November 10, 2021

The 6 Products It Took To Create The Beauty Looks On The Latest James Bond Movie

Move over, James Bond—we’re here for the beauty.

After Covid-19 caused numerous premiere date delays, No Time To Die, the latest installment of the James Bond film, is finally here. The blockbuster, which happens to be Daniel Craig’s last chapter as Bond, is well worth the wait, providing all the action, intrigue and glamour you could ever hope for. What we weren’t expecting was to find all the beauty inspiration we needed for our post-lockdown lives, served up by an all-star cast including Léa Seydoux, Ana de Armas, and Lashana Lynch, the latter of who makes history in the film as the first female and first woman of colour to take up the role of a 007 agent.

This film’s Bond girl is in control—no longer simply the love interest of James Bond, director Carrie Poconga has created well-rounded characters with edge. Daniel Phillips, the hair and makeup designer for the film, was tasked with creating the beauty looks to support this vision. “What I did do was try to steer clear of was that ultra glam,” Phillips tells Gritty Pretty. “Bond is very glamorous, it’s a heightened reality. But I tried to bring a bit of an edge to it; to make it look a bit more edgy, a little bit more editorial.”

Here, we speak with the Emmy Award-winning Phillips about how he created these show-stopping looks and the products he always has to have in his kit while on set.

What was it like to work on perhaps the most highly anticipated Bond film of all time?
“It was the best. I’d worked with Carrie [Poconga] before, about eight years ago on a film. I’d heard that this movie was being made, and obviously it was coming and going and coming and going, and then I’d heard Carrie was doing the movie. I got my agent to give him a call; I went to a meeting and didn’t necessarily expect to get it. And I left it at that. Then my agent called to say I got it… and it was the best feeling in the world getting that telephone call because it was something I’ve grown up with always, always imagined I would want to do. It was the right place at the right time. It was the most exciting highlight of my career, I would say and I loved every minute of it. I mean, it takes a chunk of your year, it took about nine months, with prepping and testing. But I loved every minute of it really. It pushed me creatively, which is always a good thing. But it always excited me every day, I used to have to pinch myself every day.”

What does that audition process look like for you? How is it different from an actor’s audition?
“It’s not dissimilar. I have to go through and meet the producers and they have to like me and my CV has to hold up to a certain level. They’re quite scary. Also it’s tricky because my idea of how I read the script and how I visualise it may be totally different to how the director sees it. You can only read the script, and you can only be honest; you can’t try to create what you think they want.”

Being an action movie, I’d love to know how it differs from say, you know, another film you’ve worked on, like Last Christmas? Is the filming as fast paced as it looks on our end as the viewer? How does the genre impact your work on the hair and makeup?
“It isn’t as fast paced, it looks fast paced, but it isn’t. On something like Bond, there are some huge scenes and they seem to take a long time to set up to get right. Those major blockbusters tend not to be fast paced all the way through. Your big action sequences can take a whole day to set up and you’re doing makeup at five o’clock in the morning and you’re having to look after that all the way through the day… they might shoot it at six o’clock in the evening. Everybody’s got to be fresh and keep going. Generally, film is at a slower pace.”

How do you keep the hair and makeup fresh on set on those long days?
“Well, you just do. The products are quite an important thing. It depends on the climate, where you’re filming. It’s that balance of calling your actors in for refreshed checks without getting them fed up because you keep checking them and they’re not shooting. No matter how good the makeup is, it doesn’t last all day, and actors have to eat and actors like to go off and do other things on the set during the day. So it is a constant upkeep all the time. You’re keeping that makeup fresh all day because there it is 70 or 80 foot [high] on the screen.”

What are your favourite hair and makeup moments from the set?
“Nomi, who is Lashana Lynch’s character. I tried to keep it quite editorial, quite real and also she’s a strong woman. I had about seven different looks, and I’d photographed them and you send them off. It was a camera test day, and you’re lucky if you see the director that day… I had no feedback and then, about an hour before the camera test, I had a message from Carrie on the phone saying, ‘I’m thinking this,’ which was so far removed from what I’d been prepping for the past week! Then we did this particular look and it looked fabulous. I can’t tell you but [you’ll see the look] in the beginning, and then how it materialises.”

Ana de Armas also joins the cast in No Time To Die—what was your vision for her look? And how did that come together?
“They’re all quite strong characters, strong women, so I couldn’t make them look too cheesy—as the glamorous Bond girls used to be. She’s an action girl but people want to see some kind of escapism on screen. I wanted to keep her look really simple, really elegant and sassy. She’s just got these really strong lips and this natural sort of blow dried bouffant hair, but it’s not over glamourised.”

I’d love to know the products that you just can’t live without on set?
“The hair products that I used a lot on Bond, with Léa Seydoux and Ana de Armas, were the Olaplex products. I used number four and number five, so every morning I would start with blow drying and conditioning Léa’s hair and Ana’s hair as well. So I would prep the face and then go and take them to the shampoo area and then use these products on them.
I use Stila eyeliner pens, I have three; a fawn, a brown and a black, they’re the finest pens and I’ve always got them in my kit. I’ve used them on eyebrows, I’ve use them on a beard. They’re so fine that you can create hair.
I use Codex quite a lot. I quite like their products to prep the skin. I always use their moisturiser in the morning.
I use something by Patchology… because invariably when you have actors coming in at four and five in the morning, they’re not looking and feeling the best. They’re little eye pads that take down any puffiness.
I only use Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk Foundation. It’s so fine, you can build it up and the skin can breathe and it looks like skin reflects beautifully. If I need something a bit heavier, I use Charlotte Tilbury foundations, or I’ll mix the two because they have a bit more coverage and they do get that slightly blurring effect. I find. Oh, I tell you what I do use a lot of? The Beauty Light Wand by Charlotte Tilbury. They’re great for highlighting and contouring and just cleaning out… if I haven’t I haven’t got time to repair that and it’s just going on camera then I go in and clean up with the Wand and blend it away. I tend not to set things too much. I don’t use a lot of powder—tiny, tiny amounts of powder, because we are repairing all day.”

Lastly, what do you hope that we can take away from it at this time?
“I just want people to enjoy it. It’s got everything you want. It’s quite a long movie, which is great, and it’s got everything you could possibly want in it. So I hope when people come away from it, they think, ‘That was damn well worth the wait.’ I think people will enjoy it. I’m sure they will enjoy it. It’s a fabulous movie.”

No Time To Die is out now.

November 10, 2021

The 6 Products It Took To Create The Beauty Looks On The Latest James Bond Movie

Move over, James Bond—we’re here for the beauty.

After Covid-19 caused numerous premiere date delays, No Time To Die, the latest installment of the James Bond film, is finally here. The blockbuster, which happens to be Daniel Craig’s last chapter as Bond, is well worth the wait, providing all the action, intrigue and glamour you could ever hope for. What we weren’t expecting was to find all the beauty inspiration we needed for our post-lockdown lives, served up by an all-star cast including Léa Seydoux, Ana de Armas, and Lashana Lynch, the latter of who makes history in the film as the first female and first woman of colour to take up the role of a 007 agent.

This film’s Bond girl is in control—no longer simply the love interest of James Bond, director Carrie Poconga has created well-rounded characters with edge. Daniel Phillips, the hair and makeup designer for the film, was tasked with creating the beauty looks to support this vision. “What I did do was try to steer clear of was that ultra glam,” Phillips tells Gritty Pretty. “Bond is very glamorous, it’s a heightened reality. But I tried to bring a bit of an edge to it; to make it look a bit more edgy, a little bit more editorial.”

Here, we speak with the Emmy Award-winning Phillips about how he created these show-stopping looks and the products he always has to have in his kit while on set.

What was it like to work on perhaps the most highly anticipated Bond film of all time?
“It was the best. I’d worked with Carrie [Poconga] before, about eight years ago on a film. I’d heard that this movie was being made, and obviously it was coming and going and coming and going, and then I’d heard Carrie was doing the movie. I got my agent to give him a call; I went to a meeting and didn’t necessarily expect to get it. And I left it at that. Then my agent called to say I got it… and it was the best feeling in the world getting that telephone call because it was something I’ve grown up with always, always imagined I would want to do. It was the right place at the right time. It was the most exciting highlight of my career, I would say and I loved every minute of it. I mean, it takes a chunk of your year, it took about nine months, with prepping and testing. But I loved every minute of it really. It pushed me creatively, which is always a good thing. But it always excited me every day, I used to have to pinch myself every day.”

What does that audition process look like for you? How is it different from an actor’s audition?
“It’s not dissimilar. I have to go through and meet the producers and they have to like me and my CV has to hold up to a certain level. They’re quite scary. Also it’s tricky because my idea of how I read the script and how I visualise it may be totally different to how the director sees it. You can only read the script, and you can only be honest; you can’t try to create what you think they want.”

Being an action movie, I’d love to know how it differs from say, you know, another film you’ve worked on, like Last Christmas? Is the filming as fast paced as it looks on our end as the viewer? How does the genre impact your work on the hair and makeup?
“It isn’t as fast paced, it looks fast paced, but it isn’t. On something like Bond, there are some huge scenes and they seem to take a long time to set up to get right. Those major blockbusters tend not to be fast paced all the way through. Your big action sequences can take a whole day to set up and you’re doing makeup at five o’clock in the morning and you’re having to look after that all the way through the day… they might shoot it at six o’clock in the evening. Everybody’s got to be fresh and keep going. Generally, film is at a slower pace.”

How do you keep the hair and makeup fresh on set on those long days?
“Well, you just do. The products are quite an important thing. It depends on the climate, where you’re filming. It’s that balance of calling your actors in for refreshed checks without getting them fed up because you keep checking them and they’re not shooting. No matter how good the makeup is, it doesn’t last all day, and actors have to eat and actors like to go off and do other things on the set during the day. So it is a constant upkeep all the time. You’re keeping that makeup fresh all day because there it is 70 or 80 foot [high] on the screen.”

What are your favourite hair and makeup moments from the set?
“Nomi, who is Lashana Lynch’s character. I tried to keep it quite editorial, quite real and also she’s a strong woman. I had about seven different looks, and I’d photographed them and you send them off. It was a camera test day, and you’re lucky if you see the director that day… I had no feedback and then, about an hour before the camera test, I had a message from Carrie on the phone saying, ‘I’m thinking this,’ which was so far removed from what I’d been prepping for the past week! Then we did this particular look and it looked fabulous. I can’t tell you but [you’ll see the look] in the beginning, and then how it materialises.”

Ana de Armas also joins the cast in No Time To Die—what was your vision for her look? And how did that come together?
“They’re all quite strong characters, strong women, so I couldn’t make them look too cheesy—as the glamorous Bond girls used to be. She’s an action girl but people want to see some kind of escapism on screen. I wanted to keep her look really simple, really elegant and sassy. She’s just got these really strong lips and this natural sort of blow dried bouffant hair, but it’s not over glamourised.”

I’d love to know the products that you just can’t live without on set?
“The hair products that I used a lot on Bond, with Léa Seydoux and Ana de Armas, were the Olaplex products. I used number four and number five, so every morning I would start with blow drying and conditioning Léa’s hair and Ana’s hair as well. So I would prep the face and then go and take them to the shampoo area and then use these products on them.
I use Stila eyeliner pens, I have three; a fawn, a brown and a black, they’re the finest pens and I’ve always got them in my kit. I’ve used them on eyebrows, I’ve use them on a beard. They’re so fine that you can create hair.
I use Codex quite a lot. I quite like their products to prep the skin. I always use their moisturiser in the morning.
I use something by Patchology… because invariably when you have actors coming in at four and five in the morning, they’re not looking and feeling the best. They’re little eye pads that take down any puffiness.
I only use Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk Foundation. It’s so fine, you can build it up and the skin can breathe and it looks like skin reflects beautifully. If I need something a bit heavier, I use Charlotte Tilbury foundations, or I’ll mix the two because they have a bit more coverage and they do get that slightly blurring effect. I find. Oh, I tell you what I do use a lot of? The Beauty Light Wand by Charlotte Tilbury. They’re great for highlighting and contouring and just cleaning out… if I haven’t I haven’t got time to repair that and it’s just going on camera then I go in and clean up with the Wand and blend it away. I tend not to set things too much. I don’t use a lot of powder—tiny, tiny amounts of powder, because we are repairing all day.”

Lastly, what do you hope that we can take away from it at this time?
“I just want people to enjoy it. It’s got everything you want. It’s quite a long movie, which is great, and it’s got everything you could possibly want in it. So I hope when people come away from it, they think, ‘That was damn well worth the wait.’ I think people will enjoy it. I’m sure they will enjoy it. It’s a fabulous movie.”

No Time To Die is out now.

Lashana Lynch in character for No Time To Die

Daniel Craig and Ana de Armas in character for No Time To Die

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