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The artisans behind “The Death of Robin Hood,” including hair designer Sean Flanigan and costume designer Lorna Mugan, wanted Hugh Jackman to become unrecognizable as Robin Hood. But of course, director Michael Sarnoski‘s
(“Pig,” “A Quiet Place: Day One”) vision for Robin Hood is much darker than most filmed adaptations.
“This was really rough and rugged, and just downright earthy in a weird way. And I have never seen him completely silver with long hair like this,” Flanigan tells Variety of Jackman’s transformation. “And once we put it all together with the costumes and the beard, we had Robin Hood.”
Sarnoski‘s take on the 17th century ballad follows Robin Hood as he contends with a life largely filled with murder, a direct contrast from his renowned image as a hero. After narrowly surviving a battle, Robin Hood comes across Sister Brigid (Jodie Comer), a healer who also comes to contend with Robin Hood’s role in the death of her own family.
Mugan, who had about eight weeks to design outfits prior to production starting, describes how Sarnoski wanted to track Robin Hood in three parts, with “The Revenant” and “The Virgin Spring” serving as rich inspiration for the brutality: “He [starts off as the] hermit, so we wanted him to emerge from the landscape, be part of it, be camouflaged. He is a creature of that landscape and so we did that with layering these skins, which were all ethically sourced, vintage and faux.”
Robin Hood’s clothes in the first half of the film, including a fur coat that weighed roughly 200 pounds, were made from materials his character would’ve found out in the wild during the time period. “Because it was so medieval, it was what he would find in the landscape, what he would have stolen from a village, so everything would be hand-sourced and handmade things. Everything is all in their costumes,” Mugan says.
The second half of the film follows Robin Hood on the complicated journey to healing and finding peace. “Then when he moves to the priory, they have given him their linens, and they have cleansed back some of his texture from his early life [that are] still present in his costume,” Mugan says. “It’s full of alchemy, this place, so I wanted to put some symbolism into his night shirts, and the way the stitching is done, and that was also echoed in the set design.”
The silver hair that Jackman sports throughout the film is quite distinctive. Flanigan and the head of the makeup department, Pamela Westmore, decided on a silver-grey shade to “age him up” and “take Hugh away from Hugh’s look.”
For practical purposes, the hair department had three versions of the silver wig: one that was muddy and bloody, one that was kept clean, and one that was used for the photo double and stunt double (although Flanigan notes that Jackman did most of his own stunts).
Flanigan describes the different options for styling Jackman’s wig: “We played with it all down, tied back, in a low braid, but we all came to the same conclusion — once we saw the different options, we liked the half back, so it was pulled back. There was no elastic; it was just a piece of leather on the back that tied it all together.”
Practical considerations and cross-department collaboration were especially important for “The Death of Robin Hood,” which was shot on location in the middle of Ireland’s harsh winter over 30 days, and features extensive fight choreography, bloody deaths, fire and muddy landscapes.
“The hair was long and down most of the time in the back. Because the cape and costumes were so rough, and the weather, the hair would start to get tangled a lot,” Flanigan says. “I was in every single take behind Hugh, brushing [the hair] out, re-braiding to hold it in place to keep some of the texture … Thank god I only had to take care of him, because if I had to do the rest of the cast as well, I would be like, ‘There’s no way!’”
Flanigan, who has worked with Jackman over the past several years, including on “Deadpool & Wolverine,” “Song Sung Blue” and “The Sheep Detectives,” describes him as a “collaborative” artist because of his theater background.
“They trust the process with their team, and incorporate us, and they include us in their thought process as opposed to a studio saying, ‘This is what we want,’” he says. “We play back and forth really well.”
Mugan echoes Flanigan’s sentiment on Hugh’s work ethic through the harsh weather conditions, including times when the set got rained on without cover: “There’s nothing that he would refuse to do or wear … He was stronger than most of us doing the job!”
“The Death of Robin Hood” is currently playing in theaters from A24.
