How The Sympathizer Makeup and Hair Artists Believably Transformed Robert Downey Jr. Int

August 2024 · 9 minute read

When “The Sympathizer” showrunner and director Park Chan-Wook brainstormed ideas for HBO’s newest miniseries, one scene struck him as a “quintessential American institution and represented the idea of America.” It took place in a steakhouse with several characters coming together.

Based on the best-selling novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen and set at the end of the Vietnam War, “The Sympathizer” follows a captain, played by Hoa Xuande, in the South Vietnamese army who’s secretly spying for the North Vietnamese communists. As Saigon falls and the U.S. retreats, the Captain remains embedded and escapes to Los Angeles. Throughout, Robert Downey Jr. pops up as various characters who interact with the Captain including Claude, the Captain’s CIA contact, as well as a professor, a congressman and an auteur.

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Park toyed with the idea of casting Mark Ruffalo and even Josh Brolin along the way, but in the end, he decided to flip the script and have one actor represent America through the roles. Park thought, “Despite having different jobs and characteristics, they are all sharing one body.” He adds, “Essentially, they’re representing America as a whole.” And so Downey seemed the perfect choice.

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But it took a group of artisans to transform the actor into the various characters. Here, they break down the looks and what went into transforming the actor.

Claude

The idea of Claude’s relationship with the Captain was that he was a paternal figure to him.

Downey’s transformation began with Vincent Van Dyke (FX prosthetic designer). Due to time constraints, he opted not to go into any digital concept work. “I started sculpting immediately and I had all four plaster heads on one table,” Van Dyke says. “I was sculpting hair, eyebrows and mustaches trying to get an overall feel and vibe for what these characters would look like.”

The approval process also differed. Rather than send photos back and forth, Park, Downey and executive producers Susan Downey and Amanda Burrell came into his Burbank studio and discussed ideas in person.

Of the four characters, Van Dyke says Claude evolved the most as they went through the discussion process. “The idea was he needed to feel tough and that he had seen some shit,” Van Dyke says.

Susan Downey notes Claude’s hair was something that changed. Given his military background, there were conversations about whether he should be given a buzzcut.

“Robert specifically wanted him to be incredibly innocuous. Just somebody you pass on the street and wouldn’t think twice about,” Susan Downey says. “As you see him each time, especially once he’s in America, he’s always in some disguise but it’s subtle. He has a book when he plays a tour guide, and he always has a dog.”

She adds, “Claude is that balance of the friendly guy you’d pass on the street and not think twice about, but maybe in a dark alley, he could handle some business.”

Hair department head Katherine Kousakis brought various ideas to the table during the discussion.

“We started with a Robert Redford look,” Kousakis says. But the look didn’t click for anyone. She reveals there was at least a two week process of bringing in pictures and brainstorming ideas, including a mold with a flat top, but nothing jumped out.

“Ultimately, Robert sent me a picture of a friend of his, and it was just this balding, very erratic and curled hair, and we went from there,” Kousakis says. “We punched up the color and there was more reddy-orange.”

Once they had settled on the hair, it was about enhancing nuances to bring the character to life, such as a cauliflower ear and a nose that looked like it had been broken and reset a few times.

The application process of transforming Downey into Claude took no more than an hour. Van Dyke says, “We were limited with time, so I made sure we were streamlining things. There were earpieces on both: one to kick his ear out to give him a subtle cauliflower ear; the other ear was pinned back a little, so there’s a real asymmetry to that.”

Downey had a nose piece running along his bridge, giving him a “boxier nose.” He also had jaw pieces, as well as custom contact lenses, which Van Dyke says were hand painted to change his eye color.

Kousakis adds, “We decided his complexion would be lighter and he’d have freckles with gingery-color hair.” Those additions, along with giving him blue eyes, were some features that evolved along the way.

Professor Hammer

Like Claude, Professor Hammer is a mentor and paternal figure to the Captain. First introduced in Episode 2, the Professor is an old college professor who the Captain knows.

The Professor came to life swiftly since Downey had a vision for how he would look.

“Robert was willing to shave his head for this,” Van Dyke says. With Downey’s willingness, that meant Van Dyke could forego creating a bald cap which helped cut down the time the actor spent in the makeup chair. “Because the looks were changing so often, and we didn’t know where he was going to land and in what sequence, Robert thought, ‘Fuck it, I’m going to shave my head and make it easier on everybody so we can change my hairline however we want.'”

It was during the discussion process of how the Professor would look that Downey suggested the port wine stain on the Professor’s head, as well as the large abdomen scar. In Episode 2, the Professor changes into a kimono, revealing his pot belly and a scar, for which Van Dyke created a full prosthetic piece. Downey proposed the Professor had needed his spleen removed, hence the scarring.

“It’s a full wraparound piece that goes from the upper chest down to his belly. The chest hairs were individually punched in, and there’s hair around his nipples, and this grotesque scar — all art directed by Robert,” Van Dyke explains. “I also wanted him to have this John Waters mustache, thin mustache.”

The application process took makeup artists Chris Burgoyne and Mike Mekash 90 minutes. Burgoyne’s story behind the scarring was that it “was primitive by modern-day medical standards. He had been partying in a third-world country and had come under a medical complication and they had to do an emergency triage on him.”

And while Claude had a boxier shape to him, the Professor was rounder and softer. “We wanted to age him a bit too, so he’s wearing little prosthetic pieces to extend his earlobes and give him this nice fleshy elongation,” Burgoyne says. “He’s wearing eye bag pieces. His nose piece is split into two, and that widens his tip.”

The Congressman

The congressman was the least nuanced by design, according to Susan Downey, and the only interesting detail was the actor’s black contact lenses. “There is no light in those eyes.”

Van Dyke says the team wanted to create a character that “instantly feels smarmy. You don’t know if you trust this guy, and yet, he’s incredibly charming and appealing. Robert really wanted that to come through in this design.”

For Kousakis, getting the hair correct was easy since he would be a textbook 1970s politician. “We knew how to part the line further back. The color was easy, we also saw him as a little bit older and gray.”

Van Dyke wanted to give him a chiseled look, so he created a prosthetic piece that reshaped Downey’s lower lip, resulting in a distinct profile.

The Auteur

The Auteur, who’s introduced in Episode 3, is someone the Captain meets in Los Angeles. His vibe is European and oozes that 1970s charm. Van Dyke says, “His hair is tousled and he’s got this vibrato to him. You’ve got this sense that he’s an oil painter by night, and shooting films by day.”

Kousakis built a wig that was permed with free-flowing curls to give him that tousled look. For the color, she opted for chocolate. “The punch of chocolate livened him up, and showed the dimension of the curl on camera,” she says.

In crafting his look, Van Dyke wanted him to have a distinct nose. “Robert chimes in and says, ‘Let’s give him a mole.'”

Of all the characters, Van Dyke says, this is where Downey shines through the most. “The nose changes somebody so much, and it’s choices that we make that set these characters apart enough to give you a different aesthetic to the other ones.”

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