Thanks to Jessie from Elle.com again for emailing me this information. ELLE.COM has an interview with Robin Matthews, the make-up artist for Kristen and Dakota’s newest film, The Runaways. Matthews describes how she prepared for the movie and transformed Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning into rock legends Joan Jett and Cherie Currie.
How did you prepare for the movie?
When I came onto the project, I had just finished shooting New Moon with Kristen in Italy. So I came to The Runaways with about a week’s worth of prep before we started shooting, which isn’t a lot of time when you’re recreating real people. But luckily the director had a ton of photos already. And then my assistant and I went to the library to gather as much photographic and video materials as possible—yearbooks from the time period, makeup ads from old magazines. Between the director’s photos and ours I think we gathered about 5,000 pictures.
What also helped me prepare was having Joan Jett and Cherie Currie around—I was so lucky that I could ask them questions. They were on the set every single day. The first thing Joan would do when she’d come in every morning was come to the makeup trailer and hang out while I did Kristen’s makeup. There’s a big sofa right by my station and she’d just sit there for a bit in case we needed anything, listening to her iPod or playing her guitar.
What was the makeup like during the Runaways’ era?
It was such a great time back then—the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. It was just a mesh of disco and punk. Punk rock was just starting, so that heavy eyeliner look was becoming popular. And it kind of went into glam rock, which was very glittery and extravagant—tons of colors were used. David Bowie had a huge influence on Cherie Currie, and he used to paint his face all these crazy ways—he’d cover his face and eyebrows with white. Currie recreated a lot of those looks on herself in the early days.
The Runaways started off just playing around with their eye makeup, but during their superglam period they did eye makeup, blush, and lipstick—all three at once. And then toward the end they just went back to their original look. The band was around for four years, and you’ll see in the photos of the real band that they did away with everything except for the eyes. I specifically asked Joan and Cherie about that—because you see the lipstick and blush for a brief moment in the photos. Joan said she didn’t remember wearing lipstick very often, and Cherie said she used to use those clear glosses in the glass tube with the roller top that smelled like strawberry or cherry.
Read the rest HERE
