If you're thinking that using red hair as a nod to the film's cannibalistic gore is a little too on the nose, you'd be correct. "The choice of red was in empathy with the character, nothing about the blood," Gattabrusi says with a laugh. "The red is more [about the] energy [of the character]." When it came to choosing a colour, the team was inspired by the hair trends from the 1980s. "We were thinking about the colour of the period and strong, crazy colours like Cindy Lauper, the more iconic rock stars," he says.
The choice of red was in empathy with the character, nothing about the blood.
Unlike the majority of film projects he's worked on, Gattabrusi wasn't concerned with continuity on the set of "Bones and All." Rather, he and Chalamet decided to use Lee's hair as an emotional storytelling tool. By applying a semi-permanent dye, Gattabrusi could alter Chalamet's colour throughout the filming process to reflect the intensity in a given scene; playing up the boldness in some moments and keeping it softer in others. "I said to [Timothee], 'Listen, I think we can use this — I think it can be an instrument that you use for this character.'" he says.
However, these changes are so subtle that they likely wouldn't stand out to an unknowing audience — and that's precisely the intention, says Gattabrusi. "When I saw the movie, you don't [notice] this change in colour, and that's what I wanted," he says. "It's just something that you feel in the background. You don't see it but you feel it.