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Aug. 23, 2024

Reuniting With Tricia Sawyer: Emmy Buzz & Palm Royale Makeup Secrets

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Look Behind The Look

This week, we have a very special guest, Tricia Sawyer, who holds a unique place in our podcast's history as my very first interviewee. Tricia is back to discuss her Emmy-nominated work on the visually stunning series Palm Royale on Apple TV. We dive into the intricate details of her craft, from the meticulous makeup designs to the collaborative process with costume and hair departments. Trisha shares her experiences working with the incredible cast, including Kristen Wiig, Carol Burnett, and Allison Janney, and gives us a sneak peek into the upcoming projects she's involved in, including an exciting new film about the early days of SNL.

**PLEASE NOTE! Mercury is Retro and so our zoom was glitching! Apologies but we tried several times to reconnect, then just embraced the glitch. My husband lovingly covered any awkward freezes with graphics- you know how bad an awkward freeze can be:) Enjoy this episode!

00:00:00 Welcome!

00:09:45 Discussing Palm Royale and its Emmy nomination

00:13:20 The creative process behind Palm Royale

00:18:40 Makeup secrets for Kristen Wiig and the cast

00:23:10 The unique looks for each character

00:27:50 Working with Carol Burnett and Kristen Wiig

00:34:00 Behind the scenes of the final ball scene

00:38:15 Teasing Season 2 of Palm Royale

00:41:30 Collaboration with the hair department

00:45:00 Inspirations and references for the show's looks

00:50:00 Upcoming SNL project and other endeavors Get full access to Look Behind

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Transcript
Welcome to Look Behind the Look, the celebrated podcast that explores your favorite looks in film, television, and fashion history. I'm your host, Tiffany Bartok. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Look Behind the Look, season five episode. I don't know what episode this is going to be because some of these are being done
 
out of order because it's Emmy nominations and locking down these amazing, busy Emmy Award nominees are is it's challenging. And I'm glad that it's challenging because obviously they're very busy. And I'm so grateful that they're spending some time with me to tell me all their secrets. So this week's episode is going to be with Trisha Sawyer.
 
And this is very special for me because Trisha was – I'm probably going to say it again, so forgive me. But she was the first interview I ever had for this podcast, and she's kind of – it's origin story – You know, you've heard the story before.
 
I was scrolling on Instagram and saw a bunch of pictures of Sharon Stone in Casino and was gagging over them because I don't know why, but it had been a while since I saw them. And they really stood out to me. I said, wonder who did the makeup for this? Anybody know?
 
And Trisha responded with, it was me. Hi, would love to talk about it sometime. Because I said, I want to ask them a few questions. And so during COVID, we set it up and she was game and so generous with her time. And that was our very first episode. You should go back and check it out.
 
It's still the most listened to, watched, downloaded, whatever episode to this day. So I know a lot of people Google who did this. Sharon Stone for Casino. And it was Tricia. We're going to talk today about her latest endeavor. No, we're not. Her latest endeavor actually is Saturday Night, which will be coming out in October.
 
So stay tuned for that. I'll probably have her back on to talk about that because I bet there'll be some Oscar buzz around all those creatives. And this one's going to be about Palm Royale. Palm Royale, I'm going to ask Trisha to tell you what it's all about because it's so gorgeous and so confusing.
 
So, you know, if you're not watching already, definitely watch it. It's like super beautiful, super fun, and you're going to love it. But I get so confused about the plot and who's betraying who. So it's a lot of fun. But let's get into it with Trisha. Let's go, guys.
 
How did you get past security?
 
I came in the back.
 
There are no doors on the back of the Palm Royale.
 
I never said I use the door. I had only been in Palm Beach two weeks. We don't know you. I'm Maxine Delcourt. But I already knew the Palm Royale, the most exclusive club in the world, was where I belonged. Evelyn, you are the woman to know in Palm Beach. I don't like you, Maxine.
 
You're very good at making things awkward. I don't concern myself with the shenanigans of vapid poons. What is Evelyn wearing?
 
Sleeves. Do you know anything about rich people?
 
Apart and alone. Robert, shake me another martini, and then let's play doctor. Do you work, Maxine? God, no. You want to work? God, no. You really want all this? More than anything I've ever wanted in my whole life. Like to take a few pictures? Maxine, you're the lead story. I see us all as one sisterhood.
 
Hi, Trisha. So good to see you. It's been too long. Way too long. I just did a little recording talking about how you are my most favorite and special guest because you were with me at the very beginning in the first episode. I was. And here we are again.
 
And I'm just so grateful to you for giving me the inspiration to even like, like you're the origin story. I was saying like, this is, this is how this all got started. So welcome back.
 
Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited.
 
Of course. And then I'll just tell our audience that the Wi-Fi is, we are Mercury retrograde right now until the 29th. So you kind of have a cool like stop motion thing going on here, which is very cool actually. Yeah. We are talking about your nominated work in Emmy nominated work in Palm Royale, which I just,
 
you know what? I had never watched the final episode until this morning. And it's, I mean, that's a cliffhanger if I've ever seen one. Oh, I'm very happy. It was renewed. Congratulations for season two. Cause I can't wait to see what happens to everybody.
 
Thank you. Yeah, we just are getting into it now for season two. So we're very excited.
 
Yes. Oh, good. Okay. So you're just putting up ideas and all that and writing?
 
Yeah, we have a concept meeting on Tuesday. So I'm very excited to delve into season two.
 
Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. So I was noticing that it was the pilot that you submitted for the is that right? The pilot was the submission for the Emmy nomination. So that's the episode that's that's nominated. Yeah. Episode one. How did you pick that? Because each episode is brilliant.
 
Like, I know.
 
How did you decide?
 
It was really difficult to decide, but normally what I kind of went with, I just love that opening. And I love the introduction for all of the girls just, you know, going through the club and seeing all of that. So I, I, that's why that was my main reason.
 
I just wanted everybody to really know all the ladies meet Ricky, see the club, see the whole vision of the slim errands ask, you know, behind the, the show. I mean, our creator just writes so beautifully and he just lays it all out for us and creating it is just easy.
 
So when it's written, you can instantly visualize how you're going to do this, what you're reading. Yeah.
 
We had meetings with, with Abe and our costume designer, Alex Friedberg, who's amazing.
 
Also nominated. Yeah.
 
Also nominated John Carlos, our set design, who's also nominated. He created such amazing backgrounds for us that, I mean, the world was created. And then Abe and I and Karen Bartek, the hair designer, we discussed, you know, the Slim Aaron's photographs and how we wanted to have that as our inspiration. And it all just came together.
 
It's gorgeous. Okay. So we're talking about the pilot episode, which is jaw dropping because I even reached out instantly on Instagram and asked you what did, what happened with Kristen's skin? Tell me all the secrets. Your skin looks amazing too.
 
I feel like whatever you guys are doing, like needs to be what everyone in the world is doing right now. So tell me what all the secrets are.
 
Uh, let's see. Well, tan, tan, tan, tan. She was super tan. Um, she uses really good skincare. We were very loyal to our facialist in LA. Okay. Yeah. Uh, and tanning, I think was really part, was a huge part of it.
 
How did you do spray tan? Not the face. How did you make her, her so warm on the face?
 
Yeah. She had a spray tan once a week. Okay. She had, her nails done once a week. I mean, we were very committed to this look. Yeah. She was all in. It was great. It was really great.
 
That's wonderful. And then what did you use for skincare? Are there products that you loved or.
 
I, we love, we love the future products or my life. And, um, God, uh, Eve loam. We used a lot. Karen Bartov. We use a lot of skincare.
 
Yeah. I mean, it's just amazing. And then Ricky's skin looked amazing too. I mean, the, I mean, gorgeous man. P.S. Where's his Emmy nomination? His performance was incredible.
 
I know all of them. I feel like everybody, everybody. I love Leslie. Yes. All of them deserve it.
 
Yes. And tell me with Leslie, I don't know how, like, You achieved the makeup did not appear Stepford wifey. I mean, that's boring. That would have been really boring if it was like, oh, and they're Stepford wives, you know, and they all look the same. They were not monochromatic. They were not all the same.
 
They each had their individual personalities. So what went into making that? Thank you for noticing that.
 
When I watch a show and you notice that like everybody has like, it almost has the same makeup artist. It kind of bothered, it bothers me. So I wanted each character to have a very unique, specific to themselves look. Bib's character,
 
uh dinah she was our you know our pale princess she wasn't the tan you know girl in the club she she was slightly different than everybody else um so we wanted to keep her that way and marissa lafayette uh my code my assistant department head did her
 
makeup she did an amazing job on amazing yeah she looked incredible in the show so yeah we wanted each character to be very specific and different and I think I think we nailed it I think we achieved it absolutely
 
absolutely it's undisputed and Allison Janney what did it evolve did I did it sort of I felt like there was a little character change in her makeup but am I imagining it or was that just the style that I'm noticing it was a little heavier at the ends
 
maybe yeah she well she I mean anything went on Allison. I mean, it just, it just like, we very inspired by her costumes. Marie Delcretti was her makeup artist on, on the show and she did an amazing job. And yeah, her hair got bigger. Her makeup got more. Yeah. Her costume got more.
 
It was just, she was such a great, they were like our dolls to play with. I mean, it was just so wonderful to have a job. In Los Angeles.
 
Right.
 
Be at home where we could do such creative work. This is just a dream job.
 
Yeah. Was there anything that you all created together? Can you think of a moment that somebody had an idea where you just went with it and it was sort of on the spot? Or was everything... planned.
 
The coconuts really came together. I don't know if you remember that.
 
Yeah, of course.
 
Yeah, that was really fun. Benny, our character Benny, he was a real surprise breakout for us. And we really had a lot of fun with him. Kaya kind of set the look a lot too for some of the balls, which was great.
 
She did a really good job.
 
She did such a good job. Kaya is also in my SNL 1975 movie. No way. So yeah, so it was really fun to get to work with her two in a row.
 
Oh, wow. That's so great. That's so great. How far in between was Paul Morial and the SNL movie?
 
Well, we had the strike in between, so.
 
Okay. All right. Okay. Okay. Okay. I didn't know if you had to jump or I wasn't sure. And I was like, oh my God, I wasn't, I wasn't sure how many times, how, how far away is that era? You're talking about 1969 in Palm Royale and 75 and in 75. Okay.
 
Yeah. No, right after, right after Palm Royale, I went to Chicago and did Jennifer Connelly for dark matter.
 
Oh my God.
 
Totally different.
 
Oh my God. Okay. So there's a whole nother era in there. Yes.
 
Yes.
 
You've been so busy. It's hard to keep up. Thanks. So, so then let's get down to Carol Burnett. I, I need to ask you about, I would think that she looks so, how old is she? 92?
 
She had just turned 90 on the show. Yeah. So I mean, absolutely incredible. Right.
 
Unbelievable. Like the fullness of the lips. So like, how does her skin look like this? And still she can act with her face. Like, so.
 
Incredible. I know.
 
That was the big mystery for me. I was like, Oh, well, obviously she's, you know, had so much Botox and bump, but no, her eyes, everything are so expressive. Yeah.
 
It's like for her to be able to do so much and tell such an incredible story with just like an eye twitch or moving her lips or. It was incredible. Unbelievable. The cast on this is just my favorite out of anything I've done, I think. It's just incredible.
 
Had you ever worked with Carol Burnett before?
 
I had actually years prior.
 
Oh, wow. Oh, my God. I would love to meet her one day. So her and Kristen together, tell me what that was like on set.
 
They were incredible. I mean, to me, that's two icons. I mean, they're just two comedic icons. physical comedy icons. And I mean, how could it get any better? It was just incredible.
 
And they were generous with each other. Like there's some torch passing going on there.
 
Thick as thieves. They are just, incredible yeah they just adore each other that's amazing that's amazing and then
 
so what what did you use on carol like with i mean it's beyond mature makeup it's like i don't you know i don't want to be like insulting but like how did her skin look so supple like this and i know well
 
She had her own makeup artist, Marjorie Webster, and she did an incredible job. She did an incredible job. Yeah. Yeah. But that the lip color was perfect. I would tell her that all the time. She was just, we had such an incredible group of generous artists that were so all in it
 
collectively to make this such a good show. I just can't thank them enough for, I mean, the team, my team was just incredible. Yeah. Incredible. Down to the person who did, was in charge of my background, like Robert Vega. They were just, and everybody that came out to play and help us on this job,
 
everybody was really excited about it and really wanted to make this a good job.
 
I was going to ask about the background because like how many days did it take to shoot the ball at the end?
 
Oh, the ball at the end? I think we shot that for almost a week.
 
Wow. Wow. Wow. That was brilliant. I, cause I was, I was going to ask you, I love that you say you wanted to introduce all the characters, but it would have been so hard to choose between that episode to submit and the first one.
 
Yeah. It was between that, the finale, the first one, and also the, um, the one with the, uh, the Tropicana the so good I know Kaya and that outfit and all the dancing the dancer I mean everybody just was incredible all the time.
 
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was beautiful. I'm, I'm so happy that like every creative I think is nominated. So it's very, very deserving and the show itself, of course. Do you know, are we, are we going to have like for season two,
 
can you tell us if it's going to be the same people in the same era or will it? be a we don't know I don't know if I can say anything at this point okay very that's going to be really cool to see and then um I wanted to ask you how you
 
worked um who did hair on the film I'm Karen Bartek okay okay or the hair designer
 
we've worked together many times we've um We do Elizabeth Olsen together. We've, yeah, we've department headed a lot together and she's just, she's the best.
 
Amazing. And so you guys have worked together. So you, do you, how, what's your process like when you're working together? Do you always work together or do you, does one pitch another look to the other? What is that like?
 
We're very collaborative together. We'll go to all the meetings, the concept meetings and, and really just, it becomes very organically between she and I, which is really nice. There's no, nobody takes a lead over the other. It's very much collaborative and it's, and, and then, and then, you know, collaborating with the actors as well. But, but yeah,
 
we, we both will bring ideas to the table, pictures, photographs, whatever has inspired us. we talked the the costume designer has a big influence on us who is just absolutely lovely and generous so she helps us and if we ever I I know that she and Karen work
 
together really well too because like if Karen ever has an idea for something in the hair or whatever Alex is all about it and we'll help her get it. So yeah, it's a really, it's a really lovely collaboration.
 
Yeah. What was the biggest inspiration when you were looking at these looks and coming up with them? Like, did you refer to any films that you can remember or was it the photographs mostly? It was the photographs.
 
It was the slim air and a lot of, there's a lot of, actually we found some original shiny sheets material and a lot of the original women from the Palm beach. There's a little video that's online, uh, about, about this time and the shiny sheet and that kind of thing. So yeah, we found that. Wow. Yeah.
 
Was that Aaron's photos? Really? who are a huge influence.
 
They are brilliant. Was this like an advertisement to join the club or was it reflective?
 
It was like a, almost like an early reality, like somebody taking video and interviewing some people at the club.
 
Okay. I'm definitely doing a deep dive and finding that.
 
That sounds amazing.
 
Yeah. Oh, my God.
 
Black and white, if I remember right.
 
Yeah. Oh, wow. Very cool. Very cool. Yeah. And then I was going to ask you about Mindy Cohen as well and what what it was like working with her. And was that great? I mean, what a comeback. What a way to come back. Right. It was so wonderful to see her.
 
Mindy and Julia Duffy, I think, are fantastic. some of my favorites in the show as well Julia is just incredible when she came out in the first episode swimming in the pool I was just like I'm in love so funny I mean I loved her before yeah I just loved that scene
 
Yeah, yeah. She was really good and so interesting. And then we have Laura Dern, of course, and Bruce. I'm like such a daddy's girl. That was tough, that scene.
 
I know.
 
Yeah, that was good. I was like, why? I can't hear this right now. They're so great. Yes.
 
They were so lovely to watch act together. I bet.
 
I bet that must have been really special. Did Laura... Was that a wig on Laura? Was that bangs? A partial? I love it. No, it was a full wig. A full wig. It was so good. That was great. I mean, it looked fully real. And then her youth, her warmth was amazing. And...
 
She somehow, I feel like the eyes were kept really, is that like the secret, do you think? Keeping your eyes kind of lighter to youth?
 
What's the secret to youth? And in here, this just little golden triangle right in here, you got to keep that lighter as well.
 
Yeah. So you use a lighter color or reflective, something reflective there.
 
Yeah, you have to get the reflection from here.
 
Yes, that's a Tricia tip right there. Amazing. And then what can you tell me about what's going to come with SNL? It's coming out October. I feel like October 11th, which is my anniversary. That's how I remember the date.
 
Yeah, it's coming out on the 50th anniversary. No, no, no. It's the actual date of the first episode is when it's being released, which is really cool. That's cool. That must have been crazy. It was crazy. It was a crazy ride. I mean, I loved working with Jason Reitman. He was just incredible. The cast is incredible.
 
It was it was crazy. I mean, we shot everybody, every scene, every day. So getting all those cast members ready. it was just iconic and a lot of pressure getting all iconic characters together. Yeah. It was a great, it's a, it's going to be great. I can't wait for everyone to see it.
 
It's going to be a lot of fun. It is. I'm going to have to have you back.
 
I'm so glad to hear it.
 
Who, who is playing Gilda Radner? I, I wasn't sure.
 
She's an English actress named Ella Hunt.
 
Okay. Oh, that's going to be amazing to see. I'm going to have to have you back to talk specifically about Gilda for like ever.
 
Yeah. Each one of the artists on my crew, we all did at least five or six characters. Wow. So I had Gilda, Lorraine. I had... Oh my God, I can't think now. I had Jim Henson. Oh, that's so fun. Yeah. And I had Andy Kaufman. I did Willem Dafoe, Cooper Hoffman. Yeah, there were so many.
 
Who did Willem Dafoe play?
 
He plays an exec. Amazing. An NBC exec, yeah. Milton Berle.
 
I did Milton Berle. That must have been crazy. And that's prosthetics probably for Milton Berle and all that. Yeah. We don't know. We don't know. Oh my God. Secrets revealed. Oh my gosh. Well, Trisha, good luck with this Emmy. The voting is happening now and you'll be happy to know that the staccato in the
 
visuals in the beginning went away and you are living, breathing, moving.
 
Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic. No, yes, thank you. Thank you so much for the accolades. It's really an honor to be nominated for this job. It's really special.
 
Well-deserved. I can't wait to talk to you again about SNL and have an amazing rest of summer, I guess. We got a couple minutes left of it.
 
Yeah, just a little bit.
 
Bye for now. Look Behind the Look is a Vinylfoot production written by me, your host, Tiffany Bartok. Produced by Jace Bartok. Edited by Mugresh Thakur. If you're interested in learning more, find our video version on the YouTube channel, Look Behind the Look Podcast. There you can see rare photos and clips from our guests.
 
And please follow us on Twitter at Look Behind Pod and Instagram at Look Behind the Look. If you like the show, please rate, review, and subscribe. And tell your friends and spread the word. You can subscribe to us on iTunes or any podcatcher of your choice. Thanks for listening to Look Behind the Look.
 
Tricia Sawyer Profile Photo

Tricia Sawyer

Makeup Artist

Tricia resides in Los Angeles and has been a makeup artist for over 25 years. She is a California native and grew up in Pasadena. She has worked extensively in the film industry as both a personal and department head as well as print campaigns, media, awards and television shows. Tricia was also the spokesperson for Prescriptives Cosmetics and an Independent Product Development Consultant for the Estee Lauder Companies. Emmy nominated, Guild Award nominated. Recently, she worked on Love & Death (2023) from HBO Max, Marvel’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), WandaVision (2021) and Apple TV +’s new series release Palm Royale (2024).