MAKE-UP & HAIR STYLIST ON 'HOME MOVIES' PREFERS TO WORK ON "THE WHOLE MOVIE" WITH INVESTED DIRECTORS
Gigi Williams, the make-up and hair stylist who has worked with the likes of David Fincher (Mank, Gone Girl), Paul Thomas Anderson (The Master, Inherent Vice), Luc Besson (Léon), Paul Mazursky (The Pickle), Larry Cohen (A Return To Salem's Lot), and Joe Dante (The Howling), was interviewed recently by Gold Derby's Riley Chow, who asked her to talk about how she got started in film. It turns out that the first film Williams worked on was Brian De Palma's Home Movies. Here's a transcription of Williams explaining it in the Gold Derby video:
I was doing print work for Vogue. I worked for Diane von Fürstenberg. I was doing print and beauty. And, uh...then... I hated it. I hated it. It was awful. There was all these stupid people and the photographers all had their hands on all the twelve-year-old models. It was disgusting! And so I would only work four days a week. And that was a lot of money. I was making about two-thousand dollars a day back then -- it was in the seventies -- which is a lot of money. For a twenty-seven-year-old, twenty-six-year-old. And one day, I said to... I was like, I only work four days, I can't stand this, I hate it. And then one of my girlfriends said she was doing a movie with Brian De Palma and wanted to know if I wanted to test. To do the make-up. [Shrugging] I was like, yeah, sure. I did the test, I got the job. And that was my first movie. And ever since then, I've been working.I did... I lived in New York, and I called... I knew The Ramones were doing a movie. So I called up the director for the Ramones movie, and I said, listen, I have to do this movie. And he goes, like, well, send me your book. So I sent him my book, and he calls me back, and he goes, "Your too overqualified. I don't have any money, I can't bring you to California. I would love to have you!" I said, that's okay. I'll get on a plane, I'll find a place to stay, and I did it for two-hundred dollars a week. Rock And Roll High School. And it was AMAZING! [she laughs]
I've just, I've always worked. I did Saturday Night Live. I mean, I've really... I did [the] Tom Ford movie. I've really... I gravitate towards directors. So, I don't like to do personals, really. I don't really like to work with just one actor. I like to do the whole film. I like to work with the directors. When we did A Single Man, Tom Ford came up at the end of the first day, and he said, So what'd you think? And I said, Oh, my God, we made art! He says [mocks seriousness], "Well, I hope we make art every day." And you don't really feel that, when you're working in the film business. A lot. I mean, it's far and few between, I feel very privilidged and lucky and honored that, you know, I've worked with the directors that I've worked with. Because they're not the directors that say, "Yeah, it's fine, let's move on." They're like, "No, let's do it again!"
