Two completed Elvira iterations in the film. Lukasz Bak/Shudder Share on Facebook Share on X Google Preferred Share to Flipboard Show additional share options Share on LinkedIn Share on Pinterest Share on Reddit Share on Tumblr Share on Whats App Send an Email Print the Article Post a Comment The Ugly Stepsister is a period body-horror black comedy, but it turns out its creative inspirations are rooted as much in '70s-era Cher and glam rock as in the classic fairy tale Cinderella that it reimagines. Nowhere is that more present than in the ballroom scene where Prince Julian (Isac Calmroth) holds a party to select a potential wife. "The heavy makeup was because the eyelash look was critical," explains hair and makeup designer Anne Cathrine Sauerberg, who, along with prosthetic makeup effects designer Thomas Foldberg, is nominated for an Oscar in the best makeup and hairstyling category. (The other nominees are Frankenstein, The Smashing Machine, Sinners and Kokuho.) "It didn't look like a contemporary eyelash that the girls would do nowadays, because we didn't want to look like we were making fun of anyone, so we used this spidery eye, a very open look like Cher - a big hero of mine - in her '70s era," she explains. Related Stories Movies 'Sentimental Value' Editor Talks Challenges of Cutting Down the Film's Original Three-and-a-half-hour Runtime Movies Directing Oscar Nominees Weigh In on Awards Season and Navigating Reviews (Plus Chloé Zhao's Love of Letterboxd) at Santa Barbara Tribute In addition to using bolder colors than you might expect in a period piece set in the 1880s, Sauerberg embraced the style of her first heartthrob, T. Rex singer Marc Bolan, and other artists of the era, adding a decadent and flamboyant flair to writer-director Emilie Blichfeldt's satirical vision. "I don't think it was intentional, but it's in my blood. I'll often go to David Bowie or Velvet Underground, too," Sauerberg muses. "When you are a kid, you look up to people. Elvira [Lea Myren] is looking up to Cinderella; she idolizes the prince like a pop star. She has a lot of heroes, and your heroes stick with you." Something Sauerberg and Foldberg found invaluable was Blichfeldt's meticulous storyboarding, especially when it came to creating the film's first gross-out moment: Elvira, the titular ugly stepsister, squeezing a zit. "There was a lot of talk about that, and I think that was actually the first drawing I saw," the prosthetic makeup effects designer recalls. "We decided to do it with a separate fake nose piece, a small silicone prop of her face, instead of doing it with the prosthetic on her." The decision came from the director and her cinematographer, Marcel Zyskind, who needed a very tight shot of the pimple pop. The next challenge was creating the perfect pus to ooze out. Foldberg experimented with various mixes and materials. "We tried Vaseline with some talc in it, and some wax-based stuff, and then other lubricants with thickeners in them," he explains. They settled on the Vaseline option "because we had to be able to control how fast it came out. It was a strange job." Period hairstyles also play a significant role in defining the characters of Elvira and Agnes, aka Cinderella, played by Thea Sofie Loch Naess. The original plan was to use no wigs in the movie. Lea Myren with cheek prosthetics for Elvira's "before" look; a dummy head created for Elvira's eyelash application sequence; prosthetics makeup effects designer Thomas Foldberg sewed in eyelashes on a fake face before compositing with Myren's face; the actress had ringlets prepped by hair and makeup designer Anne Cathrine Sauerberg. Courtesy of Shudder (4) "I just said, 'Well, that's not going to happen,' " Sauerberg remembers with a laugh. With about 80 percent of the cast requiring some hair enhancement, the designer hit Black hair supply stores in Paris to find the desired texture and would dye, cut and sew it together as needed. With a choice between white, red or black hair, Sauerberg opted for white but says it was "an absolute nightmare" to match the "yellowish" blonde tone associated with Scandinavia. For The Ugly Stepsister's third act, where the prince is looking for Cinderella post-ball, Elvira goes to extreme measures to make her feet fit the slipper. Foldberg leaned into the body horror, with a transformation that evokes comparisons with Italian giallo films. Again, her hair, now falling out, plays a key role in Blichfeldt's visceral vision, but it was a race against time to pull it off. "I was directing a wonderful wig maker in Norway while having Emilie in Poland," he recalls. "The wig maker ended up coming to set and only finished the wig four days before shooting started. I think we got to do one test makeup session, and that was it." Because of the filmmaker's clear plan, Foldberg was able to create the desired look on time and avoid predictable tropes. "It's so easy to get into a cliché look with thin hair," he explains. "Emilie didn