How Charlize Theron Transformed Into Megyn Kelly For 'Bombshell' | Movies Insider

this is a shot of Charlize Theron in bombshell yes that is actually Charlize Theron who was nominated for an Oscar for her performance as former Fox News anchor megyn kelly put the two side-by-side and it's extremely difficult to tell the difference viewers were certainly fooled this transformation was a triumph and makeup and prosthesis especially when considering the fact that the film's prosthetic makeup designer Kazuhiro said that turning an actor into a real person can be the most difficult task a makeup artist faces as the audience already has an image in their head of what that person should look like so what made this especially difficult and why was getting a cast of the inside of Charlize Theron Snow's a key part of the process Kazuhiro is no stranger to turning actors into real people he won the Best Makeup Oscar for 2017 s darkest hour in which he made Gary Oldman look exactly like Winston Churchill for bombshell he worked with makeup department head Vivien Baker and hair stylist and Morgan the trio received an Oscar nomination for their work on the film the biggest challenges they faced the actors had to look almost exactly like the people they were portraying and the makeup and prosthesis had to be created in a very short amount of time as they only had six weeks of pre-production first hero Baker and their team spent months watching Fox news clips to get the best possible understanding of Kelly's look and style then once the actors were cast hero did a 3d body scan and life cast this helped him directly compare the physical features of the actors and the figures they were being transformed into then he made a mold of each life cast and created the skin like prosthesis based off of those molds the prosthesis were made with medical grade silicone and attached to the actors faces with strong medical glue these prosthesis had to be applied to Theron every day a process that usually took close to three hours Theron did wear prosthetic pieces but makeup products also helped alter the way her face looks according to Baker the two women have very differently shaped eyes getting the eyes right was essential and turning Theron into Kelly fake eyelashes were used to reshape their ins eyes instead of using inflexible lash strips faker opted for lash a Phi gossamer z' which are fake eyelashes that come in pieces while a normal lash strip would just sit on the lash line these lash pieces could be placed with more freedom Baker use the pieces to manipulate the weight of the lash line which reshaped and resized their ins eyes meanwhile Theron also wore colored contact lenses because Kelly's eyes are a darker shade of blue the eyes are topped off with prosthetic eyelid pieces since they're in his bigger eyes and what Shiro said were more open eyelids than Kelly these pieces helped close that gap the eyelids were the most difficult prosthesis to create during an initial makeup test they're in a difficulty blinking while wearing them according to hero this can happen if you apply too much glue as the skin around the eyes is especially sensitive aside from the eyelids the actors had to overcome several other obstacles posed by the prosthesis for example these nose pieces the biggest difference between thier ins and Kelly's noses were the nostrils and tips a full nose prosthesis was not necessary though instead hero created nose plugs to widen the holes and a nose tip which made their ins nose more up turned like Kelly's to make the plugs hero actually took a cast of the inside of ferren's nose he then scanned the cast created the plugs in a program called ZBrush and then 3d printed them it took three to five attempts for the makeup team to get the plugs right why because if the plugs were too big they could actually impact her voice in the end 40 pairs were printed for the duration of filming each plug had a handle on it so Hiro could easily pull them in and out with tweezers as you can see here the nostril with the plug is wider than the one with no plug Hiro did use more traditional prosthesis to reshape certain parts of ferren's face the makeup team found that Kelly had a more angular face than Theron so they gave their in a jaw piece that helped create this look to further to find the angular and square appearance Theron also wore a fake chin one final observation was that Theron had a much higher forehead than Kelly you can't really create a prosthesis to make somebody's head lower so he deferred to the hair department their decision bring Farren's hairline down Theron wore several wigs in the movie including one with long hair and one with short hair according to Morgan lowering the hairline best health gift there in a </a> quote heart-shaped face like Kelly's but before Theron was fully camera-ready the team also had to apply beauty makeup on top of the prosthesis now this is never easy to do but they also had to apply extra makeup to her to make her look like an anchor who is going on live television plus beauty makeup doesn't easily stick to prosthesis and is prone to come off so Baker mix the foundation with face mist and then airbrushed it on which ensured that all the makeup stuff to the prosthesis for long shoot days it worked and as you can see here Theron was even able to apply some of her own makeup while getting ready and for a few instances when the makeup did start to fall apart on set the film with lighter touch up the makeup digitally that way they wouldn't have to apply makeup all over again themselves it was a handy way to save time and money on set yet getting the makeup to stick isn't the only challenging part of acting with prosthesis there's a risk of them limiting an actor's performance which could have happened to Theron if the makeup team had added even more pieces to her face to avoid restricting the performances Hiro limited the use of prosthesis whenever he could put all these features together the forehead the hair the chin the tip of the nose the nostrils the eyelids the eyes and the makeup that went on top of it and you have Megan Kelly so in the end just how realistic did it all turn out well according to director Jay Roach it looks so realistic that the film's lawyers made them add a disclaimer at the start of the movie clarifying that any non archival footage was actually an actor and not the person they were portraying