northernexposure; From Pollokshields to LaLa land, Scottish make-up

0 Comments | Sunday Herald, The, Mar 25, 2001 | by Interview: Stephen Phelan Photograph: Chris Blott

BRAVE Jim Carrey - a motion picture actor with a selfless, even reckless commitment to the truth of his art - recently endured hundreds of hours entombed in make-up to become The Grinch, and asked for nothing in return except world-wide admiration and 20 million dollars. That crazy, beautiful man.

"I wouldn't feel too sorry for Rick Baker either," says Ann Buchanan, referring to the prosthetics artist who actually stood glueing green hair and animatronic foam to Carrey's naked billionaire gooseflesh. "He's taking plenty home in his back pocket too."

Accustomed to "less mountainous budgets" Buchanan is the Scottish make-up designer facing down the Grinch team tonight in the contest for this year's Best Make-Up Oscar. Nominated for her work on the demented modernist monster comedy Shadow of The Vampire (following a "petrifying" selection interview before the Academy's Make-Up Guild panel), she's sure she won't win, but obviously jazzed to be going through the golden motions.

"For anyone interested, my dress is by the Scottish designer Joyce Young, Espirit are doing the jewellery and my shoes are by Jimmy Choo. I've got a shoe fitting this afternoon, actually."

Originally a teacher from Pollokshields, Buchanan answered a BBC advert for make-up people over 20 years ago "just thinking it would be great to get out of teaching for a couple of years". She is now recognised as one of the most meticulous technicians working in British film and TV.

"The research is the most satisfying part of the process," she says, citing her months spent in books and museums before William Boyd's war movie The Trench and digging in Egyptian tombs to prepare for the IMAX spectacular Journey To Eternity. For Shadow of the Vampire, it wasn't actually Buchanan who turned Willem Dafoe into a phantasmic vision of the silent-movie nightcrawler Max Shreck (an associated cosmetics team has been jointly nominated) - it was her more subtle task to use make-up to reflect the film's shifts from flickering monochrome to vivid colour.

"The essence and purpose of my work is for no one to notice it when they watch the film," she says.

Not many, however, failed to notice Hugh Grant's intrusive and hilarious floppy barnet in Four Weddings and A Funeral, for which she was main hairstylist.

"Grant actually thanked me in an acceptance speech," she recalls. "He said he's got a girl's hair, and that I coped very well with it."

As well as she might work on other people's heads, Buchanan only has her own to work on in Los Angeles. She'll be doing her own make- up, right?

"Oh my God, yes," she squeals. "Can you imagine what a make-up artist might do on a night so full of angst?" Should she win, however, she'll be thanking me in her speech, right?

"Er, I wish I could. But I'd probably like to thank my bank manager first."

The 73rd Academy Awards are on Sky Premier, tonight, 2.30am. The Oscars: A Film 2001 Preview is on BBC1, tonight, 1110pm