Oscar Buzz from Cannes; Eddie Redmayne Tells Me How to Disappear
The 'Day of the Jackal' star and the makeup and costume pros who transformed him reveal all
Today I’ll be looking at the Oscar buzz that’s emerged out of Cannes as the festival nears its conclusion, as well as some promising signs for the future of a handful of Emmy hopefuls. But first: a master of disguise, revealed.
When you put on the first episode of the Peacock series The Day of the Jackal, starring and executive produced by Eddie Redmayne and with the Oscar winner’s face prominently displayed in all of its advertising, the people behind the show want you to think one thing: Wait a second, where’s Eddie Redmayne?
The Day of the Jackal, a new adaptation of the novel that was previously adapted into a classic ’70s feature thriller, opens with an extended assassination sequence, as an elderly German janitor suddenly pulls out a gun and kills his target, plus a few other people who happen to be collateral damage. The janitor, it turns out, is in fact Redmayne’s Jackal, an assassin with a kit full of prosthetic disguises and a true actor’s commitment to his character.
“It felt quite high stakes,” says Redmayne, who met with the show’s prosthetics designer Richard Martin before even officially signing on to the series, to make sure that this bravura moment was even possible. “If that first episode didn’t work, then we were kind of screwed. When I saw those tests that we did, I began to get very excited because I felt like this could be something interesting.”
Redmayne is an actor famously fond of physical transformation that primarily happens through the movement of his body. On the Prestige Junkie podcast last fall he told me how he began working with the movement coach Alexandra Reynolds for his Oscar-winning performance in The Theory of Everything, and continued that work for his performance in the film The Good Nurse. The Day of the Jackal required that same kind of precise physical control, but also much more extensive transformations that only Martin and costume designer Natalie Humphries could provide.
Martin has gotten pretty used to convincing directors he can pull off these kinds of transformations with entirely practical effects. “I often approach a project now and go, ‘Just give me a chance. Let me show you what can be done,’” he says, noting that many productions assume they’ll just fix everything in post. “Most of the time people come away going, ‘Ah, that's brilliant.’ Because you're going to have something there to react to with all your other actors, and also you're going to save an absolute ton of money not spending it on the other end.”
Disguise and ‘Dandyism’
Not that technology isn’t transforming Martin’s work, too. Though applying makeup and prosthetics to actors’ faces is as old as Hollywood, the materials have improved dramatically, as has the process for making a mold of an actor’s face to work with. Instead of having his face caked in plaster like it would be in the old days, Redmayne stayed still as a laser 3D-scanned his head. He still had to endure the plaster for a body cast, which he describes as “pretty humiliating — standing in your pants with people slapping on plaster.” (“Pants” is U.K. vernacular for underwear.)
The high-tech model of Redmayne’s head was remarkable, even capturing variations in skin tone. And it gave Redmayne the idea to put that model on camera, sitting in the Jackal’s secret closet full of disguises and prosthetics. When Martin learned which particular head was part of the show, however, he was “absolutely furious,” the makeup head recalls. Turns out the head we see in the series was just intended to be a stand for the wigs Redmayne wears in character. If he’d known it would be on camera, Martin says, “I’d have made a much, much nicer one.”
The Day of the Jackal is the rare show in which an actor’s transformation is part of the story; in one memorable sequence, the Jackal demonstrates how he applies his prosthetics for his wife (Úrsula Corberó), who was previously in the dark about his secret job. Though he’s donning these disguises in order to kill people and evade the law, costume designer Humphries recognized that there’s an aesthetic thrill in it, too. “Eddie and I spoke very early on about how there’s a certain amount of dandyism to the Jackal, and he enjoys clothes,” Humphries tells me. “He enjoys putting together his disguises, and they’re highly observed. He takes great pleasure in dressing himself.” (You can hear more from Humphries, in conversation with Jackal director/EP Brian Kirk and director of photography Christopher Ross, on the Ankler’s Art & Crafts podcast.)
When off-duty, the Jackal, who lives in an enviable mansion in Spain, dresses in chic, ’70s-inspired neutrals, part of Humphries and Redmayne’s intentional homage to the original 1973 film. Talking to Humphries makes you realize just how much careful thought goes into even the simplest costumes on the show. As the agent on the Jackal’s tail, Lashana Lynch dresses in practical business wear, but Humphries was careful to include “hero pieces,” outfits that would be re-worn by a government employee who doesn’t the limitless clothes budget of the lawless Jackal.
Even the frumpy clothes the Jackal wears in disguise required just as much careful thought. The janitor’s uniform in that opening scene, for example, may look “deceptively simple, but it was one of the most technically challenging costumes, maybe,” according to Humphries. The uniform didn’t just have to accommodate the prosthetic body suit Redmayne wore to turn into an old man who had let himself go, but also the harness he wore to pull off a stunt late in the scene. For the designers of Day of the Jackal, just like the Jackal himself, detail was truly everything.
Cannes Kicks Off Oscar Buzz. Yes, Already
As you may have noticed from my very television-centric dispatch from Los Angeles on Monday, I’ve been far more enmeshed in the world of Emmy season than the celebration of international film happening across the Atlantic. But as anyone who followed Anora’s awards run knows well, Oscar season truly does start at the Cannes Film Festival, and there are strong signs of awards buzz emerging, even if no film quite seems like an obvious breakout yet.
I can’t wait to see what Mubi does with Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love, which it picked up at the festival for an impressive $24 million. After pushing The Substance to unlikely awards success last season, Mubi is clearly banking that it can promote Jennifer Lawrence’s “astonishing” performance as effectively as it did Demi Moore’s. And speaking of actresses, the warm reviews for Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut Eleanor the Great are promising for her career behind the camera, but maybe even more exciting for the film’s 95-year-old star, June Squibb. The awards push for her performance last year in the lovely Thelma may well have built the groundwork for Squibb to become the oldest-ever best actress Oscar nominee.
I’ll have much more about Cannes on next week’s episode of the podcast, with returning guest Chris Feil and me discussing the fest award winners that will be announced Saturday night. In the meantime, catch up with the buzz so far by reading the Ankler’s Cannes Daily dispatches from Gregg Kilday and Claire Atkinson, and look for Gregg’s final report on the Palme d’Or and more on Saturday.
I was intrigued to see the announcement that Michael B. Jordan will be this year’s recipient of the American Cinematheque Award, handed out at a fundraiser event in Beverly Hills on Nov. 20 — just a few days after the Academy’s Governors Awards that serve as a major awards season campaign stop. Jordan is currently preparing to star in and direct an adaptation of The Thomas Crown Affair but has no other films on the slate for this year, which means this tribute should be a real campaign boost for his double role in Sinners. The award is not inherently tied to Oscar season — last year’s recipient was Jessica Chastain, who didn’t have a major release — but the timing is certainly helpful as Sinners will be trying to stay top of mind for voters. Could Jordan finally get the Oscar nomination that’s seemed inevitable for years now?
OK, back to TV just for a moment. Over the past month and a half I’ve had onstage conversations with the creators of both Yellowjackets and Forever, who all admitted they had additional seasons planned but had to play coy about whether or not they would happen. I’m not sure how much either series’ future was ever really a mystery — Yellowjackets is a bona fide hit for Showtime, while Forever burst out of the gate after its May 8 Netflix premiere, becoming the second-highest watched streaming series of the week, according to Luminate. But congratulations to both series on their recent renewals, which ought to give them at least a small boost as they fight their way into a seriously competitive best drama series race.