In Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, Peter Quill is on a downward spiral as he mourns the loss of Gamora. However, when a threat from Rocket’s past targets him, Quill and the other Guardians will have to band together to save their friend. They will soon learn that this threat is much bigger than they expected, with not only Rocket’s life on the line but the entire galaxy.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is directed and written by James Gunn, making him the only creator to helm the entirety of his trilogy as both the director and writer. Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Sean Gunn, and Maria Bakalova reprise their roles from past Guardians of the Galaxy movies. Chukwudi Iwuji and Will Poulter join the MCU as the High Evolutionary and Adam Warlock, respectively.
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 Has To Break 1 Cardinal Rule Of Sequels
One well-kept sequel rule will need to be broken in the trilogy’s finale in order to give Gamora and Nebula the send-off that they both deserve.
Screen Rant interviewed Cassie Russek (Hair Department Head), Alexei Dmitriew (Makeup Department Head), and Lindsay MacGowan (Special Effects Coordinator) about their work on Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3. They shared their favorite Humanimals from Counter Earth, how Neubla’s look reflects her journey, and how Gamora’s hair establishes her new character. Dmitriew also discussed his work on Ahsoka, and MacGowan praised Gunn’s storytelling.
Cassie Russek, Alexei Dmitriew, & Lindsay MacGowan Talk Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3
Screen Rant: I love Guardians of Galaxy Vol. 3. It is easily one of my favorite movies that came out this year. You all did fantastic on it all. My first question is for Alexei. How has the makeup process for Nebula, Drax and Gamora evolved over the course of this franchise?
Alexei Dmitriew: Yeah. Everybody’s face changes over time. Every single time we do something, we pick it apart. As artists, we’re trying to … How do we make that better? How do we make that faster? How do we do that cleaner? While obviously keeping the same look. The biggest change, I think, this time around was for Nebula. She didn’t have the mechanical eyepiece. That really comes from James’s wonderful storytelling, and putting this heart and humanity into this big space adventure.
There’s a moment that Rocket and Nebula are talking, and she’s like, “Yeah. He worked on … He’s been doing upgrades on me as we’re going.” That really … Even though it didn’t talk about the eye changing from the mechanical one to the normal one, it just goes to show that it’s this underlying humanity story and this family story that’s going on. There’s technical stuff that we do, but I would say that that had the biggest change over the last couple movies.
Everything else, we just get better and faster at it, and just figure out … There’s so many wonderful makeup products out there. We’re always just playing with the new stuff, and seeing what we can do and just how to get better and faster at it. That’s really the heart of the big changes that happened for the Guardians.
Cassie, Gamora’s hairstyle is very different in this movie than we’ve seen before. Can you talk about what inspired this style change and how it reflects that she is essentially a new person?
Cassie Russek: Right. She emerges in this film as now a Ravager. She’s no longer the Gamora that we knew. People will say the 2017 Gamora. That’s the Infinity War Gamora. Now, she’s a different person because they plucked her out from wherever she was at.
I believe, in the very beginning, when this was all happening, there was this beautiful costume design photo by Judianna Makovsky. She just looked rag-em tag-em and rough.
She actually had a hair designer on this one named Peter Tothpal, who’s been with Zoe for many years. Everyone worked together to create this long, dreaded out … She isn’t keeping up with herself. She’s unkempt. You can see in the movie, she’s got a can of something. She just throws it. That’s the new Gamora. The hair really was so reflected on that. I think it looked so cool. There would be times where she would look up, and she’d have a dread right in her face. It just was so cool. To me, this is my favorite, I think, that Gamora has ever looked.
I completely agree. Lindsay, can you talk to me about creating the prosthetics for the inhabitants of Counter-Earth, because all of them just looked phenomenal.
Lindsay MacGowan: Thank you. Yeah. It was a really challenging part of the movie, because we’d already made the majority of the other characters for the film. We were making the Counter-Earth Humanimals. That was a challenge also, because we’re in the middle of the COVID situation, so trying to get all of that work done whilst having the issues of people being sick and then they not being able to come in … so that was a challenge on this movie.
But the actual design of the Humanimals was a really fun time and a very creative moment for us, because we had the wonderful script from James, then he had the list of characters that he wanted to be in the movie, but then he was also giving us the opportunity to … If we thought there was a different character, a different animal that we wanted to try and do, he was like, “Have a go at it.”
We had a really fun design process coming up with the looks. Then between Alexei, Cassie and the team here, we worked out how the prosthetics would break down, how their hair would work with those things.
We did a lot of 3D rapid prototyping of ears, of hair, all sorts of different things. So it was technically challenging, but it was also really an enjoyable experience. Then going to set and being a part of that whole process of people applying everything, and seeing it all together at one time, and then going on set with it was one of the highlights of the movie for me. I know working with Alexei and Cassie, I think they felt the same way about that.
Did you each have a favorite of the Humanimals? Because they are so different. It’s so cool.
Cassie Russek: Yeah. My favorite was the porcupine. Hands down. I know it’s in a quick flash, but that porcupine was so cool. Legacy made all of those quills out of 3D printed rubber. Each of them were hand placed into a cap. Between me and the makeup artists who applied it, we were gluing some of them in, so that they would stay. Some of them, we left loose, so that as they were getting in that brawl, you’d see some of them fly out. Then we were running in and resetting during every take, so that it looked like this porcupine was really getting a beating. We had a great time with that porcupine. It was so cool.
Alexei Dmitriew: I worked on the bat mom. Actress Darla Diego, I think it’s Diego, she was amazing. I loved the vampire bat. That whole family was so cool. They had a really cool rapid prototyped under-skull, then the silicone makeup was on top of that. That way, we could take the ears off and on, and click them into place with magnets. It was also helped with wardrobe as well, so they could pull their stuff over and then we could put the ears on. It was a lot of prototyping, a lot of figuring things out. The teeth were so cool. T
hey had really cool contacts. We even put these little bat fins that were on Darla and everything like that. That whole moment of that was really cool. Then the language that James came up with that they all spoke and everything, that was really cool. I’ve heard him say that he actually wrote out the entire language. It’s a real language that he created. It’s really, really cool.
Lindsay MacGowan: Yeah. I have a fondness of the cassowary postal worker. I loved what you did with the hair, giving her the mohawk, because the colors worked so well together, and the beak moving around. I loved them all, but that one, I really had a soft spot for.
I love that. I love learning those details. Cool. Alexei, you’ve worked on a lot of different sci-fi projects, including Guardians and a lot of Star Wars. Can you talk to me about creating the different alien looks for these projects?
Alexei Dmitriew: Well, every franchise is so specific in what they’re doing. You always just try to stay true to the source material. Your directors and the filmmakers always have ideas of what they want. Sometimes, I’m working with Legacy. Sometimes, I’m working with my on-set team. Really, a project like Star Wars or something, there’s so much source material to choose from. So looking at Ahsoka and looking at Young Ahsoka, we pulled stuff up that was from the Clone Wars, and spoke to the filmmakers, and made sure those are the references we’re looking at.
There’s always really great references in all of these worlds, and because they do video games and there’s comics, there’s all kinds of references to pull from. You set out to do the best makeup you can. You set out to make it the fastest and most comfortable for your actor. Then you really try to set it out. I’m a fan of all of this stuff, so I know if I’m like, “Yeah. That’s cool,” there’s a majority of people that are going to think it’s cool too. I think that that’s doing the fan service justice as well, and making sure that everybody really is happy with the looks and everything. I think that that’s an important thing.
I completely agree. Lindsay, Alexei talked about it a little bit, but we see a softer version of Nebula. Can you talk to me a little bit about how the prosthetics may have changed for her in this movie, from prior ones?
Lindsay MacGowan: Yes. Our mindset on that one was to try and make Karen’s life a little easier, because she’s been in this makeup for a long time. We were trying to figure out how to get it on her with the minimal amount of appliances and then minimal amount of time on-set in the chair. It was designed to be much simpler in the amount of appliances that we put together, but it was also, as Alexei said, to bring out more of her humanity, her human side, as opposed to the cyborg side.
It was the same types of materials that we’ve used before. It’s just how we broke down the appliances, how we molded it, and then how we cast those things up was what was different on this particular show. Also Karen, she was getting married shortly afterwards, so we wanted to make sure she had her beautiful, long, thick hair, and so it wasn’t cut for this movie. So to try and wrap her head with her hair, and then get the appliances on, and still get it super tight was a challenge. Alexei and Cassie did a fantastic job taking care of that.
I think it was a great collaborative character. They all were, but that one was super cool just because trying to give Karen what she wanted and just be respectful of everybody’s time. You want to make sure that the actor is in the chair as little as possible, the makeup and hair people have the amount of time that they need to do the job and do it well, but make sure that everybody’s not tired at the end of the day. Going to be tired, but not super worn out after four months of it. That was really the mindset of when we were creating Nebula. How do we get this beautiful new look for her and make sure that the team on-set were happy.
Alexei and Cassie, can you talk to me about working with the wardrobe department to create this iconic look for Adam Warlock, who fans had been waiting to see since Guardians 2?
Alexei Dmitriew: Yeah, for sure. From the first stages, we started doing gold tests. Will wasn’t available, so we were doing it on other actors, and just on each other, on everything, just to start to see what in the world of gold that they had. Same with the wardrobe. Wardrobe was presenting all these different gold palettes and gold stuff to James. Once James likes what he likes, then we all start working off of that same palette together.
Then once we figure out that gold, then we have to figure out what looks good on Will. Because what we really found out is not … The same gold doesn’t work. It doesn’t look the same on everybody, because everybody’s undertones are a little bit different. It’s not just one gold fits all. So it was really tweaking for Will’s gold, and making sure that that looked great. Then it was a collaborative effort with Cassie and her team to tie everything in. His hair looked amazing.
Cassie Russek: Yeah. It was the same for us with all that. We went through a lot of photos, tests, I’ll be perfectly honest, fan art. We were going through fan art. It was really cool. Will had come in, and we were together really talking about the hair, and how comic book do we go, how fan art do we go. What’s the correct look? Because sometimes Warlock looks a little like He-Man in some of the comics. He has that perfect whoosh, superhero whoosh.
We really worked together. It was Will, it was us, it was Judianna, and it was James; Judianna’s the costume designer; and James Gunn. We just wanted to make sure we got that perfect superhero look. We did a lot of testing, and then we ended up with just his own hair and a beautiful bleach, balayage technique. We took the gold shimmer that Alexei and LuAndra came up with, and we made our own custom hairspray. That’s how he got the gold in his hair. It just became so streamlined and so simple. Yeah.
That’s so cool. Lindsay, you’ve worked on a lot of different, very cool genre projects. Can you talk to me a little bit about how James Gunn’s maybe stand out from others? Now that he’s working in the DC world, is there a DC character you would like to work on?
Lindsay MacGowan: Working with James, it’s always a pleasure because he is so creative and isn’t afraid to try things that he hadn’t seen before. In fact, he relishes you giving him something that he hasn’t seen before. So working with him is a pleasure. I can’t, one, thank him enough for giving us the opportunity to work on his movies, and I think, as Alexei mentioned before, the humanity that he brings to his scripts. As big and as outlandish as they are, it’s a small story.
It’s about a band of friends and the love that they have. I think everybody can really relate to that and their friends, and what you would do for them and your family. For me, that’s what I love about his movie’s. They’re heartfelt. No matter how big and outlandish these big spectacle pieces can be, it boils down to a love of your fellows.
About Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
In the final chapter of the trilogy, the Guardians of the Galaxy are adjusting to life on Knowhere while Peter Quill is still reeling from the loss of Gamora. When a new threat from Rocket’s past resurfaces, Peter rallies the Guardians to save one of their own and once again protect the universe. However, failure could mean the end of the Guardians of the Galaxy.
Check out our other Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 interviews here:
- James Gunn & Chris Pratt
- Karen Gillan & Pom Klementieff
- Chukwudi Iwuji & Will Poulter
- Sean Gunn
- Maria Bakalova
- Nathan Fillion
- Miriam Shor & Nico Santos
- Beth Mickle
- Stephane Ceretti
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
- Release Date:
- 2023-05-05
- Director:
- Array
- Cast:
- Array
- Rating:
- PG-13
- Runtime:
- 116 Minutes
- Genres:
- Array
- Writers:
- Array
- Budget:
- $250 Million
- Studio(s):
- Array
- Distributor(s):
- Array
- Sequel(s):
- Array
- prequel(s):
- Array
- Franchise(s):
- Array
