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00:00I was doing a drama degree at Bristol and I had always, you know, I'd done loads of
00:09youth theatre as a kid and I loved drama and I don't think I had any idea until I went
00:15to university that film even existed as an option and when I, you know, coincidentally
00:23had been doing the hair and makeup for like plays and stuff like that at university and
00:27then I was running on a shoot for one of my tutors and there was a hair and makeup artist
00:33there and I was like, like, bingo, this is my way of, you know, I always wanted to tell
00:39stories and build characters and for me it was a way of being kind of central to that
00:45genesis of a character without actually having to create the character myself, which is not
00:51my forte. I responded to loads of adverts on, you know, on like online talent circles,
00:58shooting people, stuff like that and I think as soon as you, it feels like it's going to
01:02take forever, right, but it's the snowball so you get one little thing and you have no
01:06idea on that job which person will be the person that is the link to your next job and
01:12your next job or, you know, in terms of the crown, my contact was through one of the producers
01:19but who had been a production manager on one of my films 15 years earlier, so I think you
01:23never have any idea which person is going to be the person that makes or breaks you,
01:29you know, or gives you the opportunity of a lifetime in that case.
01:37It's not always easy growing up in a family where one person has to wear the crown, being
01:44the number two, but Margaret has been my ally day in, day out. That's the person I
01:52wanted to tell you about tonight, not the dazzling, you all know that already, but the
01:59dutiful, never wavering, my lifelong companion and support, without whom,
02:15well,
02:19it would be unimaginable.
02:21Dearest Margaret, many happy returns.
02:32So I worked on a film called The Woman in Black, Angel of Death, which was the sequel to The Woman
02:37in Black and it was a period film and it was wonderful, it was really, really, really cool
02:43and my friend Eve was the production manager and then by the time The Crown was shooting season
02:49three, she was a co-producer and she thought of me when they were in need of a designer for
02:56some auditions, just to wake some actors for some auditions and I stepped in and that way
03:02sort of met the other producers and just really, just felt like home really, really quickly.
03:08It was one of those natural fits, I think.
03:11Well, I'm going to drop the boys off with their father and then they go to Scotland.
03:15Where you go to?
03:17To Belmont.
03:18I mean, the work has changed primarily in terms of evolving the period, so obviously we really,
03:26really consciously cycle through the eras, even within one season, you know, particularly for
03:32seasons three and four that were 10 story years each or sometimes 12 story years, you would start,
03:38you know, to start in the early 60s and to finish in the late 70s, it's like you sort of traverse
03:44two different eras in that time and then of course we were almost modern by the end of season six,
03:52so as we were going along, you know, you're seeing developments in hairdressing techniques,
03:57cosmetics, chemicals, technology, all of that stuff was having a huge impact on what people
04:02look like, so for us the look was evolving in terms of kind of the polish, the gloss,
04:08the quality of the hair colour, hair dyeing, that sort of thing.
04:13Yeah, I mean, I think you can't, you can't really handle the death of Diana and not feel it.
04:19It would be, would be really weird if we were all like, you know, la la la and it didn't impact
04:25because we were filming a lot of really intense scenes with loads of paparazzi and even though
04:31it's not real, it's really noisy and it's really oppressive and it felt, I think you get a flavour
04:39of what she was going through just from the experience of filming it, so and I don't know
04:45about anybody else, but you can't help still, even knowing that it happened, wishing it wasn't going
04:52to happen and knowing you're building up to something happening and then you're filming
04:56the aftermath and I think it affected all of us, you know, profoundly and then of course
05:03the fact that the show was ending when it had been this glorious home for so many of us and
05:09actually for so many of the British film industry for nearly a decade, like people on the show,
05:15there were people who just kept coming back season after season and so to know it was finishing,
05:23it was like, you know, you had heavy boots, I guess, with that knowledge all the time.
05:29Does she know about us?
05:32You know, Diana was really bronzed, she was really tanned, we saw a lot of really relaxed
05:37Diana for the first time, which was lovely and I think by the time we were getting to Kate
05:43Middleton, you could just see those makeup techniques evolving, you know, foundation was
05:48way less kind of drying and cloggy, it was much, much finer, it was more translucent,
05:54it was more reflective, so that was really, really nice. We were seeing those trends of
05:59the sort of early 2000s, which were my teenage years, you know, my sort of early 20s and my
06:08late teens, very thin eyebrows, which none of us can grow back after we pluck them all out
06:15and eyeshadow right up to here, you know. So with William and Harry, the haircuts,
06:24it's just really nuanced in terms of haircuts, so we really, really look at the, you know,
06:28the angles and the shapes and the silhouette of the haircuts, but what I really realised was how
06:34many kids now have got William and Harry circa 2004 haircuts, it's really, it's actually really
06:42common now. I think it's always the characters that come into the royal family that reflect
06:47like stylistic changes, the royals are almost like they're really set, they have a look and
06:52they stick to it for decades, but then these, the people who marry into the family, the Dianas,
06:57the Kate Middletons, are the people who come in and kind of set the era and really show you what's
07:04going on in the world of fashion. We were set with telling this story of Margaret's demise over a
07:10couple of years and she goes from being the life and soul of the party and this kind of beautiful,
07:15charming woman, to being completely diminished by strokes, that facial paralysis, it affected
07:22her speech, she could hardly walk, she went blind eventually. I think the pressure of telling that
07:30story when we were filming it alongside episode one, so in our schedule it's a really technical
07:38challenge when it's like actually you've got a maximum of 20 minutes to take the actress Lesley
07:42Mamble, who is you know a glorious looking lady, to near death and then it's got to come straight
07:49back off again and she's got to go back to being kind of Margaret in all her glory and I think we
07:54managed to use some really cool little techniques to show that demise and I really feel it
08:02it helped her, like I feel like we helped to build that character together and it was a great team
08:07and Lesley and the makeup department were very aligned and it was a really enjoyable
08:13experience and then add to that that she had these burns on her ankles, you know from the
08:20horrendous bath accident and then there's all of the wonderful flashbacks to 1945, so we're also
08:26kind of creating this dialogue between her and her younger self and that's all beautiful period
08:31makeup, you know all of the stuff shot in the Ritz with this amazing downstairs basement Ritz
08:37with these like diverse characters that were kind of starting off the trans scene, you know all of
08:43those decades ago, paper eyelashes and whatnot, like it was just it was like this crazy episode
08:50with thousands of background and just every single thing you could ever want as a hair and makeup
08:55designer was in that episode. With Lesley and her changes, the same with the Queen, you know we're
09:00talking like very subtle aging makeups that have to go on and be removed because we jump all over
09:06the timeline. I think we had challenges with Diana because for the first time we were really showing
09:12Diana in private and relaxed on holiday with her children and she often looked really beachy
09:19and kind of fresh out of the water but to do that with her wig when so much of her Diana look is
09:25about that wig that we recognize, you know we would be setting it for the yacht stuff being like
09:31is that Diana-y? Is that Diana-y enough? What is Diana on a yacht? You know there's not that much
09:36reference so that was quite challenging and also filming it on a yacht in the middle of the sea so
09:41you don't have all of your stuff with you, you can't just kind of go I'll just change it you know.
09:46The hospital scenes with Margaret and Elizabeth were like gut-wrenchingly beautiful to watch.
09:54The Ritz basement was like exhilarating because of all the dancers, it was just so cool, I loved it
10:00and then probably in episode 10 the scene that we filmed at York Minster Cathedral where the queen
10:08is the three queens and she looks up and she sees her coffin and she turns to leave and it was like
10:16it was like I was in an actual funeral because it was the last time we were filming, I'm like welling
10:20up thinking about it, we were filming with Imelda and it was her wrap day and you know I've been on
10:27the crown for four seasons and loads of stuff happens in your life over that period of time,
10:32you know my dad had died and my child is five years older and it's all bound up with this
10:38amazing experience that you've gone through with your team who are your friends and then you're
10:42there with these amazing people and the queen has died and like and watching Imelda do that
10:48suddenly it was like I was ugly crying in front of loads of people.
10:53But that oddly was a real highlight because you just think this is never going to happen in my
10:59life ever again that I will be this emotionally invested. I just love the power of hair and makeup
11:05to take somebody and turn them into somebody else that is almost unrecognisable and I feel like if
11:11you do a good job you really empower actors to do this thing that they do which is like
11:16unquantifiable and beautiful but if I don't think they can do that if they're consciously worrying
11:24about their appearance so if you can do a good enough job that they can just let all that go
11:30and then something kind of like between us and costume and art department and camera and lighting
11:37and then the actor like something happens that is it is unquantifiable and it's magical and to
11:43feel part of that team is is just it's just the luckiest thing in the world.