allure.com: A dead-on impression or an amazing character creation is lost if the actor doesn't look the part. That's why the wigs on Saturday Night Live, which celebrates its fortieth anniversary this season, have always gone a long way to making the sketches work. Back in 2012, I talked to head hairstylist Bettie Rogers, who had been with the show for ten years, about how the best looks come together.
3 comments:
This was so cool! I have watched this show for a long time now, and it was intriguing to get a look into a department that is often so pushed aside in terms of credit. Saturday Night Live has long been one of the closest forms of television to theater there is. The performance is live, the sets and costumes are designed, and the actors rehearse. I was overall very satisfied with the recent SNL 40 show. I was most happy because during the Wayne’s World Top 10 sketch, the listed the crew on the show as number 1 and they gave them a standing ovation. Something that could have very easily been made into a joke, like the rest of the list, had meaning and heart behind it. This article makes me hope that everyone that watches the show appreciates the hard work that each cast and crew member dedicates to put a on a worthy, live performance.
Wigs are not pieces of a show people often focus on because they just look like normal hair. When you actually think about it, the art of making wigs is very interesting especially for a show like SNL. The designers need to keep up with the celebrities’ current hairstyle and then they need to make it work for the actor playing them. Often different actors play the same character over different episodes. They need to customize or alter each wig to each person that plays that character. There are so many characters in each show and I bet there are a lot of wigs in every episode. The stock of wigs must be insane since there are so many different hairstyles and people playing the parts. The designers are probably not given that much time to make each new wig because there is usually a new show every week. I give them so much credit for all of their hard work especially because it is not often recognized.
That is so interesting! I've never really had that much of a grasp on hair styling, having short hair myself, but it really is true that hair and makeup have just as much impact on a characters look as costumes. I happen to know the amount of work that goes into making custom wigs, so I give these people a standing ovation to put the time and effort into making 5 or 6 new ones every week. The celebrities impersonations in particular are impressive because humans are very attune to changes on and around the face. Even though we may not realize it, the wrong hairstyle will be noticeable, whether or not we can put a finger on why. I also found the comments about face shape interesting. It's a good reminder that costumes cannot live on their own-- even the most innovative concepts need to be designed with actors in mind.
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