How ‘Monster’ and ‘Chad Powers’ Transformed Two Hollywood Heartthrobs Beyond Recognition

Monster: The Ed Gein Story‘s titular serial killer and Chad Powers‘ fictional football-player-in-disguise Russ Holliday don’t automatically register as having anything in common. But underneath the prosthetic mask of each character is an actor usually recognized for his exceptionally good looks.

Turning Charlie Hunnam into the infamous “Butcher of Plainfield” wasn’t as challenging as one might think for hair department head Barry Lee Moe and makeup department head and prosthetic designer Corey Castellano. “I don’t think Ed was unattractive,” says Moe. “He had an interestingly shaped head, larger than some, but in general he was a handsome guy. I could see his quiet demeanor being charming to people in town. Charlie, in a way, was kind of the perfect person because he is this gentle giant who is very attractive.”

Early conversations with executive producer Ryan Murphy about achieving historical accuracy also focused on steering away from making Gein physically unappealing. “Ryan was really set on creating an all-American Hollywood matinee version of Ed Gein,” adds Moe. “It serves two purposes. It’s pretty to look at, obviously, but there’s a second part of it, where you’re pulled into the story in a way that you wouldn’t be if these characters looked like normal people at that time. The show is disturbing, but it’s stunning.”

Where the hair and makeup department did aim for real-life accuracy was with Gein’s signature haircut, Moe explains. “Even though it’s very clear that the inspiration for that haircut is rooted in the SS soldiers of Nazi Germany, on Charlie it looked almost fashionable,” he says. “That’s when the conversation about the eye came up. How do we turn the creep factor up just enough?”

Castellano looked to real life to replicate Gein’s hooded eye using a prosthetic piece the size of a little finger. “The way Charlie played with it was that he could use it to appear a bit deficient, or, with just the right little turn of his expression, it was kind of malevolent and dark,” says Castellano. “He really used it to great effect. The combination of that and Ed’s signature hairstyle sold him as the character.”

The bigger hurdle for the pair was depicting Gein and other characters over a 40-year time period from the 1940s to the 1980s. “Television is all about maximizing time, and one of the most effective ways is to crossboard a series,” explains Moe. “On this show, sometimes we were shooting ’40s in the morning, ’60s in the afternoon, ’70s later. You have to have the knowledge and ability to pivot within these three periods quickly and efficiently.”

That includes removing medical-grade prosthetic glue from someone’s face at any given time, which is never an easy process. “Trying to do that in the middle of the day and get Charlie’s face back to a happy place where he could be young Ed was a challenge,” says Castellano.

A more welcome test, for the two, was re-creating scenes from films inspired by Gein’s crimes, like the infamous Psycho shower scene in episode two and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre in episode four. “Everyone was really proud,” says Moe. “You’re just like, ‘Wow, this is really special.’ Even though it’s such a dark story, to re-create something that’s part of cinematic history is not something you get to do often.”

Chad Powers was also inspired by a cinematic icon, albeit one far less terrifying. In the Hulu comedy series, Glen Powell portrays a disgraced professional football player who takes a page from the Mrs. Doubtfire playbook to disguise his real identity. For makeup department head Alexei Dmitriew and hair department head Ally Vickers, the task of coming up with the right amount of camouflage for Powell was one of trial and error. “[Prosthetic designer] Vincent Van Dyke came up with a bunch of different noses and a chin. We tried buck teeth, small teeth, mustache, no mustache, bigger, bushier eyebrows,” recalls Dmitriew. “When it all came together, Glen was like, ‘That’s it.’ He just felt like this is Chad Powers. When Ally put the wig on for the first time, he started doing the voice and everyone was dying laughing.”

But making Powell look unrecognizable was only one part of a larger goal. “He has to pass in the real world, so we needed to be able to see this as a person, not just a caricature,” says Vickers. Another consideration was that Powell’s character was supposed to swiftly achieve the elaborate look on his own, with just the help of one other person— trusted confidant Danny (Frankie Rodriguez), who’s also the team mascot — and a tube of party store glue. With a prosthetic nose, forehead, a set of cheeks and an upper lip to attach, that’s where accuracy took a bit of a back seat. “We bend the reality, a little bit, of how long it would take someone to do that,” says Dmitriew. “[In real life,] we do it in about an hour and a half between three of us.”

For the two industry vets, the show included some surprising career firsts. Creating an effect that would look homemade — shoddy, even — was initially unthinkable for Vickers. “I had to change my mindset because we are so trained to think, ‘I want it to be perfect and undetectable,’ and here it’s like, ‘No, we want the helmet to come off with the wig, so his blond tips show up,’ ” she says.

Dmitriew, meanwhile, made his first onscreen cameo, where he and key prosthetic makeup artist Kevin Kirkpatrick doubled as Russ’ father, Mike (Toby Huss), and Danny, as they apply Chad’s makeup together in the season finale. “I’ve never gotten to do anything like that in my career,” he says. “We had our actors, Frankie and Toby, right next to us and I would blend part of it and then we’d give the tool to our actor and be like, ‘OK, now you’re going to do it.’ It was the absolute most realistic portrayal of us putting makeup on somebody on camera, and that was really special.”

This story first appeared in a June stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.