Working on makeup for an actor of a television series can be a time-consuming process, especially when prosthetics are involved. It’s even more impressive to find out that not only does Very Important People makeup department head Alex Perrone not get to sit down with the actor ahead of time for measurements and a makeup test, but she also has multiple looks to get right within a limited time frame, since the show films three episodes a day.
Dropout’s Very Important People is a series where comedians come up with a character to sit down for a fully improvised interview with host Vic Michaelis, after being given full makeovers — including makeup, prosthetics and costumes. Since the time in the makeup chair can vary, and the comedians are only supposed to have five to 10 minutes to create a character, Perrone and her team are also responsible for not only hiding their process from the performer, but actively deceiving them in fun ways.
Host Vic Michaelis interviewing Zeke Aaron McKinley (Anna Garcia), a fourth grader who was turned into rocks.
Kate Elliot/Dropout
DEADLINE: So how closely do you work with director Tamar Levine and the writers on designs for the makeup?
ALEX PERRONE: It’s incredibly collaborative, and Tamar and I basically talk all year long. We’ll text and we have a thread of things that we like, or animals we’ve seen or different concepts, and then we create decks and start building on that. We also, with our costume designer as well, have a lot of meetings leading up to the actual shooting of the show where there’s different zooms where we’re pitching ideas and they always start out as one thing and slowly develop into a different creature or person. It’s a makeup artist’s dream.
DEADLINE: What is the process once you start? How long do you have them in the makeup chair for, before they have to start coming up with their character?
PERRONE: It varies. For some of our heavier prosthetic looks, it can be anywhere from one to three hours. We cover all reflective surfaces and they don’t have their phone, so they don’t get any hints to coloration. A lot of times their eyes are closed. Once I cue them that they are ready, we walk them over to the reveal room and it’s pretty instantaneously. The curtain drops on the mirror, they’re rolling and they have about five to 10 minutes to riff. You’re really seeing all of that, and then they walk to the floor and they have their chats with Vic. So, there’s a very short turnaround for them to take it all in.
DEADLINE: I love seeing how thrown off they are by everything. I think Bobby Moynihan was the only one to correctly guess who he was so far, right?
PERRONE: Right, that’s my favorite part. I never get to do that as a makeup artist, so I just enjoy toying with them in the chair as well. Me and Bruce [Spaulding Fuller], who you see a lot in Season 2, we try to throw them off because we’re worried they will guess if they can feel certain textures. So, me and Bruce will pretend like we accidentally said something too loudly. We’ll be doing a bird and I’ll say, “Oh, can you go grab the lizard tail really fast?” And then they’ll think that I accidentally gave something away.
DEADLINE: Were there any standouts this season for you?
PERRONE: Zeke [played by Anna Garcia] is a personal favorite. I just love that because it’s ambiguous and for me, I can create from a visual standpoint, but I have no idea what they’re going to do with the character. I can plan and think of what I think they’re going to do, and Anna turning into a little boy that made a genie wish was not something I thought would happen. So, I really like that aspect of it.
DEADLINE: Were there any looks that felt challenging but really came together for you?
PERRONE: I believe Paul F. Tompkins and Anna. As a makeup artist, typically you get to go into prep and you cast the actor and you fit the pieces and you do a makeup test. The unique format of the show is that we don’t get to see them before. We don’t really get measurements, we don’t get anything. So, it’s on the day, on camera, piecing everything together and hoping it fits, and a lot of MacGyvering and using creative solutions to make some of the looks work. So, Rock (Garcia) is one of them we were hoping fit and Slug (Tompkins) as well. We called it slug, a lot of times we have nicknames for them so we can reference them in production meetings and by the time we get to the floor, the actor of course doesn’t know it’s a slug. So, he came up with a completely different character. I think the challenge it presents is you don’t have your typical fittings, you don’t have your typical makeup test to make sure everything goes fluidly.
