Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 was released in theaters last month, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe film features the original Guardians cast as well as some franchise newcomers. Superstore alum Nico Santos appears in the movie as Recorder Theel. It’s clear Santos has been having fun since joining the MCU, and recently opened up about being worried about his career when the offer came in. Today, the actor took to Instagram to share behind-the-scenes photos of his makeup transportation, and it looks like an extremely intense process.
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“Becoming Theel… 🐛🐛🐛➡️➡️➡️🦋🦋🦋 Shout out to the incredible artists at @legacyeffects, it was truly an honor to be in this legendary studio and experience something like this first hand. And thank you thank you thank you to @kevinkirkpatrickart and @calethomasmakeup for helping me transform every morning into a not very nice guy. Y’all are the best!!” Santos wrote. You can check out the post below:
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 Set a World Record:
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 set the record for the most makeup appliances used in a single film with more than 23,000 prosthetics used across more than 1,000 actors. For comparison, there were 1,200 prosthetics used in the first Guardians of the Galaxy. Before Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 beat the record, it was held by The Grinch for over 20 years.
“We always knew that it was going to be a lot because when you’re reading the script, and you’re designing the characters you’re kind of like, ‘This could be a big movie…’ I don’t think any of us truly understood the sheer volume of work that was done until we were there,” Legacy FX co-founder Lindsay MacGowan told Deadline.
“Lots of charts,” makeup department head Alexei Dmitriew said with a laugh when asked how they pulled it off. MacGowan added, “It starts off with that design. So we had a huge team of designers at Legacy to come up with the ideas for the new characters that are in the movie… once we’ve designed them, then we sculpt them, and then we break them down. Alexei would be there and we’d go through the appliances [to discuss], ‘How are we going to apply this on the day?’ And kind of go from there. So once we’ve made charts for every single thing that we’re doing, we then make it and then we pass it off to Alexei and [hair department head] Cassie [Russek] for their team to apply it on the day.”
“We put this huge catalog together as well as the new stuff,” Dmitriew shared. “James [Gunn] really is great about knowing what he wants and where he wants it. So he was able to pick, ‘I want this, I want that,’ and then we break it down to how big the scene is and how many numbers we need.”
“We shot this movie and like the absolute heart of Omicron [variant of the coronavirus]. So to say ‘pivot’ is like to say the least,” Russek continued. “We had – I can’t even imagine – maybe 20 extra looks a day for just in case [someone] had COVID and who we would have to replace. We were pivoting daily. And you know what? We were so prepared. We felt really good about it every day. If somebody wasn’t going to be in, we were like, ‘We got it. We’re ready.’”
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is still playing in theaters.
