It takes a lot of work to make Alec Baldwin look that orange.
The unsung heroes of this election season are undoubtedly the “Saturday Night Live” hair and makeup teams, who tirelessly toil away to transform the cast into politicians ripe for skewering.
In a new behind-the-scenes video, the heads of the hair and makeup departments, Jodi Mancuso and Louie Zakarian, explain exactly what it takes to bring Baldwin’s Donald Trump and Kate McKinnon’s Hillary Clinton to life every Saturday night.
“SNL” has tackled Trump before ― former cast members Darrell Hammond and Taran Killam have played the GOP nominee ― but Baldwin apparently wanted to take the character’s appearance in a bolder direction given the current political climate.
“Alec really wanted to go over the top,” Zakarian says in the video. “He wanted crazy huge eyebrows ... he wanted to be painted orange, like bright orange.”
McKinnon’s transformation into Clinton presented different challenges for the crew, who struggled to adapt Hillary’s signature coif to the actress’ smaller stature. To perfect the look, they had to scale back the size of the wig to make it look realistic, while paying close attention to Clinton’s makeup color scheme and the shape of her eyebrows.
Watch the video below for the behind-the-scenes action:
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