In “The Substance,” writer-director Coralie Fargeat turns her lens on toxic beauty standards and takes body horror to new, visceral extremes. The film follows former fitness star Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), whose desperate bid for eternal youth leads her to inject an unregulated drug that spawns a perfect 20-something clone named Sue (Margaret Qualley). Their mutual neglect leads to a truly monstrous transformation.
To bring her vision to life, Fargeat enlisted veteran special makeup effects designer Pierre Olivier Persin. Instead of relying on digital effects, he captured Elisabeth and Sue’s physical changes through practical makeup and prosthetics, culminating in (spoiler alert!) the women’s ghastly fusion into “Monstro Elisasue.” When he was working on the design, Persin kept in mind that Fargeat wanted something very organic that would look real.
Here, he discusses the artistry that went into gradually aging Elisabeth, the challenges of marathon makeup sessions, and how he crafted that bloody climax.
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Were there clear descriptions in the script about what the different versions of the characters—particularly “Monstro Elisasue”—looked like?
Some of it was described; some of it wasn’t. For instance, the monster at the end of the movie, Monstro—Elisabeth’s face is on the back of the monster; that was clearly written. The back split open, all that was written. But for Monstro, it wasn’t written that she has eight boobs. It was written she’s a grotesque character with the face on the back frozen in fear, screaming.
Credit: MUBI/Working Title
Did you break down the script page by page? Do you start with the biggest effect (in this case, Monstro)?
Usually, when I read the script, I go page by page, effect after effect. You start with a budget, and to do a proper budget, you need to figure out how you’re going to make things. Are you going to build things and make things work before [shooting]? You have to come up with a number. When we started designing, we designed a little bit of everything at the same time because I knew if you spent too much time on one thing, you would run out of time for the other things.
The scene in which Elisabeth physically births Sue out of her back gives us a taste of the body-horror extremes to come. How did you bring that prosthetic to life?
In my mind, very quickly, it was like: OK, we’re going to have silicone dummies that we’ll manipulate from below. I asked the set guys to build raised sets, so they built a little bit of the bathroom but raised it so we could be under the set and puppet a couple of different silicone bodies [that each had] different functions.
We had big back prosthetics that we could apply on the actress; it was just about finding the right technique. Sometimes, when we were applying the prosthetics, it was during shooting in the normal bathroom set. Other times, when we used the puppetry on the raised set, [we didn’t use an] actress. It was movie magic.
You’ve done old-age makeup before, including for Juliette Binoche as Coco Chanel on “The New Look.” Even though “The Substance” shows a much more extreme version of aging, did you use similar techniques?
Yes. Especially when Demi has only the half face—the “requiem” stage—where only half of her face has aged. Actually, I did the old-age makeup for Juliette Binoche right after “The Substance,” and I did exactly the same thing. What’s good for Demi is good for Juliette, and vice versa.
How long did Demi spend in the makeup chair? Did you take any steps to make the experience more comfortable for her?
It depended on the makeup. If it was only the finger, it took maybe 45 minutes. When it was full-body, it must have been seven hours; but that was only a few days. It must have been five or five and a half hours for the more complicated stuff. It’s very important to have a very good chair. We had, if memory serves, a chair that you can use for a massage; it’s very comfortable.
It’s a little like a ballet. You are in a small room, and sometimes you have four makeup artists trying to move around that big chair, and you have a human being whose face you’re poking for hours with solvent, glues, and prosthetics. It’s a very intrusive process. You try to be as small and discreet as possible. Demi always had her little Chihuahua, Pilaf, with her. That was her little cuddling [companion].
Credit: MUBI/Working Title
Do you consider outside factors, like the blood spray in the film’s climax, when you’re designing prosthetics?
We used mostly silicone in the movie. But for Monstro Elisasue, the suit was foam latex, which is a big sponge. When you’re dealing with gallons and gallons of blood, the sponge will soak up the blood and it will turn pink. It would be soaked, heavy, and tearing—disgusting. You try to make it waterproof by spraying the same thing you would use on your shoes, and then you try to stitch it back [together]. You dry it every night, try to sanitize it, and do your best. It looked like hell by the end of the shoot.
What advice would you give someone wanting to work in special effects makeup? Is there a skill that you look out for?
You need to be passionate and spend as much time as you can to get the skills. So you need to sculpt. Anyone can buy water-based clay. Clay does not cost anything, and you can buy lots of clay and sculpt at home on a table. You don’t have to buy all the fancy materials. I prefer to see someone doing a very clean plaster mold, good clay sculptures, and a good paint job, rather than someone who went to a makeup school, but apart from the makeup school, they have not done any work on their own.
You can tell when you look at the portfolio of someone from a makeup school who only did what the school was teaching—wounds and some aging. They all have the same portfolio. Every once in a while, you see young people with amazing work. They are still young and green, but you can tell they’re going to go far. I prefer that. Nowadays, you have all the digital aspects of it, like digital sculpting, 3D printing, and all that. It’s good to be a jack of all trades, to know a little bit of everything.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
This story originally appeared in the Feb. 6 issue of Backstage Magazine.
