ThePeople v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story, the latest from producer extraordinaire Ryan Murphy, is a must-watch for so many reasons. The 10-episode anthology on FX chronicles the nearly yearlong trial of the former football star accused (and later acquitted) of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, and tackles a host of significant issues. While the events took place from 1994 to 1995, the overarching themes of the well-publicized trial are 100% relevant in 2016. Race relations are sadly still painful, hot-button issues and, thanks to social media, we’re even more beholden to the 24-hour news cycle. On top of that, a Kardashian — the late patriarch Robert — played a pivotal role in the broadcast mayhem. The casting of the series is genius: Selma Blair as Brown Simpson’s friend (and Kardashian's wife) Kris Jenner, David Schwimmer as Robert Kardashian, Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Simpson, and so on. While much respect goes to the actors for nailing their respective parts, the flawless hair and makeup play a critical role in transforming each actor into his or her real-life counterpart. After all, we'd never really seen a resemblance between
“Our goal was to give the reference of the real person to the actor and not necessarily do a carbon copy,” says hair-department head Chris Clark, who watched hours of the trial via YouTube for prep. He worked closely with makeup designer Eryn Krueger Mekash to find an iconic "look" to emulate for each person (except for lead prosecutor Marcia Clark, who had quite a few, but more on that in a bit). The two also pored over countless photos from the era. “Then, you find each little tiny thing that you can possibly match up to make them look more like that person, without it being a huge prosthetic,” the three-time Emmy-winning makeup artist explains. “They didn’t want to do any prosthetics.We didn’t have time.”
Click through to see the beauty magic that went into turning high-profile actors into the key players in one of the most infamous trials of the 20th century.
John Travolta As Robert Shapiro
Krueger Mekash used subtle, but game-changing tricks to slowly morph the actors’ faces into those of their characters. Example: John Travolta as attorney Robert Shapiro, part of Simpson’s powerhouse defense team. “The main thing we wanted to change was the eyebrows,” Krueger Mekash explains. “I extended his lower lip. I did shadow and highlight."She also brought Travolta’s eye shape downward with shadow and highlight kits to mimic Shapiro’s. And, she added “tons of facial hair and sideburns to re-create the exact look of 1994.”
Courtney B. Vance As Johnnie Cochran
Some facial hair-blessed actors made their own contributions to the transformations. “People grew their own mustaches,” Krueger Mekash tells us. “Courtney B. Vance grew that beautiful Johnnie Cochran mustache himself. It’s amazing.”
Cuba Gooding, Jr. As O.J. Simpson
The team made sure that Cuba Gooding, Jr.’s stubble meticulously matched the various stages of Simpson’s story during the trial, including the flashback scenes.
The trial took place in the mid-'90s, an era rife with some questionable, but resurgent trends, like big, poufy fringe and brown everything. “I got really excited about Elaine [Benes] bangs,” Clark says. “I got really excited about 'Rachel' blowouts.” But trendier looks were relegated to background players so as not to distract from the story about the tragic murders. “We were just really, really cautious in keeping those mid-'90s shapes — and keeping everything really period — but almost to where it faded in the background, because we didn't want any gags at all,” the Emmy-nominated hairstylist explains. “Like, no side ponytails and no complete hair changes because it just didn’t lend itself to the story that we were telling.”
“It was great to re-create all that stuff [and be as] authentic as possible to the time period,” Krueger Mekash says. “But you have to make sure it doesn’t look comical or [stands] out too much.” Beauty trivia: '90s beauty trends are actually somewhat “retro 1920s”-inspired. Case in point: “This very skinny eyebrow and this very heightened smoky eye, and a really, really dark lip,” she says.
Luckily, the now-iconic Chanel Vamp, which debuted in '94, is still available at makeup counters. (Although Krueger Mekash bought hers on eBay.) Plus, MAC — basically the mecca of wine- and brick-hued lipsticks two decades ago — provided about 15 shades similar to the famed colors of the era.
Interestingly, gray-toned brown lips and eyeshadows from the decade don’t translate well onto 2016 HD television screens. So the beauty team did a bit of “tweaking” the colors. But again, the most on-trend looks were saved for the characters in the background. “Most of the people that were involved with the crime and people that were involved in the trial were very conservative, so they didn’t wear any of that stuff,” Krueger Mekash says.
Sarah Paulson As Marcia Clark
In a historical move, live TV cameras were allowed in the Simpson courtroom. (More than 150 million people turned on their TVs for the verdict.) So, the news-hungry public around the world watched the trial unfold and scrutinized the players — and their appearances. And no one's looks were dissected more so than deputy district attorney Marcia Clark's, played by the awesome Sarah Paulson.
“She was the only woman in the courtroom that was on the prosecution, and she was ridiculed constantly — bullied by all the men there,” says Krueger Mekash about the unnecessary attention paid to the prosecutor’s curly hair and makeup. “Marcia Clark had a semi-makeover during the trial, which she was ridiculed for, and we’ll see all of that come out,” she adds. Krueger Mekash showed the evolution with a “stark” beauty look at the beginning of the trial.
“As we go along later, when she has her hair change, we gave her a softer look, a little bit more warm,” the makeup artist adds. To make Paulson’s face resemble Clark’s more, Krueger Mekash ingeniously made the actress’ lips look smaller by highlighting around the edges of the mouth and changed the cheekbone, eye, and eyebrow shapes with little touches. She also covered up Paulson’s real mole in favor of Clark’s “very tiny mole” on the top of her lip. “You can’t do it super-extremely because it starts to look like makeup, but you can do little subtle changes like that,” she explains.
Clark’s hair changed along with her beauty routine, and hairstylist Clark made sure to “stay very true” to the prosecutor’s transformation with four separate wigs to be worn throughout the trial. “We start with the longer, soft-permed look and then we go into the much tighter, shorter perm look, the one that got all of the media attention,” he explains. “Then, we go into our two versions of what we call ‘the blowout,’ which was a longer version of the straighter hair and a shorter version of the straighter hair. So we could kind of show a little bit of a passage of time with the straighter hair getting longer.”
Connie Britton As Faye Resnick
We can’t talk about the talented, beautiful Connie Britton without mentioning that supreme head of hair — it almost needs its own marquee credit. To turn the actress into Brown Simpson’s friend Faye Resnick (who also has a pretty glorious head of hair, as Housewives fans are aware), Clark amplified Britton’s naturally voluminous waves and existing color. “It was just going back to the 1994 blowout, which was a lot of root lift, a lot of mousse, a round brush, a blowdryer, and I finished it all off with iron work,” he notes. “We had those beautiful [hair] arcs going into her face that were very iconic for Faye Resnick.”
Reimagining Resnick’s makeup for a 2016 audience wasn’t quite as straightforward. Krueger Mekash employed the same lip-shape adjustment technique on Britton, and also had to adjust some of Resnick’s signature hues. “[Resnick] had a very dark lip color and red hair, so it looked really strange when you got it all together,” Krueger Mekash says. So she and the team tweaked the colors on Britton to appear less jarring on the HD screen.
Selma Blair As Kris Jenner
To turn Selma Blair into Robert Kardashian’s ex-wife and Brown Simpson’s friend Kris Jenner, Krueger Mekash had a leg up on her research. “I had worked with the Jenners when they were doing a lot of their infomercial stuff, so I had pictures from then,” the makeup artist says. “I just brought my pictures in, ‘Here we go — this is what she looked like!'” Krueger Mekash re-created the shapes of the future momager’s lips and cheekbones on Blair while accurately depicting the blush style of the time. “As opposed to a lovely placement on the apple of the cheek, it’s more [placed on] the hollows of the cheek and up high onto the cheekbones,” she explains of the more severe technique.
Clark worked together with Blair on Jenner’s period hairstyle, which is a bouffant-y iteration of her current choppy short cut. “That was a total collaboration with Selma,” Clark says. “She was super-awesome. It was a combination of a wig and her own hair that we had worked out while she sat in my chair, and we just figured [it] out through all of the references of Kris Jenner at the time.” The trick: The bangs are Blair’s real fringe peeking out, while the rest is a wig.
David Schwimmer As Robert Kardashian
“David Schwimmer had the hair — the amazing Kardashian hair. Like, it was incredible,” gushes Krueger Mekash, while giving props to Clark for his genius re-creation of the Kardashian progenitor’s silver-streaked 'do. “That is a bunch of trickery,” Clark says. “It’s 98% David’s hair and 2% tricks on my part.” He avoided painting in the gray strands or fitting a full-blown wig, which would have risked looking unrealistic and comical on the actor. Instead, he slowly incorporated “the tiniest wig you could ever imagine in the world” into Schwimmer’s naturally voluminous hair. “A little tiny hairpiece, or just little tiny, almost nothing pieces that he wore...would [transform] him,” Clark says. “It was really fun to figure out.”
Producers have largely kept the presence of young Kim, Kourtney, Khloé, and Rob under wraps as the trailers and images trickle out — possibly so as not to distract from the gravitas of the storyline. (Although, Schwimmer as Kardashian does mention “Kimmy’s room” in a climactic trailer scene featuring a suicidal Simpson. It’s hard to resist a Kardashian plug, you know?)
To research the girls’ vintage hairstyles, Clark revisited YouTube for a video of the middle Kardashian sister at her 13th birthday party in 1994. “I copied the haircut [on] the actress playing Kim from that video,” he says. So expect a young future Mrs. West with a blunt bob and middle-part. “I do have to note that the casting directors did an amazing job finding the perfect kids to play the young Kardashian family,” Clark adds. We know at least Khloé’s excited to see the show.
Krueger Mekash found that researching '90s-era images of the Kardashians wasn’t a challenge. “Kris and Bruce Jenner, as well as Robert Kardashian, had their children in the limelight back then as well,” she notes.
Billy Magnussen As Kato Kaelin
While some hair re-creations were challenging, but fun for Clark, some were just plain challenging. Case in point: flaky courtroom witness Kato Kaelin’s blond shag on actor Billy Magnussen. Clark custom-trimmed a wig to precisely copy archival photos of the Simpson houseguest’s “mullet shag,” as he perfectly puts it. “It was just so super-disconnected that — from our 2015 hairdresser brains — it was just like, ‘How did this happen?’” says Clark. “We figured it was a grown-out haircut from a much shorter haircut...but that was merely a guess on my part.”
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