like It's Like The Less Is More And That You Know So When We Started Talking About It And That's When You Know When They Were Leaning More Into The Idea Of Doing You Know Everything Practical Versus Computer um that's when oran really started liking the idea like then you know what vincent said of like oh yeah it's more of a skin disease and then all three of them you know everything was more like instead of it being like lightning it's like oh there's like i mean i mean like the electricity running through them it's like the lightning being struck by lightning and what happens when that

6:28 happens to your body and stuff like that you know So Did You Look To Medical Things For That Because The Psoriasis It's So Funny I My Son Has Eczema And I Was Like Oh My Gosh He Has You Know And That Really Like It Made It Very Human For Sandman You Know And Very Sympathetic You Know For Sure So Did You Guys You Guys Study These These Bodies And These Ailments Probably Extensively I Mean I Hate To Say That I've My Career Has Been Studying These Okay Yeah Of Course So You Know You're asking me about these books and it's like all of these for example are all um you know uh antique medical uh books from um you know from very very long ago some of those are from the 1700s wow it's it's it's fun to be able to pull from that stuff I mean that's that's I think where we all get all of our inspiration from is we are always looking at reality we're looking at either history or we're looking at nature and we're trying to pull that I mean I was I was once taught very early in my career that The Stuff That Is The Most Believable Is Is Duplicating Nature In Any Sense Whether It's Taking Insects Or You Know Tree Bark Or Whatever It May Be If You Pull From That Then Innately Your Audience Is Going To Believe It And Think That It Is Real As Opposed To Doing The Stuff That You're Coming Up With That Is Completely Fantastical That Has No Frame Of Reference It'll Sometimes Disconnect You And You Don't Understand Why You Can't Really Put Your Finger On It But That I think we all three of us really share is that we're trying to make sure that

7:59 we're doing things that feel like we're pulling from, again, history, nature, things we've seen before, and then being able to kind of play on that. That's what made this look really authentic to me is that it was rooted in reality like that whereas you know some people when they get they go a little crazy and sort of fantastical with film noir because it's more a nod to but this really looks like it you know and it's just so true to film noir I wonder about the femme fatale and creating that too ladies did you have an idea right away about how you were going to do that? Well this is Teresa initially with our meeting with Lili um I mean she's gorgeous gorgeous yes yeah but um she walked in and she had hair down to her butt and I was like oh my god and I'm clearly you know you don't want to cut hair like that um So from there we went into or I went into talking with her about a wig and you know sometimes there's hesitation and she did have a little hesitation about how are we going to fit all of her hair under a wig and make it believable and we just took it from there and started doing fittings with her and tests to see what she thought of the shorter wig and we Lana and I of course We Dove Into Talking About How We Were Going To Create This

9:31 Look For Her Where We Would Kind Of Bounce From Different Wigs At Times And Different Makeup Looks And Coordinating That With Her Costumes It's Stunning Absolutely Gorgeous And The Light The Work With The Lighting I Mean Did It Was It Helpful To Work With The Because Of Course I Am Obsessed With The Penguin And I Notice It's The Same DP Right Away I Mean I Wondered And Then I Looked It Up He Yes He Was Like So Helpful In The Prep Process Like Never Have I Worked With And I Hope You Know Like We Get To Work With Him Again Somebody I'm Sure Like Hands On With Our Departments As He Was It Was Like I Mean He We Would Have One On One Meetings With Him He Would Sit With Us For Hours And We Would Just Go Through He Gave Each Of Us Like A Camera Oh So we could bring it into the trailer to test everything That's amazing Yeah so we would have our own camera set up of like to see what would happen in the black and white and see what would happen in the color because you know when we were to shoot it that way it's like we had to definitely stray away from like like everything that was like defined by the period because we just could only you know just because you know to make it look okay both ways Yeah I'm one I would give us a camera in the trailer and had a setup for us and he you know even like to to do like just like a bruise you know which would look totally different in black and white and color so we would have these cameras in

11:01 the trailer that we could just like see what it would look like and what we would have to add to it to be like okay this will work in color but it looks like a bruise in black and white and not just like a smudge or something you know yes yes and and what what were what was the most challenging part of the black and white color that must have been a kind of a nightmare I mean I've only watched it to be fair in black and white so far but I plan on on watching it in color of course to just see what you guys went through I mean I honestly the hardest part was that like you know if you're just I mean it's like Like I said before Teresa and I've done so many period shows where we've had to be so like on point where it's like This Color Didn't Exist Back Then You Can't Use It This Is The Product That They Used Back Then So It's Like We Had To Always Be Like Accurate With That Stuff Sure On A Show Like This We're Like Luckily It's Like A Superhero Show So We Could Be Like Okay Yeah They Didn't Really Have Glitter Back Then Or Metallics Back Then So But Whatever It's Like They Also There's A Sandman And You Know So We Could Just Kind Of Be Like Okay It Is What It Is They Didn't Have Sandman Back Then Well You Know So I've Heard So I've Heard um so like you know we were able to use like like the metallics really helped for me because I'm like okay everything was super flat yeah you know without it and so we were able to like really highlight and and stuff with like more metallic and I feel like and we ended up using the metallics also right

12:34 Vincent on the prosthetics as well yeah Absolutely yeah you know tombstone's a great example of that where Ken Ederbomber who's the key prosthetics on set and he played with doing a lot of that in those iridescence and kind of pushing that into the surface of the of the skin to really help kind of give you that it's almost like a chameleon effect where as he turns you kind of get a little bit of this you know purple pearlescent or a blue pearlescent or things that really Help You In Color A Lot But Atlanta Saying It Really Helped A Lot In Black And White As Well Actually Give You Kick And Reflectivity To The To The Flesh Contrast There Right Just Basically You're Really Limited To I Mean Well Not Limited But It Helped By Kind Of The Narrowness Of It Just Being Contrast And Highlight Right Completely but then yeah playing with what's matte and what's shiny but then also what's reflective is a really interesting way to get into that world and so yeah he's that's a great example of the crossover between those metallics working in both prosthetics and makeup What were the challenges for you being in color versus black and white Vincent?

13:37 I feel like my challenges were far less than the ladies here. They were under it in such a different way. I mean, my general rule of thumb from the beginning was that I just want to make something look as good to the eye in color as possible. And then, you know, if it doesn't, then we can kind of adjust. We can kind of figure out what needs to happen there. But I found that most of what we did, as long as we were you know true to what we wanted it to be in terms of the sand color and texture or you know we have a really cool man spider and so the patterning on on his body to really emphasize what that was um it it felt like it worked in both worlds and luckily knock on wood it did well yeah everybody's talking about the man spider I mean I saw a post though that said in all caps nobody's talking enough about the man spider So I did want to celebrate it a little bit with you three and just talk about the it's extraordinary.

14:30 So what was really what were you keeping in mind as you were creating that? I think the biggest thing that I was keeping in mind was the kind of the anguish and the pain of this soldier that was going through this hideous process Wow I think that that for me it's like yeah you're building this character that's horrific and frightening and it's funny a lot of the comments that I get are nightmare fuel of Man Spider but I really hope that what also came across is the idea that this is this really Portrait Soul Yeah You Know That That Is Gone Through Really Horrific Things So One Of The Things About Him And What Is Also Cool About His Reveal Is That His Head Is Turned To The Side And This Blanket Is Up And When You Look At Him In That Way He Looks Fairly Normal He's Kind Of Sweaty And Clammy And but it's just kind of a dude and then as he turns and as the blanket comes off that's when you actually get this this reveal and so we were very careful in the way that that we sculpted this and we created this so that when he does turn into camera and go into that bite all of a sudden it's that wow factor of like holy shit he's he's a fucking man spider Yes, that's so great, because without empathy for these villains, you know, and like people and all of the characters that are from another world, you really are left with nothing, you know, just cool, cool stuff.

15:57 That extraordinary work. What was it like working with Nick Cage? I got to ask, because, you know, I can imagine he had something to say about everything you guys were doing. I mean, honestly, like, You know he has his person that did him and she's been with him for a lot of years but I will say at the very beginning we did have a meeting with him and her Teresa and I did just to like talk about you know basically the black I mean you know our vision of the show what we'd already met with Aaron Oren about but like I will say he was very open to talking about the black and white and was very like much like you guys tell me jump in like We You Know We Want To Be A Part Of Everything And He Was Really Like So Easy To Work With And Totally Opening To Hearing Our Opinion On Things And You Know That's Great Collaborative Nice Collaborative For Sure Yeah That's Nice And Very Complimentary As Far As Like The Work I Would Often Hear Him Complimenting The Set Work And Just How People Look And The Prosthetics And Yeah He Very Complimentary Very Gracious Yeah yeah he's a total pro you know I mean yeah that's it it's it's bring your a game with him you know yeah yeah I mean yeah a lot of I mean it's funny like I said I was watching this with my son and he's this is his first Nick Cage like introduction and I'm like oh we are gonna have a Nick Cage film

17:28 festival after this so You're going to have to have multiple festivals after this. There's so many. Right? I know. I know. There's so many. I think I'll start with Face Off, which is my personal place. Nice. That's a great one to start off with. Isn't it the best? I mean, I will, if it's running, I will stop whatever I'm doing and watch it. I don't know what it is, but it's just the camp of it, and I just love it so much. I remember my daughter watching Raising Arizona, and she was just like, Loved It That Was My Introduction To Him And I'll Be Grateful For That Day Forevermore What A Great What A Great Movie You Guys I Know You Are So Busy I Want To Get This Out For You Know award consideration because I think you guys are just so deserving of so many accolades for what you've done here.

18:21 The fact that it's in black and white and color. I mean, it's so great. I'm hoping that there's more and more and more and more. And I just wanted to congratulate the three of you on these accomplishments because it's just such a great example. I mean, I love how The wounds when they pull them out at the morgue they're like old fashioned you know I love how true it is to the period and like still captivates us you know as 2026 viewers and it's just real it's inspiring people to go back to film noir and it's just a really exciting and important piece and I just want to congratulate you on your artistry and tell people about it so I really appreciate you taking It's a holiday today and I just really appreciate you guys taking the time to talk to me about it so we can thank you so much Tiffany of course so nice thank you thank you you guys thank you all right I'll be talking to you again I'm sure and congratulations thank you thank you so much bye for now Behind The Look is a vinyl foot production written by me your host Tiffany Bartok produced by Jace Bartok edited by Mugresh Takor if you're interested in learning more find our video version on the YouTube channel Look Behind The Look podcast there you can see rare photos and clips from our guests and please follow us on Twitter at Look Behind Pod and Instagram at Look Behind The Look if you like the show please rate review and subscribe

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