Alexander Skarsgård’s woven face in Wicker took nine separate prosthetic pieces and 90 minutes in the makeup chair each morning on the Budapest set. Even his eyelashes were made from harakeke, or New Zealand flax.
Ahead of the film’s New Zealand cinema release on 5 November, Wētā Workshop artists Joe Dunckley and Sarah Rubano have explained to RNZ’s Nine to Noon how they turned the actor into an unlikely romantic lead without burying his performance.
Skarsgård plays a husband commissioned from a basketmaker by Olivia Colman’s ostracised fisherwoman. The resulting romance makes the neighbours rather less happy than the bride.
Rubano said the facial makeup included separate lips, ears and under-eye pieces. His body used 50 plates and pieces attached to a fine spandex mesh.
Dunckley described an 18-month development and manufacturing process, drawing on textile artists and weavers who had worked on the Avatar films.
Wētā says most shots of the character use no CGI. Small visual-effects additions include light shining through the weave to suggest he is hollow.
