Interview with LOU Head Makeup Artist Christopher Pinhey

By Stacy Schecter

Today I had the privilege of chatting with LOU’s Head Makeup Artist Christopher Pinhey! With over 25 years of major industry credits such as the Sonic the Hedgehog films, The X-Files, Fantastic Four, X-Men, and many more, Christopher brought a wealth of experience to LOU.

Over a Zoom call, Christopher shared with me exactly how he used his craft to make Allison look weathered, sun damaged, muddy, and bloody during nearly every scene in LOU. He talked about how working with the rain, wind and other natural elements impacted the makeup process on this film. He also shared anecdotes and a dozen behind-the-scenes photos of Allison to illustrate the details and artistry that went into making LOU come to life.

Hi Christopher, thank you for taking the time to talk with me today! I can’t wait to hear all about your work with Allison on LOU! How do you like the final product?  

Some movies, when you work on them, seem like they’re going to be something that they end up not being. LOU is an interesting exception. Going into it we knew how hard it would be. You read the script and you go, “Oh! Nights in pouring rain, okay.” So, you knew it was going to be tough. That was preparation as well for girding yourself and going into it. Allison is in almost every frame, so it was a lot of work for her. And on the few days she had off, she was training. It was a very, very tough shoot. You don’t always know what you’re going to get, but I was very happy with the final result on LOU.  

Watching this film, I don’t think makeup is necessarily one of the first things people notice.  

I’m so happy about that! When the director Anna [Foerster] talked to me, she said “I don’t want to see makeup.” My challenge was, ‘how am I going to do makeup and we’re not going to see it?’ For example, with Allison’s eyebrows, we made them sort of thick and gnarly and white. Anna didn’t want to see perfect eyebrows or an artifice that the character would not have. She wanted to do extreme closeups, so that was a challenge; to come up with something that would suit the character but that would not look like makeup. It came down to a combination of Skin Illustrator brushed in the opposite direction of Allison’s own eyebrows, which made her brows quite thick, and then when I combed them back in place, I used a Maybelline eyebrow pen that stained the skin and hair. This stuff really sticks. It lasts through hurricanes. 

How did you come up with a vision for the makeup looks on LOU, and how did the rain, wind, and the weather conditions in this film impact the execution?

It's always collaborative between the director, the actor, and the makeup artist. I had a lot of ideas from Anna, and I had to mull those over to come up with my own ideas. One of which was that Lou would be weathered, but that it would all be created with stains that would be translucent, not look like makeup, and also last in the conditions we were filming in. So, I started experimenting with staining the skin with henna, for freckles and age spots. When Allison arrived on set, I showed her the ideas, and she said “This is not a vanity project, I am all in.”

I was very lucky with how game Allison was for it. Under the weather conditions, the henna lasted about a week. Every Friday, I would punch up all the freckles and age spots on her face and hands, and she’d go home and by the time she got home it would set and she’d wash it off. Allison said she actually found it meditative to take off all the henna spots.

I’ve spent a little time with Allison in person and I’d say she has amazing skin. Lou doesn’t look like she’s ever used SPF.

Yes! Allison only has a little bit of light, light freckling. So, we also added small freckling as well, by splattering self-tanner and letting it sit. This made her real freckles pop and added a few more. I also used a pink Benefit lip stain, concentrated into dots across Allison’s nose and cheeks. I let it sit and bake, then took it off with a little witch hazel, let it dry, and sealed it in. Then it just looked like her skin, but sun-damaged. In real life, Allison takes great care of herself and has beautiful skin. I don’t think Lou Adell was doing skincare. She’s out in the woods killing deer.

Tell me about the cuts and the blood and mud. How do you achieve these effects using makeup?

Allison was so excited about it. When we did the tests, Allison was like, ‘I’ve never in my career had blood on my face like this.’ She was so excited to have bruises and cuts and blood. Most of the bloods they use are literally sugar water, like when Daniel [Bernhardt] got punched in the face and some blood comes out of his mouth. But when there’s anything left on the face, it would wash away in two seconds in that torrential rain. So, we used product from a company called EB Blood, which requires a special remover. Any little cuts left on the skin or had blood in them, or even when it was dripping a bit, we just painted it on, and it would be locked on the face.

 So no retouches needed?

There were very little retouches during the day because everything was stained, glued and locked in place with a special sealing product. What made me proud about LOU is that you don’t notice that there’s makeup in the film. The makeup was not distracting. It did not look like there’s any makeup on her. Allison’s makeup process every day was only about 40 minutes. In the beginning of the film, she does have a little concealer. That slowly goes away, and we added dark circles. So she slowly gets worn down and she just ends up looking like a weathered, tough character.

Tell me about the photos of Allison that you sent me. Is there anything special you can point out in them? One of them has a note that says ‘pale lips’.

That was part of Lou’s progression. They start getting a little bit hypothermic from the rain. Anna was very specific about what was happening to them physically when we broke down the script in the meetings. So, when Allison has her pale lips, it was when they’re walking through the woods and starting to get cold. Even though it was July and they were actually boiling hot!

In one of the photos you showed me, Allison’s face is all dirty. How did you create that?

That was a bit of a surprise. They choreographed the fight with Phillip and Lou in the cave, and there’s the soot from the fire. It wasn’t originally in Allison’s makeup progression plan, but while we were doing that fight, the director decided she wanted them sooty. Once they got into it, the charcoal became an element. The hair, makeup, and wardrobe teams were suddenly in a flurry of activity in the tent, and Allison just stood there staring straight ahead while people spun around putting soot on her. When it was all done of course she posed for the camera, because she’s very charming and fun. One good point of the rain is that it washes things off. We had already filmed stuff taking place in the movie after the cave fight, where she’s muddy but not sooty. We can assume the rain washed it off.

You mentioned Allison’s personality. What was it like working with her on a personal level?

She’s always prepared, she’s always ready. She’s always sparkling and funny. But my end of the trailer was kind of quiet, it was the spa. It was easier to have her lying down for the splatter process for the staining and the freckles. 80% of her makeup was easier to apply with her lying down, so she would kind of relax and we’d joked that it was a spa treatment. Oh, you’re getting your mud today, you’re getting your blood brows today. The Spa of Mud and Blood.

Sounds like you guys took good care of Allison on what was obviously a tough shoot!

There’s a scene at the beginning where she’s sitting in bare feet with the gun to her head. She made sure that was the last time we were going to see her feet and we sent her right out for a pedicure. She got the brightest, happiest color pedicure. Lou is not going to walk around with bright watermelon toes. But it made Allison happy. It was a very tough shoot and every time we could do something like that, we did little things. It’s not her vanity, but it was things to make her feel good. Allison enjoyed the shoot as much as she could. They’d come over and be drenching her with stuff, and pouring things on her, and she would just have a big smile on her face. There might have only been one or two times where she just wanted to be warm and pretty.

Do you have any other anecdotes from the shoot?

Allison celebrated an Emmy nomination when she was on set. We were at one of our most remote locations, where there was that half-sunken boat. And you sent her flowers! The production office went above and beyond to get them there. And there was also bottle of champagne from the studio in her trailer. She had her Dom Perignon in these mini paper cups.

Also, in one of the photos I showed you, where she has her hands in the mud? Normally the makeup team would do the mud. But the director just decided she wanted Allison to get her hands dirty. So, she stuck her hands in the mud before holding up the binoculars in the scene where they are spying on the guys in that cabin. I was nearby and got a quick shot her doing that. The joke became she was putting her hands in the cement Grauman’s Chinese Theater. She played little mental games to make it fun. When she got the axe in her shoulder, we pretended it was a fancy broach.

Any final thoughts before I let you go?

Just that everybody loved Allison. She was just lovely and just wonderful. She brought so much joy and silliness to a hard, remote shoot. Everybody wanted to do well for her. It was like, if she can be hanging from a rope in the pouring rain…everyone just worked really hard for her behind the scenes. At the end of the shoot in Tofino, just to thank us, she took the hair and makeup teams out for dinner. Allison was such a leader and an inspiration.