Wankaya Hinkson and Vonda Morris (‘Lawmen: Bass Reeves’ hair and makeup) on their ‘extensive research’ into an ‘incredible’ historical figure [Exclusive Video Interview]
“I had no idea, honestly, about Bass Reeves or his story or any of the myths,” shares Wankaya Hinkson about the historical figure at the heart of the Paramount+ limited series “Lawmen: Bass Reeves.” As hair department head for the show, she performed “extensive research” into the nineteenth-century Black Deputy U.S. Marshal and learned “how much of an incredible man he was,” and she says she “wanted to make sure I shared his story in the most authentic way.” Hinkson was brought onto the project by Vonda Morris, makeup department head, who has collaborated with star and executive producer David Oyelowo in the past and who echoes her colleague’s desire to “make sure that it was as authentic as possible.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
Oyelowo portrays the title character from the mid-1860s to the late-1870s, during which time Bass Reeves escapes enslavement and becomes one of the first Black men to rise to such a high rank of lawmen following the Civil War. This is not the first time Morris has transformed the actor into a historical figure, as the two worked together on Ava DuVernay‘s “Selma,” in which he starred as Martin Luther King Jr.. That film was top of mind for the makeup artist because “these two iconic figures kind of had some of the same features,” especially each man’s recognizable mustache. She comments that working alongside the actor is “such a phenomenal experience because I get to see him transform in so many different ways.” For her, one of the most important facets of his embodiment of Reeves involved changing his teeth to “put him back in time,” which “gave David a different look so he was able to hold his mouth differently.”
WATCH our exclusive video interview with David Oyelowo, ‘Lawmen: Bass Reeves’
As a sprawling frontier tale, “Lawmen: Bass Reeves” shot extensively on location, which raised significant challenges for the hair and makeup departments. As Hinkson shares, “No one knew the weather that was going to be thrown at us, so we had to make a lot of last-minute changes really fast.” One particularly ill-timed snowstorm interrupted the production schedule of shooting episodes one through three at the beginning of filming, a period that was supposed to be with a significant haircut for Oyelowo as the character ages. The hair stylist explains that they had to cut the actor’s natural hair sooner than expected and then return to the longer look later in production when they could backtrack to those first episodes, so she “had to think quick and make a wig that was identical to his hair, so through the snow storm I traveled to David and got him fitted and caught a flight to L.A.” to work with a wigmaker for a “customized” piece to be delivered in less than a week.
Although challenging, Morris believes the inclement weather “enhanced the experience.” Through conditions that ranged from brutally hot to chillingly cold, the makeup department head needed to focus on creating Reeves as a character. She cites one particular moment in which she “hand laid the hair on his face, where he had the gray hair and the beard just coming in,” which she performed every day and doesn’t know quite how it endured outdoors with the high temperatures. Those challenges ensure that “your brain is constantly thinking,” notes the artist, adding, “Even when you think you know, the weather tell you that you don’t know.”
“Lawmen: Bass Reeves” features a large ensemble, and Hinkson’s research process to develop the looks for the many characters included exploring African American history museums in New York City to find pictures that would match to the characters’ lifestyles. For Reeve’s wife Jennie (Lauren E. Banks), for example, the hair department head knew “she was a sharecropper” who had many children, so she wanted to find “hairstyles that were easy to maintain.” She modeled the ambitious character Esme (Joaquina Kalukango) on Ida B. Wells because the character is “strong and one of those women that would push forward.” Throughout, she attended to details such as “the sweat on the foreheads with the hair looking greasy and grungy.”
Like Hinkson, Morris looked to photographs for inspiration and turned to her “great grandmother pictures, the pictures that were on the wall” because the historical photos often did not provide a clear enough level of detail of “skin texture and hair.” To try to capture the harsh conditions of frontier life, she gave the characters “a weathered look, so that calls for the bronzing of the skin and adding that dirt that looks like it was in the pores.” The makeup artist emphasizes that the costumers and wardrobe department make up the “backbone” of the work on the hair and makeup because the clothing comes first in the process, adding that she enjoyed their “teamwork together, because once you can do that, you get greatness.”
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