The Death of Robin Hood star Hugh Jackman has recalled how his prosthetic beard needed to be taped in place to prevent it from coming off during the film’s fight scenes.
Hugh Jackman required gaffer tape to keep his prosthetic beard in place during filming for The Death of Robin Hood.
The 57-year-old star plays the outlaw in Michael Sarnoski’s historical thriller and explained how the crew needed to get practical to ensure that fake facial hair stayed in place during the movie’s muddy combat scenes.
Hugh told CinemaBlend: “I had to have a fake beard. And in that scene in the mud, there were a couple of takes where I put my head up. The beard’s gone, ‘Oh, somewhere in there.’
“By the end, it was, literally, like, gaffer tape just underneath and you couldn’t see anything, it was completely just muddy, just trying to keep this thing on. And there was one bit attached, it was… Yeah.”
The Greatest Showman star explained how the idea for the prosthetic beard was proposed by his stylists on the set of the movie Song Sung Blue.
Hugh said: “Sean Flanagan, I have to give him props. He’s my hair guy. He has worked with me on a lot of films.
“Pamela Westmore, who does make-up, the two of them, we were sitting in the trailer at Song Sung Blue, and both of them, they looked at me and I said, ‘What’s going on?’
“And they said, ‘We’ve come up with what we think could be a cool look.’ And I looked at I went, ‘Wow’. It’s pretty much what you saw. And I sent it immediately to Michael, and he was like, ‘Perfect’. And that was it. And then they had to work out how to do it. And that wig held up really, really well.”
Jackman previously recalled being left with “mud in places that you don’t want to know about” after taking part in a fight scene during his opening day of filming in Northern Ireland.
He told IndieWire: “In Northern Ireland, based out of Belfast, on an island, almost everything was on location, but spectacular.
“That first scene in the mud, that fight scene… I was totally up for it, but I’ve never been so internally grumpy as I was that night. I was not far off: ‘I’m done for the day.’
“It was a night shoot, and I was so exhausted. I still have mud in places that you don’t want to know about. There was one point before I get on top of this Australian actor to actually kill him, where I was so tired that I just had to rest, and I was laying on him.
“When you fight to the death, and you’ve got fingers in eyeballs, and you’re fighting, there’s this weird proximity intimacy; I just lay there to rest. I thought there was something cool about that moment.”
Hugh Jackman had his prosthetic beard taped in place for The Death of Robin Hood fight scenes
