It might look effortless, but Lady Gaga’s makeup transformation in House of Gucci took a team of skilled artists. From the tight ’80s perm to the rounded eyebrows, her team breaks down how they nailed Gaga’s role as Patrizia Reggiani.
Gaga’s makeup artist, Sarah Tanno, tells Variety that the key was to ensure that the makeup was never overpowering or distracting. “I wanted to strip it down. I wanted to keep her as young and as pure as possible. That meant the littlest amount of makeup, a perfect amount so it doesn’t look like she was wearing any. I would round her eyebrows because brows back then were not blocked.”
Using photos of Regianni as reference, Tanno and hairstylist Frederic Aspiras built a notebook full of looks that referenced every shade, color and look to be used in each scene. While this helped them build her iconic looks for the film, they ran into some challenges along the way.
A major challenge for the artists was finding a way to age Gaga without using prosthetics or visual effects. “It was all about using makeup techniques,” Tanno tells Variety. More specifically, Tanno and Aspiras had to age Gaga’s character drastically for the infamous courtroom scene. To accomplish this, Tanno lightened her skin tone and used taupe shades to bring out nasal folds. She also powdered areas of her face to add wrinkles. “I wanted her to look tired and like she had seen a ghost.” Aspiras says, “I put on that big and fluffy backcombed hair, and she was 55 years old, and it scared me. She was shuffling into court in those shoes and she had the walk.”
Another major challenge was hiding Gaga’s tattoos. To hide the ink, Tanno worked with department head Jana Carboni. “Jana had a team of artists who would help me with that while I worked on her face and Freddy was doing the wig,” she says.
