Alessandro Bertolazzi Interview with Vanity Fair 

From left, from Warner Bros./Everett Collection, Warner Bros/DC Comics/Rex/Shutterstock, courtesy of Warner Bros.

With voting open for this year’s Oscars, we’re taking a closer look at some of the craftspeople nominated for the year’s best films—from the people who re-created the golden age of Hollywood for the Coen Brothers to the makeup artist who redefined a pop-culture icon. Check VanityFair.com every day this week for another close-up look at 2017’s Oscar nominees.

In 2015, Warner Bros. hired makeup artist Alessandro Bertolazzi for the most intimidating challenge of his three-decade career: making over the Joker, a pop culture icon, for

Granted, the supervillain (played this time by Jared Leto) did not get as much screen time as the film’s titular team. But as the most-famous character featured in

the 67-year-old, green-haired villain, who has appeared in thousands of comic books and been famously portrayed onscreen by Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger, was the speculative fixation of many comic fans. (Bertolazzi was startled to discover that the Internet was already guessing how his

Joker would look before he started work on the film.) So, how did Bertolazzi prep for the much-anticipated makeover?

“Warner Bros. gave me all the comics to read,” explained Bertolazzi, who is nominated for an Oscar this month. “That didn’t help, because the character was too iconic, and looking through all the different looks would have been too complicated. They had already made an amazing, beautiful Joker before me [in

] And now I had to create something that was different from the previous Jokers, but [incorporated] the rules and paid respect to the iconic Joker.”

Bertolazzi looked to director David Ayer for guidance, asking him, “Who is this guy in

? What is his story?” Ayer’s take: “He’s a poet. He’s in love—sick love, but still love.”

“So I tried to find something to make him super scary, but at the same time romantic,” said Bertolazzi. “He’s in love with Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), who is also crazy. I always loved that contrast of a poet, a romantic, and a devil all at the same time . . . He’s a bad, bad guy, but in the movie, he’s something different. He’s a virus jumping around and moving the story in

which was the inspiration for the Joker,” said Bertolazzi, describing the silent horror film adapted from Victor Hugo’s novel of the same name. (In it, actor Conrad Veidt gave his character a morbidly exaggerated grin—which the Joker not only borrowed but made his signature expression.) “The movie was so beautiful. So that what was my biggest inspiration for Joker, apart from the fact he was so sick and full of hate. I was also thinking that the Joker’s father might be a corpse.”

Bertolazzi gathered other inspirational materials, including everyday items—sawdust, wood, stone—photos, newspaper clippings, Internet images, and anything else that inspired him.

“I started to stick everything on a wall,” Bertolazzi said. Fittingly, he said, “My work room started to look like a crime scene. We start building this huge, criminal-case-like collage, and magically, I don’t know how, everything started to be connected—like a picture of David Bowie I found. Because for me, the best Joker of all time is David Bowie.”

When it came time to put makeup brush to skin, Bertolazzi and the filmmakers made the decision to keep the Joker separate from the rest of the

cast by putting everyone in separate makeup trailers.

“We decided to keep him alone, because the Joker is different . . . something jumping in the middle of everybody,” Bertolazzi explained. “We thought of him as a movie inside another movie. When he arrived, nobody knew. He’d jump inside the trailer; we’d start the makeup process with just me and him; and slowly, he became the Joker.”

Of the three-hour transformation, Bertolazzi said, “We started painting in the face and doing the skin, because the Joker’s skin is the most important. We did six or seven layers of makeup, because I wanted it to look really dirty and really sick—with the pale skin, the veins, and a wound. This is a guy who hasn’t ever taken a shower.”

It was David Ayer’s idea to give the Joker a scar. Bertolazzi expanded on that idea by giving him seven.

“This guy is completely crazy,” said Bertolazzi. “I imagine him in front of a mirror in the morning, like everyone else, but he never brushes his teeth. Instead he takes a blade and cuts his face, just for fun.”

Bertolazzi played around with the Joker’s makeup through production, changing something in every single shot—“I gave him more details or less, depending on the moment.”

Each day Leto was on set, Bertolazzi was the only one who witnessed the actor’s daily transformation. “It started in silence,” Bertolazzi said. “During this process, Jared slowly, slowly started to act like the Joker. And then, all of a sudden, it was like, ‘Oh my god!’ He became the Joker for real.”

Despite the intimidating challenge he faced, Bertolazzi was satisfied with how the studio trusted him to experiment and take the movie’s most prized character into his literal hands.

“What was incredible was that Warner Bros. and D.C. Comics are obsessed with everything,” Bertolazzi said, “but they never asked me to change anything in my makeup. Not one single detail. They let me do everything I wanted.”

12 Actors Who Were Transformed by Intense Movie Makeup

The dashing British actor (and James Bond of our hearts) will be completely unrecognizable as main villain Krall in the upcoming

The otherworldly character is blue and covered in thick reptilian ridges, though Elba has clarified in an interview with

that Krall is not a Gorn, for all you Trekkies out there. He also shares that the makeup process took about three hours, with his days starting around 4:15 a.m.

Photo: Left, courtesy of Paramount Pictures; Right, by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images.

Two-time Oscar nominee Fiennes brought ultimate wizarding villain Voldemort to life in the

film franchise, to great effect. The look was a combination of detailed white makeup, eyebrow blockers, and fake teeth, which took about two hours, and a digital removal of his nose to complete the Dark Lord’s snakelike appearance. You can watch the clever transformation here. Cherish it, because it might be the last time you see him in heavy makeup. Fiennes hated the process so much that in 2014 he told

he’d consider skipping a movie if it required ample time in the makeup chair.

Photo: Left, from Warner Brothers Studios/Everett Collection; Right, by John Phillips/Getty Images.

There have been many incredible aesthetic transformations in the rich history of the Batman comic franchise. Jack Nicholson captured the maniacal essence of the Joker in 1989’s

Danny DeVito leaned into the bizarre physicality of the Penguin in 1992’s

And Jared Leto is giving the Joker a heavy metal twist in the upcoming

But perhaps the most haunting and memorable take is Heath Ledger’s engrossing turn as the Joker in 2008’s

The aesthetic was simple, but deeply impactful: blotchy white face paint, smudgy black shadow around the eyes, and smeared red lipstick painted over fake silicone scars, a process that took about two hours from start to finish each day, according to

. The look was topped off with limp green locks, giving the overall effect of a “ragged clown,” prosthetics supervisor Conor O’Sullivan said. The role, which floored critics and audiences alike, earned Ledger a post-humous Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.

Photo: Left, from Warner Brothers Studios/Everett Collection; Right, from Allstar Picture Library/Alamy.

Let’s take a trip down mutant memory lane, before the days of Jennifer Lawrence past. In the 2000

reboot, Rebecca Romijn played the shape-shifter villain formerly known as Raven. Unlike Lawrence, who vacillates between Mystique’s natural sleek red hair and blue skin and human form, Romijn was in blue for the majority of the three films. And it required a

of work, considering Mystique’s look is an all-blue nude illusion (though Romijn was essentially naked for the look), with scales covering her private parts. On the first film, the lengthy makeup process took about eight or nine hours, the actress told

but the crew managed to shorten that by the second film.

Photo: Left, from Twentieth Century Fox/Everett Collection; Right, by John Salangsang/BFA/Rex/Shutterstock.

When a character is in the hands of legendary makeup artist Ve Neill, it's hard to go wrong. Neill, a triple Oscar winner, co-created the disheveled look for the titular creepy role played by Michael Keaton, fashioning it so he consistently looked like he “crawled out from underneath a rock,” she said in an interview. The final look had a garish undead quality, created with white face paint, heavy black shadow, a filthy set of teeth, and a splayed green wig. The film earned Neill her first Oscar.

Photo: Left, from Everett Collection; Right, by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

If one is to play a demon superhero named Hellboy, then one must look the part. Ron Perlman gleefully tackled the opportunity, starring in the eponymous 2004 superhero film directed by Guillermo Del Toro. For nearly four hours a day, he would sit in the makeup chair as numerous foam prosthetic pieces were added to his face and chest, according to makeup artist Jake Garber. Remove, rinse, and repeat 85 more times over the course of filming.

Photo: Left, from Columbia/Everett Collection; Right, by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images.

Robert Englund has been crawling into your nightmares as Freddy Krueger for over 30 years. The iconic horror actor, who has since hung up the black hat and striped sweater, endured a daunting makeup process time and time again for the scary role. In the early days, the four-hour process required a bald cap and 18 latex pieces (which had to be kept moist throughout the day) glued to his face and neck to achieve the famously scarred look. On a FAQ post from 2013 on his Web site, Englund said it was, at that point, about 12 pieces, though it’s still a three- to four-hour process. He’d then put on fake teeth and, occasionally, contact lenses.

Photo: Left, from Snap Stills/Rex/Shutterstock; Right, by Michael Buckner/Getty Images.

Left, courtesy of Paramount Pictures; Right, by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images.

Left, from Warner Brothers Studios/Everett Collection; Right, by John Phillips/Getty Images.

Left, from Warner Brothers Studios/Everett Collection; Right, from Allstar Picture Library/Alamy.

Left, from Twentieth Century Fox/Everett Collection; Right, by John Salangsang/BFA/Rex/Shutterstock.

Isaac’s sudden rise as charming leading man and resident Internet boyfriend has certainly been aided by his raffish good looks. Say goodbye to all that in

In this summer’s superhero film, he plays the titular villain (also called En Sabah Nur), the world’s first mutant, who is also hellbent on controlling the world. Villains, right? Can’t take them anywhere. As such, the intense role requires an equally intense aesthetic. Aside from a giant 40-pound suit and thick platform boots, Isaac was covered in prosthetics and blue makeup that completely transformed every inch of his famous face.

Left, courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox; Right, by Ben Gabbe/Getty Images.

franchise, but we’re not here to talk about that. (Besides, her character Uhura is a human.) We’re also not here to talk about her role as the blue alien Neytiri in

No, we’re here to talk about her most recent turn in a heavily maquillaged role as the emerald green Gamora in 2014’s

Nicknamed the deadliest woman in the whole galaxy, Gamora belongs to the nearly extinct Zehoberei species. Alas, Saldana is not Zehoberei, so she had to spend two to three human hours putting on prosthetics and being covered head to toe in green paint, according to the film’s makeup artist Lizzie Georgiou.

Left, from Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures; Right, by Christopher Polk/Getty Images.

Depp could be on this list for any number of movies (

The Oscar-nominated actor, who’s been intensely fond of unrecognizable makeovers since the 1990 cult hit

took his portrayal of the Mad Hatter to ultimate extremes. He blanched his face in white makeup, then dramatized the look with pink under-eye circles, white eyelashes, a curly red wig, and a curious gap between his front teeth.

Left, from Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures/Everett Collection; Right, by Nina Prommer/PatrickMcMullan.com.

Here’s another villainous galactic pick, but this time it’s a dashing

actor. Bana played the evil Romulan Nero in 2009’s

the first installment of the franchise’s recent reboot. His look, which took three hours to construct every day, involved a bald cap, prosthetics, pointy ears and brows, and thick black facial markings for that final otherworldly touch. Bana joked in an interview that his face was so stiff from the makeup he felt like there was a “crap load of Botox injected into [his] head.”

Left, from Paramount/Everett Collection; Right, by Jason Kempin/Getty Images.

The former Merchant-Ivory queen shook things up in 2000 when she played a chimpanzee named Ari in Tim Burton’s ill-received

remake. The makeup process was intense, Helena Bonham Carter told

, a four- to five-hour process that required everything from makeup to fake teeth to fake ears. The process was “cumbersome and crippling,” she said, but those physical limitations also taught her to use her voice to the “greatest extent possible” to convey emotion.

Left, from Twentieth Century Fox; Right, by John Phillips/Getty Images.

Left, from Everett Collection; Right, by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images.

Left, from Columbia/Everett Collection; Right, by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images.

Left, from Snap Stills/Rex/Shutterstock; Right, by Michael Buckner/Getty Images.

Julie MillerJulie Miller is a Senior Hollywood writer for