As her role as Patty DelRasso in HBO’s Mare of Easttown, yes, Connie Giordano knows what happens this Sunday in the series finale but, no, she can’t share it. One item the accomplished stage actress and on-air HSN and QVC host can give the spoiler alert on: Some on-set beauty intel, including the lip liner trick that is somewhat time-consuming.
I know you can’t share any spoilers for who “did it,” but can you share any behind-the-scenes beauty secrets?
“I can. You’ll probably laugh! My character, she’s from the heart of Delaware County, which is an area outside of Philadelphia that the story is centered around. Let’s just say, remember back in the ’90s when it was really popular to have a dark brownish lip liner and a lighter color in middle of your lip? I don’t think my character evolved from that! God bless our makeup artist. She literally would spend, I would say, a good 15 minutes just doing my lips.
You can tell in a couple of the scenes, especially the two in the restaurant, it’s at night, so the lighting is a little dim, but of course, I have my lip. I can’t tell you how many people said, ‘Oh my God, here comes the lips.’ It was a riot.”
Do you think they got the small-town Pennsylvania thing right in the show?
“I do. The area that they talk about, Delco, it constitutes several tiny boroughs in that whole area of Delaware County. It’s like everybody knows each other. When I first got cast, I Googled ‘Delco accent,’ because I knew that they really wanted to do that accent, which is a nasal Philadelphia accent. It’s not quite South Philly and it’s not quite New York.
When I Googled it, and the first thing I saw, the first video I saw—and I agree with this—was this young girl who said, ‘It’s not so much an accent with Delaware County, but it’s an attitude.’ She said, ‘You know you’re in Delaware County when the first thing somebody says to you is: ‘What parish do you go to?’’ That’s Delco. That’s Delaware County. I do think Brad Inglesby [the show’s creator] captured that. He grew up in the area, he went to one of the local catholic high schools, so he really wrote what he knew.”
I know that you’re also a big part of stage acting and off-Broadway and QVC and HSN. I’m sure you have to wear a lot of makeup when you do that. Do you have any go-to skin care to take it off or anything you really love beauty product–wise?
“For years now I only remove my eye makeup with Johnson’s Baby Shampoo ($10). I have every product you can think of when it comes to makeup and skin care, but I was diagnosed with a sensitive eye condition years ago so the doctor told me to try it—I have to say that it works religiously. Because it’s a shampoo, it’s soap basically. I think I compensate with a lot of moisturizer around my eyes; I got into that habit years ago.
One of my latest brands that I’ve used for a couple of years now is Dr. Hauschka. I absolutely love the line. My go-to for taking off makeup is the Bliss Makeup Melt Jelly Cleanser ($13)—mainly because a regular facial cleanser, with the heavy makeup that you have to wear on a film set—it’s really not enough. I always start now with the Bliss, which takes off the first layer of the foundation and then go from there with Dr. Hauschka’s skin products to remove the rest of it.”
