Wigs, Bronzer, and Fake Teeth: How Rami Malek Transformed Into Freddie Mercury
Fake teeth. Mustache wigs. A prosthetic nose.
These are all things that "went 100 miles" in transforming Rami Malek into the ever-exuberant Freddie Mercury for Bohemian Rhapsody, the film's hair and makeup department lead Jan Sewell told POPSUGAR. "You don't necessarily want them to look exactly alike, but you do want to catch the essence of the person," she said, adding that it took watching hundreds of hours' worth of footage to get his look just right.
Hence, the minutiae tweaks. "Rami's strong jawline is very similar to Freddie's, so that's fantastic, but not much else was the same," Sewell explained. It's why she made "so many pairs" of artificial teeth to recreate the Queen frontman's pronounced overbite — "because it was a big piece of Freddie, so we kept changing them even by just a millimeter shorter or longer," she said — and ordered countless different mustaches.
"You don't necessarily want them to look exactly alike, but you do want to catch the essence of the person."
The stakes were high, after all: this is one of the most legendary rock stars in history. "In one of my first conversations with Rami, I knew he was was keen to try anything I wanted to do," she said. "Whatever it took." The rest of the details (which you can read ahead), as they say, will rock you.
I Want More! Get our Fashion & Beauty newsletter by tapping the button below. Instant Subscribe By signing up, I agree to the Terms & to receive emails from POPSUGAR. Recreating Freddie Mercury's Iconic Look 
For starters, the prosthetics didn't stop at teeth. "Freddie had a very aquiline nose, which means that it comes down and doesn't have that dip in between the eyes," Sewell said. "His nose was very straight and quite narrow. Rami's wasn't that shape, so I had a prosthetic nose made and that helped immensely."
The Making of Freddie Mercury's Mustache 
The Queen frontman's most well-known look, if you had to pick just one, involved his neatly trimmed mustache — but Sewell didn't stop there. "I had many, many mustaches made. Before that iconic look, Freddie's hair was not a shorter haircut. His mustache was much fuller. So I had all different mustaches made to go with every stage of his life."
The 1 Self-Tanner She Swears By 
"I'm a great fan of Tom Ford's Bronzing Gel ($48), which we used on Rami," Sewell said. "What's so fabulous about this tanning cream is that during the Live Aid [scene], he wears a white t-shirt, and it didn't travel or transfer at all. Normally you would have to pre-tan somebody, but this product is so brilliant that when we wanted to put a little tan on, we just let it dry and he could still put on his white shirt."
Tom Ford's Bronzing Gel $48 from sephora.com Buy Now A Note About Wigs 
"Every character was wearing a wig," she said — even when you might not have thought they were. "Rami's wigged, as are all the boys, all throughout the film. None of it is their real hair. Oh, except for one small little sequence with Joe Mazzello, who plays John Deacon. We used his hair for one little section. Otherwise, he's wigged, also."
Getting Inspiration From Brian May 
Sometimes, finding the most useful information takes going to back to someone who was there — like original Queen band member Brian May. "Brian is a great collector," Sewell said. "Gwilym Lee, who played Brian, got to wear some original outfits, jackets and shirts, and things. And I did speak to him about pictures — photographs are very useful for hair and makeup. Brian is the one who's changed his hair the least of all the band members, and he really just cut his hair a little bit shorter. But his hair was so long again in the '70s and getting a bit shorter as they went into the '80s, so I asked him about things like that."
Taking Care of the Wigs 
"Kérastase is a fabulous product for wigs," she said. "We were washing them all with the Kérastase Résistance Bain Extentioniste Shampoo For Long Hair ($33) because all the wigs were colored. That's how you make the wigs look real. For wigs with natural hair, they don't dye them with ordinary hair color; they use fabric color, like Dylon. So the Kérastase conditioners and masks were key to making them look good."
Kérastase Résistance Bain Extentioniste Shampoo For Long Hair $33 from kerastase-usa.com Buy Now On Styling Rami's Shorter Hair 
"With Rami's wig, the shorter haircut that I used for the Live Aid [scene], I used the VO5 Extreme Style Matte Clay ($10), which is a matte clay that is lovely. And it's a clay so it really holds the hair, but is flexible. That's what's so nice about it."
Why Freddie Mercury Only Wore Nail Polish On One Hand 
Like Sewell said, photos were very useful for the beauty department — even in ways you might not imagine. "You'll look back through them and go, 'Why is it that Freddie wore black nail varnish only on his left hand?' Then, of course, you start to research that. We were very lucky; we had his personal assistant and dresser Allan we could ask. He said, 'Well, because he was right-handed and he couldn't paint it on the other one.' It was so simple. And then we realized that Brian May had done exactly the same thing but with white nail varnish."
The Best Makeup For Men 
"On men, you obviously don't want them to look like they're wearing makeup, but you've still got to even out their skin tone," she said. "With Rami, his heritage is Egyptian, and his skin tone is quite sallow and yellow. And, of course, Freddie Mercury is Persian, which is of Arabian descent. His skin had much more warmth in it. So you do have to put makeup on the boys to help make it look similar. I'm a huge fan of a French makeup brand called le maquillage by Maqpro. It's beeswax-based makeup, and in our high-definition filming that we do now, it's just perfect for it."
Taking Care of the Actors' Skin 
"Elemis was great for keeping their skin lovely," Sewell said. "We used a lot of the Elemis Dynamic Resurfacing Facial Wash ($46), toners, and moisturizers. I don't think any of our artists broke out at all, during the whole filming of the movie!"
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