Making every penny count: the movie that had $250 to work with and still won an Oscar
Dallas Buyers Club is one of the most celebrated films from the late Jean-Marc Vallée, with the director becoming famous for his naturalistic shooting style and stripped-back approach to filmmaking, often choosing to work with no artificial lighting and a light hand-held look to heighten the sense of realism.
In his 2013 biographical film about a cowboy diagnosed with AIDS during the 1980s, he takes this to a whole new level in the emotionally devastating story of one man trying to supply medication to those suffering from the disease. Matthew McConaughey was praised for his performance and dramatic physical transformation, something that is even more impressive given the very limited budget given to the makeup department.
McConaughey’s character has a fluctuating state of health, alternating between looking completely normal and on the very brink of death. The film was shot in only 23 days, and within that time, both McConaughey and his co-star Jared Leto had to repeatedly transform from being severely underweight and unwell to being completely healthy.
Not only this, but the makeup team needed to replicate the rashes that people suffering from AIDS would often have, along with dark circles around their eyes and the hair and makeup for an entire cast of extras who also had the disease. And despite the enormity of this task, makeup artist Robin Mathews only had a budget of $250.
Mathews has worked on a number of Hollywood projects, from the Twilight series to a Playboy documentary, but the makeup artist revealed that Dallas Buyers Club was the most severely underfunded, with the producer even using her own credit card to buy food for the crew. It required intense transformations from Leto and McConaughey, who both had to lose 40 pounds in order to resemble the stature of the real-life people they were depicting when they were most ill. However, there were scenes in which the characters were not ill, but the actors obviously couldn’t gain the weight back, so it was also down to the makeup team to create the illusion of weight.
When asked about this challenge, Mathews said, “We had to take them back and forth from their sickest look to their healthiest look, up to five times in one day. They maintained that 40-pound weight loss throughout. So when you see them in the film, and they look like they’re 25 pounds heavier and healthier because of the medication, that’s just makeup.”
Mathews described one prosthetic piece in particular that was used to add weight to the actors, a ‘dental plumper’ that was attached to McConaughey’s cheeks to make them appear more full, but besides this, the rest was all done using makeup, with Mathews explaining, “I lined the trailer walls with pictures of skulls and skeletons and looked for the bones I needed to draw in. I basically highlight and contour every bone or tendon, and sometimes veins, that I can find in their entire body. It’s full body makeup.”
Miraculously, the effect was achieved and McConaughey and Leto were both praised for their performances and nominated for Academy Awards, with McConaughey winning his first Oscar for ‘Best Actor’. Despite this, I’m still baffled that they were able to pull off so much when working with very little, but I suppose it can all be put down to hard work, talent and the magic of making movies.
