The last time we saw antihero Lisbeth Salander on the big screen [1], it was the heavily pierced Rooney Mara in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Her look was haunting — blame the bleached eyebrows and jet-black baby bangs — but it is not what you'll see from Claire Foy [2] in the series' second film, The Girl in the Spider's Web. Which, perhaps, is precisely the point.
"She is still the same dark character, but you don't want to make an exact copy of the original so many years later," Heike Merker, the movie's hair and makeup department lead [3], told POPSUGAR. "We wanted to be totally different. Her look went through many stages. We experimented a lot with Photoshop, taking a picture of her and photoshopping her face and her hair in different looks."
"We experimented a lot with Photoshop, taking a picture of her and photoshopping her face and her hair in different looks."
Among the rejects before landing on a mushroom cut: a tattooed scalp, buzz cut, long hair, short hair, and even locs, "which, of course, was not working at all," Merker laughed. "Then after all those tests, we decided to just keep it simple. Claire is an amazing actress [4], so we felt we didn't need it to be so extreme for the queen of darkness to come through."
Choosing the right haircut for the film, however, was hardly the most nuanced aspect of Foy's radical transformation. Let us explain, ahead.
Why the Dragon Tattoo Was the Hardest to Create
As you might imagine — considering how one of Lisbeth Salander's defining characteristics is her onslaught of body tattoos — creating designs that were just-right, especially the dragon, was a long, meticulous process.
"It was very clear she needs to have a dragon because Lisbeth Salander, in the books, has a dragon tattoo," Merker said. "But then it became, well, what kind of dragon do you want to see? There are so many out there — there are Asian dragons, fantasy dragons. Then it's like, how big should the dragon be? Do we need legs, or is it just a body with wings? What should the wings look like? Should the dragon spit fire? Is he flying? Is he sitting? Oh my goodness, I went through so many dragon versions — so many sketches. Hundreds."
In the end, the team was happy with how the tattoo turned out. "We went through so many that in the end I was like, 'I can't even tell anymore,'" she laughed.
"Oh my goodness, I went through so many dragon versions — so many sketches. Hundreds. We went through so many that in the end I was like, 'I can't even tell anymore.'"
Then came transferring the design to Foy's body: "You start drawing it by hand with a Sharpie to see how big it needs to be according to her body, and to see where the wings should go. Should it cover her shoulder blade? Should it touch her spine or go over her spine? Those are the impressions. Once everything looks right, you then need to scan the template in the correct size. There are people who do the printing and sizing process. It's a special printer and paper with an ink mixture and glue; you place the paper on the skin, place a wet towel over it, and then when you lift it up, the tattoo is there, kind of like we all did when we were children."
How she Budge-Proofed Claire Foy's Tattoos
After all that that work, you'd better believe Merker made damn sure those tattoos stayed put. "Once you go in and clean it up, then you have to add on a sealer so that Claire can be in water and move around, and so that it lasts a whole shooting day," she said. "I used the Bluebird FX Matte Sealer [5] — first to make sure the tattoo didn't look so shiny, and also so that it stays."
This, she said, was the biggest time-suck of her entire look. "We definitely used a lot of tattoos on her. It wasn't every day we went through the process, but maybe every second shooting day, we had to tattoo her. The costume made it so you could see her skin and so, yeah, then we had to do it."
The Weird Thing About Using Fake Piercings in Films
"You always have to be aware and have extras from the costume department whenever one goes missing just to be safe."
Like tattoos, there are a lot of piercings in this film — though, to be clear, those are also fake. "Ear piercings are easy; you just glue a three-quarter hoop to the ear with a special silicone glue," Merker said. "The nose is harder, because you of course can't glue the inside of the nose. But you can attach a tiny magnetic ring on the inside and then place the piercing onto her nose so it holds."
Seeing as how this is an action film of sorts, the problem then becomes keeping these in place. "They were always disappearing because there are so many movements," she said. "It was always, 'Oh, you lost some again?' You always have to be aware and have extras from the costume department whenever one goes missing just to be safe."
On Making Claire Foy's Skin Look "Tired"
In the book, the character's skin is sunken, pale, and tired-looking — which is the exact opposite of Foy's in real life. "Claire has good skin, but we didn't do much. We gave her darker hair and then contrasted that with a paler foundation, but we wanted to keep it looking as natural as possible."
Why "Pale" Makeup Worked in this Film
"If you use a paler foundation than the skin really is, it automatically gives that [undead] look. I'm not saying there's no blood in her veins or anything, but if the skin tone is becoming lighter, it looks more tired. I used a pale shade of the Giorgio Armani Beauty Maestro Fusion Makeup [6] (£42)."
Keeping the Cast's Skin Clear
Before and after makeup, Merker leaned on products from Sisley Paris ("the cleansing and moisturising products are great," she said) including the Gentle Cleansing Gel [7] (£62).
The 1 Product She Used the Most
"When we darkened her eyes, I did it with a black pencil — we went through a lot of those," Merker said. "I had three different versions: a harder and a softer pencil. Because sometimes if you go into the waterline and the pencil is too hard, it's not smooth enough so it won't show up. A softer version is more comfortable too. And of course, sometimes they break so you need more."
Her Favorite Eye Pencil
"We had different black pencils from MAC and from Make Up For Ever. I like the MAC Eye Kohl [8](£15) a lot."
Her Eyebrow Tinting Hack
Because Foy's take on the character was meant to be different than Rooney's, that meant there would be a big change in the eyebrow department. Instead of bleaching them, Merker left Foy's dark. "To darken her eyebrows, we used a waterproof mascara in black; I think it was the Make Up For Ever Aqua Smoky Extravagant Waterproof Mascara [9] (£20)."
On Picking Her Colored Cosmetics Sparingly
"Punk" was the overall vibe the hair and makeup team was going for — but Merker did try to give Foy's face a little bit of colour. "She needed to have a darker look; definitely nothing colourful. But sometimes to give her that feeling of being cold, if she was outside, I put a bit of redness into her skin, like around the cheeks and the nose."
1 Multitasking Product She Swears By
"I like to do [that] with the Benefit Benetint Cheek & Lip Stain [10] (£25), which is totally my favourite because you can do anything with it. You can pretend, 'Oh, it's cold outside,' but you can also use it to add colour to the lips or give the cheeks a nice warmth."