Throughout this special One Night feature, the RTR team have been treated to a whole host of in-depth and beautifully candid interviews. Our conversation with award winning make-up artist Sheldon Wade feels like we’ve been given an Access All Areas badge, a tinny fresh from the cooler, a front seat in the make-up trailer with Jodie Whittaker almost managing to stand still for several hours until the house music kicks in.
A quick dip into the IMDb page for Wade and the credits list is long and extremely impressive. It’s important to remember that a production like One Night is a community. It’s not just the showrunner, actors, directors, or producers. There’s a whole crew of talented professionals and creatives who work away in the background - from the runner taking the coffee orders to the make-up assistant doing touch-ups before another take - everyone is important.
“It's always nice to chat about projects and share some insights sometimes that you just take for granted,” comments Wade during the interview with RTR co-editor Helena Emmanuel. “We do what we do and we never think too much more about it because it's just what we do. It's nice to share that process.”
// Please be aware that, due to the themes represented in the TV series One Night such as sexual assault, PTSD and addiction, it was inevitable that some of those topics would be discussed in our interviews. //
Helena Emmanuel: We would love to talk to you mostly about the tattoos that Tess had and that process. We talked to Emily Ballou earlier this month and she mentioned that the ideation and creation of the tattoos was really collaborative between you, her, and Jodie Whittaker. And we were wondering what that process was. What did that collaboration look like in creating those tattoos?
Sheldon Wade: It was quite a collaboration to create those tattoos. It’s only revealed twice in the series, so it had to have quite an impact, but we felt that it had to also help the understanding of Tess’ journey, what she'd been through and tell that story as much as possible in the short period of time that it's on screen.
At first, it was just trying to go, “What sort of design do we want when it’s revealed?” We came up with the idea of it's sort of a patchwork - it’s just random pieces all over the body. I think we also wanted to have each one have some sort of substance, a meaning. We didn't want it to be sort of a collective of particular pieces that represented nothing. So I think it became collaborative in the sense of just having different ideas about the character and the journey. Some of the ones you might not have seen so much, but there were a number there that I wanted to have that were probably older than others and some that look like they're done by hand.
It was that sort of journey with Tess after the incident. She's self harm[ing], inscribing on herself and stuff like that. I wanted to have elements of tattoos looking like that and of course some that look more professionally done, but each one had this story about where she'd come from, where she'd previously lived by the sea and the coastal town, and then I think the, not so much hatred, but the difficulty of just processing what she'd been through. So there’s antisocial sort of moments. It was just trying to incorporate that into just a few seconds of on screen time.
That was just quite a process for me putting it all together.
HE: I was gonna ask, how long did that take you?
Sheldon: When you're doing that sort of thing, I've gotta try and take from those conversations about what those designs are, try to find those designs and come up with those designs. I've also got to make sure when they go on skin, they have some realness about them. There's a real process in that alone. It was actually a few weeks, in the end I think we had just over 120 different designs. It was a lot more than I originally figured. I thought maybe there's 40 or 50 – that seemed like a lot at the time. We brought someone in to actually put those designs on to see what it looked like. I realised it really didn't have quite the impact that we wanted it to do, so we needed to triple the amount of designs that we wanted on the body. It kept us really quite busy for at least two weeks, right up to the day [of shooting]. I think I was still working on the tattoos the night before we were to shoot the following day, right up to the hour.
You get a design and you've got to get that design from a bit of paper onto the computer. Then you've got to get it through a processor where we grade the colouring with the greys or the greens or the blues that you want in it, so it has that sort of tattooing colouring about it. Then it’s a process of fading it on the computer and toning it down somewhat. Once you've done all of that, it's a case of taking that design and printing it on special paper through a special printer. It eventually gets to the point where it's ready to try out on the skin to see what that actually looks like. If you don't do this whole processing, it looks like you've just stuck something on the skin and it doesn't look good. It’s this fading and dulling down of the design that makes it look like it’s actually been tattooed on the skin. It's quite a process. It's quite impressive and that's just for Jodie.
At the time, I was just doing a lot of these designs and waiting for Jodie to arrive from the UK. I knew that she had thought about her character a great deal and what was important for her. I knew that she would have her own opinions of what she would like to see, because it's all going on her. It's her character, and she has to own that character.
We only had a short window there between the time she arrived and the time we were shooting. Things really ramped up when Jodie arrived. We started talking and showing her what I had done. Some of those designs weren't what she was feeling as well, so you know, we had to push those ones aside and add to it. In the end it was probably over 200 designs all up. It was a lot to do!
The other thing too is that originally the tattoo reveal was the first day of shooting. Usually the process of those things is that fortunately, most of the time, somewhere during the filming, so if you can't get [the prep] done in pre-production, you usually have a bit more time during shooting. We had it on the first day, but because of the enormity of it, it was pushed to the second day of shooting. But even then it was…yeah.
HE: Wow, yeah. Opening with a bang there for you.
Sheldon: It really was! It’s interesting because we had that right at the beginning and then of course, we didn't see it again until right at the very end of the series [which was] also at the very end of when we were shooting it. So it was the bookends of the shooting schedule really.
HE: How long did it take to put them on her?
Sheldon: That's a good question. I think on the day, I'd like to say it took us two and a half hours, but I feel like it took us a bit longer than that. It was probably three hours. Sometimes people go, “Well, that seems like a long time,” but when you're doing it, it goes so quickly. There were probably three of us: somebody handing me the tattoo, me sticking it on. Then once it's stuck on we use a particular solution that helps dissolve the particular product on the tattoo and dull it down and fade it into the skin. Three hours of just watching the time tick away so quickly. There were just a couple things that [Jodie] wanted to see, and outside of that, I could do whatever I wanted. So you're also trying to be really specific and trying to do a design that you feel really happy with.
It’s quite a process to take them off! It probably took an hour and a half to take it all off, because we only had them for that one day and the particular paper and its solution are designed to last a few days. It's quite difficult to get that off at the end of the day. It becomes quite a long process.
HE: Do you have a favourite one that you designed?
Sheldon: One that I really liked that Jodie came up with was this zipper in the middle of her chest and down the middle of her stomach. I quite like that because that was something I would never think of.
There's a lot of little ones that probably didn't get much of a play that I really loved. They're just small things because we're also playing on the timeframe of when Tess was a teenager which was probably the nineties. So there was some homage to a bit of punk and grunge and stuff like that. Those were my favourites because, having been brought up around that, I'm a big fan of that [music scene] back in the day. Jodie and Tess are a similar age, so we were throwing in that sort of grunge nineties vibe. You know, sticking it to the people type of thing. Sticking it to the man. I had my little moments in there, which I quite like. They were all subtle, but it made me feel good about the whole. It’s just telling that story, trying to tell different moments in it.
HE: We see it twice, but it was very effective. It was very powerful, and you can definitely sense that it tells her story. The different fading, how you can see when she turns around that she has a more professional one on her shoulder, and just the variety of design and message and quality was really cool and really powerful. And it doesn't surprise me that it was such a process knowing how much thought went into all of them.
Sheldon: I love doing that sort of character type of thing anyway, but I just love the fact that it's sort of unexpected. It’s one of those things that just comes out of the blue that you don't expect. Costume kept the clothing very long, so nothing was there that you could see so this was just… I just loved the impact it created.
You’re trying to process this thing like, “Well, what is this? What's this about?” I like the idea that it leaves you thinking at the beginning, “What's going on here? What does this relate to and where is this going?” I love the layers you can put into a story without having to say anything or point it out. I really quite enjoy that, telling a story through visual art.
HE: Absolutely. They do make you wonder what made her do that, what’s the story behind that.
Sheldon: And of course that’s in the very beginning. Through the other episodes it reveals itself, the trauma that she went through. It’s trying to create a sense of that without the narrative of the words. I felt like I tried to help the narrative, just help the message.
I want to also say such a praise to Jodie because she was so patient with me. I love her. She’s so great - really being able to just stand there in the [makeup] bus in the one spot and not move for such a long period of time. 'Cause you know, she’s just standing there not being able to do anything for three hours except for push the type of music that she liked on me. It was like, “Well…you could be DJ.”
HE: I was just going to ask if you played a lot of music during that!
Sheldon: Yeah, played a lot of music that related to what we were doing. It’s a really important thing for an actor, just to help get into that place where they need to be with [their character]. It’s just inspiring the message of what we're trying to do. We were playing a lot of grunge, that angst sort of music. I think in the end it became more of a house music vibe, and then it was about trying not to get too psyched up and dancing. I was like, “I need you to really be really still”.
HE: “Let's bring it down a bit.”
Sheldon: “We have to get out of here by lunchtime to film this! We're going to run out of daylight!”
HE: Moving away from the tattoos: we know that the overall look of the show was quite natural and realistic. Did you have an idea of the kind of palette you wanted for each character, or the general look?
Sheldon: Thank you for noticing that. What I was trying to do was just keep it real. The palette I was going from was from the location. It’s a small, rural, coastal town - trying to be true to the sense of that. We were shooting a lot of the coast and the coastline. I just wanted to think about each character and what they say - what’s their background, who they are… With Nicole da Silva, I was thinking about her character and felt she’s very damaged, is an alcoholic, and you’re thinking, “Well, I don't want anyone to look like they've just come out of the makeup bus”. So you don't really want to break them down and make them up [too much]. You know, make it feel real. People aren't going and putting makeup on there.
The hardest thing sometimes you can do as a makeup artist is not put makeup on and play against what you've been originally told and taught. I think that's important to tell a story. I just want to make it feel real. You're focusing on them, who they really are. Of course there’s the story and the acting, all of that. So even though people went through the process of being here in the bus, you still don't want to [reflect that] on screen. If you're outside and by the sea, the wind's blowing all over your face, then that's the vibe. That's what we're trying to create. That's what we want.
I’ve been doing this for 33 years, it's taken that long to get to that point where I can just feel really okay with things being blown around. You don't have to get it [all perfect]. I feel like it's important to really tell the truth in the sense of what the makeup was doing with each character and keeping it really natural. They still spend a bit of time in the chair, but it takes a bit of work to create that sort of almost nothing. There’s other characters that are a bit more done up and alternative that you can play with, but with our three real leading ladies, you just want to feel that realness as much as possible. I just really like the idea of them keeping really natural. It’s nice to be able to do that and it's also nice for them to feel comfortable about that too. Not feel like they have to hide behind a face full of makeup and hair products.
HE: Thank you for sharing that. Even though it does look quite realistic and natural, that doesn’t mean that it wasn't a choice and that they didn't go through a makeup process and there wasn’t a discussion about their characters, so we wanted to ask.
Sheldon: Yeah, there was quite a discussion about that. What you’re filming is shot in different ways for each scene, so there’s continuity, you have to match things. But we were going, “Well, let's just let it be.” If it was blowing around in the wind and on the face, we loved all of that. That was the imagery that we originally had, this hair blowing across the face, which is depicted on the book Nicole's character's written. That was the first image, and we always wanted that, to see moments of that come through. It's subtle, maybe only a few people would get it, but it was just nice to feel that sort of freedom.
HE: Absolutely. Just moving away from one out of it, is there a favourite makeup look or project that you worked on that's your favourite to date? Or one that's most memorable?
Sheldon: It's an interesting question because I think there's so many elements to what I feel like is a good project. I'm passionate about every job, of course. That's why you do it. You take on particular jobs because you're particularly passionate about the script and all of that.
Just thinking about one of the ones that I've done lately, I did a series for Apple called Shantaram. That was a project that I really loved. I just feel like there was really a lot of great elements: cast, we shot overseas for 16 weeks, and it was all set in India in the eighties. I think that was probably one of the highlights of my career, doing that, in so many ways. I hate to say it, but I think there's just been so many great moments during my career that it's really hard to pinpoint it to one particular one. I feel like I'm just lucky that I'm able to do a job that I really love and to go to work every day that I feel really passionate about. And it's just nice to think that somewhere I made the right decision and I'm able to do what I love and create art, whatever form that comes in.
HE: I mean, what a fortunate problem to have. You can't pick your favourite. You know, you've gotten to work on all these things that you feel are memorable.
Sheldon: I mean, if I even went further back, it would probably be like, back in the day when we were doing the Matrix series. Matrix 1, 2 and 3 was a fantastic job for me, but then as I said, there's been so many great moments. It’s just working with crew members all over the place and in all parts of the world. There's a lot of pinch yourself moments, that's for sure.
HE: Thank you again for your time. This was really great chatting with you, especially during your work day. I appreciate it.
Words: Alfie Whitby
Interview: Helena Emmanuel (with questions submitted by the RTR team)
You can watch One Night on Paramount+ UK & Ireland and Paramount+ Australia now.
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