Warning: This story contains spoilers from Sunday’s episode of “Sharp Objects.”
The first word we saw carved on the body of alcoholic reporter Camille Preaker (Amy Adams) in HBO’s “Sharp Objects” was VANISH, at the end of Episode 1.
The word appeared on her forearm at the end of the episode, as Camille bathed and rested her arm on the rim of the tub. In subsequent episodes, we caught disturbing glimpses of words carved on her torso, and on Sunday night’s episode we got the full monty — and it was a horror show.
Camille emerged from a dress shop fitting room in her bra and panties and showed her mother, Adora (Patricia Clarkson), and younger sister Amma (Eliza Scanlen), that her entire body was covered with scars from a lifetime of cutting. Her mother called Camille “ruined” and she hid in the fitting room, letting out a scream.
An amazingly meticulous team headed by Makeup FX Dept. head Adrien Morot (“X-Men: Days of Future Past”) worked around the clock to make Adams look like the walking wounded. The words on Camille’s body were compiled from the Gillian Flynn novel and from the show’s scripts. Morot discussed with director Jean-Marc Vallee what size the letters should be for the audience to read them and then hired a test model the same height as Adams (five-feet-four).
“With a marker I had her write the words on her body,” Morot says. “She needed to write on her right forearm with her left hand. I wanted it to look as if she were writing those words on herself. Once she was covered in words, we wrapped her body in Saran wrap so we could see the words through the plastic, and traced the words on the Saran wrap.”
Morot spread the clear wrap, containing some 400 words, on the floor of the makeup trailer and cut them out. A mannequin was brought in and Morot stuck all the words on the dummy. “The writers, producers and directors could see them and they moved them around,” says Kate Biscoe, the makeup artist assigned to Adams.
‘The first time we did it, it took three weeks working around the clock.’
Affixing the words and assorted cutting scars onto Adams’ body required clay, silicone and the medical adhesive Pros-Aide. “I put the word WHORE on a flat board and molded the scar on top of it with clay,” Morot says. “Your pour silicone onto the clay. When you peel off the silicone you have a negative image of your word. That negative impression is filled with medical adhesive. When you press the word against the surface of the skin, the adhesive will stick.”
Multiply that process by 400 and you get an idea of the painstaking work it took Morot and makeup artist Mark Garbarino to prepare Adams for Sunday night’s epically disturbing scene. “The first time we did it, it took three weeks working around the clock,” says Morot.
With a tight production schedule, Morot and his team learned by trial and error. Some of the scars came off in the tub scene Adams filmed for Episode 1. Further adjustments were also made for scenes shot in bright light, like the dress shop, and those filmed indoors.
Adams did not have to be in full scar makeup for each episode but, when she was, she underwent a two-hour application and removal process, carried out with warm towels.
“Poor Amy was gracious and amazing,” he says. “After scrubbing her skin for an hour-and-half you could tell she was eager to get home.”
“Sharp Objects” airs at 9 p.m. Sundays on HBO
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