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'Once Upon a Time In Hollywood': How Leonardo DiCaprio's Makeup Artist Transformed Him With "Phony" Mustache
When playing fictional washed-up actor Rick Dalton in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Leonardo DiCaprio was faced with some tricky facial hair while being transformed for "filming" scenes, in which the "director" character wants Dalton to look unrecognizable as a Western villain.
DiCaprio’s longtime personal makeup artist (who has worked with him since Titanic), Sian Grigg, aimed to create facial hair for the actor that was accurate to the 1969 time period when the spaghetti Western was filmed. This meant an exaggerated style that was so long, she claims DiCaprio found it annoying while shooting — a good thing for drumming up the frustration Dalton is meant to be feeling during that scene.
"The mustache drove Leo mad, because I had to leave it really long and it always went in his mouth," says Grigg, who used WM Creations glue to keep the piece on the skin. "It was so hot out and the mustache kept going in his mouth, and he’d be spitting it out. He did the same thing in the scene as they filmed 'off camera' when he was supposed to be losing it a bit. It made us laugh as he kept spitting it out and the wig was quite long as well."
Grigg adds that the mustache was meant to look fake, not perfect or neat as it might for a modern day film. "It was meant to look phony because they didn’t have good materials back then like we do now. It was correct for the period — a Western film being made in the '70s. We were copying the style of films shot in that period and also covering Leo’s character up to look different and unrecognizable, which in the movie he’s not used to."
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/once-a-time-hollywood-how-leonardo-dicaprios-makeup-artist-transformed-him-phony-mustache-1227158