Louie Zakarian sculpts faces of comedy. As makeup department manager at ”Saturday Night Live“Zakarian spends long hours and almost sleepless nights in the Hallowed Halls of 30 Rock and the show’s West Side Studio.
This year he and his team nods for outstanding prosthesis makeup (for Timothée Charamet-Hosted episode) and outstanding makeup for a variation, nonfiction or reality program (for “SNL50: Anniversary special“). Prothetic dog noses, superfluous AI attachments, a mimic of Donald Trump’s neck, many calling signs from” SNL “history and makeup for dozens of anniversary-related guests helped bring Zakarian’s crew’s crew the cross category recognition.
In the prosthetic area, his team competes against effect -heavy challengers as ”The last of us“And”Penguin. “This is the first time in eight years that” SNL “has muscled together with the type of large -scale drama that almost always dominates the category.
However, it is hardly a new territory for Zakarian. For about three decades, makeup artist made 10 Emmy victories from 18 total nominations. He noted that his workload EBBS and flows over the years, especially when it comes to prostheses. While some seasons stop being easier on makeup, others drive his department to find new and creative ways to turn the actors into Zany characters as they follow Lorne Michael’s request to keep them recognizable.
Zakarian called this lucky medium one of the toughest parts of his job and added that without this rule he would have the actors “covered with so much rubber and silicone that you could not see who they are.” The constant turnover in authors and role members can affect the Outland design that the makeup team must create. “A role member like (Body-Horror Fanatic) Sarah Sherman comes in and she is just like,” whatever we can do, we want more, “explained Zakarian.
Through concepts such as the return of Will Ferrell’s Robert Goulet and a sketch based on “If a bunch of stupid little dogs talked and acted as humans”, these makeup artists help to make “SNL’s” comedy reality.
When scripts have been selected after Wednesday’s table reading, Zakarian and his team must live up their makeup in a few days. “Trying to build all this during the two days we have is always kind of scary,” he said. “We had to make the dogs, but then we also had to make Sarah as an old lady who is revived in an interesting way.” All in all, they made dog prostheses for ten role members, all of which demanded rapid costume between sketches.
“Everyone is sculpted or cast to fit them,” added Zakarian. “The same episode had the AI sketch, where Bowen (Yang) and Timothée Chalamet had extra numbers on their hands that we had to do too. Many people did not even realize that they had extra numbers, but sometimes it is the little extra thing to help sell the sketch.”
Fan favorite “SNL” characters can also often make performances on the show. The team has begun to name iterations by James Austin Johnson’s Donald Trump makeup as if they were Iron Man -costumes (the current iteration of his presidential look is Mark we). For example, the anniversary special had stars from previous return to characters that they had not played in several years.
The latest highlights for Zakarian were Kristen Wiig’s big head, the small hands Dooneese Maharelle (who has a third hand for an inexplicable way appears in the frame) and Will Ferrell’s Robert Goulet. “Will Ferrell who Goulet again was really good,” he shared. “When he’s in the chair, as soon as that mustache goes on him, he’s Goulet. It’s a bit fantastic.”
For the “SNL50” special, the makeup crew needed to prepare a long list of celebrities for their various performances. In the production “New York 50th Musical” alone, more than two dozen actors shared the scene. Zakarian said that the three-hour episode “was like doing two” SNLs “in a week, and we also did the Friday concert series the same week, so it was just the Nonstop-to-Back-to-to-back tension, from an adrenaline rush to another.”
Even during a normal week, Zakarian’s team and other “SNL” crews must-find as a well-oiled machine to make those role members ready for each sketch. “I have friends who come from LA who are makeup artists who work with huge budget films,” he said. “They want to get behind the stage and just look at the pit herd in action, try to see how it happens.”
This story first ran in the comedy issue of Thewrap’s Awards Magazine. Read more from Down to the thread comedy issue here.
