The Tiny Makeup Detail You Probably Didn't Notice in Loki That's Crucial to the Storyline
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Sure, when you think of a show like Loki, the hair and makeup aren't the first things that come to mind, but that doesn't mean any less work went into creating the character looks. The makeup team for the God of Mischief's show had the challenging task of transforming actor Tom Hiddleston into the Marvel Cinematic Universe character we all know without making it look like he had on any makeup at all.
Luckily, makeup department head Douglas Noe, who's been Hiddleston's personal makeup artist for over a decade, was up for the job. Creating the looks for the six-episode series was never easy, but the pieces fell into place rather quickly because the history was already laid out.
"So much of the homework for us was already done because of Loki's history in the Marvel Universe," Noe told POPSUGAR. "Since I started [working] with Loki on the first The Avengers movie, the look was already dialed in. It was just a matter of taking what we already knew from the comics, and what the Marvel Universe mandates about the Loki storyline, and implementing those things into our conversation as we began to break down the episodes."
Read on to find out more about the creative process behind the makeup and the surprising alternative used in place of prosthetics in many episodes.
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The Importance of Getting the Timeline Right Through Makeup
Because Loki takes place before Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, Noe needed to take Hiddleston back in time a bit.
"Loki's evolution through the last two Avenger films technically hasn't happened yet because we pick up back in 2012," Noe said. "Since we were backing up in time, we had to have Loki with those wounds created by Hulk at the climax of the first movie."
Re-creating those wounds in episode one, "Glorious Purpose," was crucial in establishing a cohesive storyline and making Loki fit into the Marvel Universe franchise — as was having the wounds heal in a reasonable timeframe. "Much discussion was had about how much time he has for his rapid healing before he enters the TVA, where he has no powers," Noe said. "A time gap between episode one and episode two allowed for them to completely heal."
The rest of the makeup, or lack thereof, was purposefully left timeless. "As we all know, time is different in the TVA."
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The Alternative to Prosthetics Used on Loki
We don't need to tell you how impressive and realistic prosthetics and special-effects makeup can be. However, that wasn't always the route Noe went. Many of the scrapes, cuts, and gashes that you see on Loki were actually the work of some expert painting and shadowing, courtesy of Noe's background in theatrical makeup.
"We could sculpt and make some cool prosthetics for his arms and glue them down and spend the time, but the reality is there are better ways to do it," Noe said. "A lot of the things I do to Tom, although the materials are adhesives and paint, are two dimensional as opposed to gluing on a prosthetic."
That's not to say prosthetics were never used — they just weren't preferred and weren't always needed given the dark, forgiving lighting of the series. "If we were shooting something like the finale of episode four in broad daylight, those little theatrical tricks of just using highlight and shadow as my base to paint wounds wouldn't work so well because the daylight would be so much more revealing."
Who knew?