centers on Arthur Fleck , a mentally disturbed, aspiring comedian who becomes increasingly disillusioned with the society of Gotham, which either badly mistreats him or simply ignores him, depending on the day. Spiraling downward, Fleck finds himself on a path toward murderous revolution, ultimately transforming into the iconic Clown Prince of Crime., Ledermann was met with a digital mock-up, presenting the look the director and his star wanted to pursue for Joker.
What the makeup designer ultimately pursued was an organic look that meshed well with the gritty realism of—a film that centered on a comic book character, but was not shot in a traditional comic book style. “It couldn’t be this perfect clown makeup that’s really precise and perfectly painted on. It needed to be strategically messy,” she notes. “It needed to be evolving; it needed to morph from a paint job into a character of its own, and that was a huge challenge.
Knowing that she needed to minimize touch-ups between takes, Ledermann turned to a wide range of makeup products, that would transform Phoenix properly, while allowing her to interfere as little as possible with his process. “ I had to use a water-soluble makeup, because it had to come off easily, so that I could then start from scratch easily. It had to look like it was smearing, but it wasn’t smearing because it was staying put,” she explained.
Between takes, “we had to [reapply the makeup] on the side of the set, in the dark, on an apple box, while Kay was holding a phone with a light, and a picture for me to match [to],” Ledermann adds. “Situations like that came up quite often, where I didn’t have the ideal environment to do my work.”in a way she never had before, the situation had its silver lining. “It was a really great exercise in, ‘Don’t think about it too much. Let it go. Just do it.
For Ledermann, the highlight of the experience was watching Phoenix transform into Joker with the help of her makeup, day in and day out. “I have to say, I’ve worked with a lot of amazing actors, but Joaquin is the most special one because the performance that he gave was truly unbelievable, just to watch on set. His physicality, the way he moved, his expressions. He did a lot of his own stunts. The fact that he lost 50 pounds…The dedication was truly extraordinary,” she says.