Personally, we don’t know anyone that isn’t just a little obsessed with Pitch Perfect. You know Cups by heart, can recite almost every line and already know who the Beca, Chloe and Fat Amy is in your group. And if you’ve ever wanted to emulate the looks and styles from your favorite character then you’re not alone. Like everyone else we’re huge Pitch Perfect fans, so when we heard a new film was premiering, we flipped out. But when we got the opportunity to talk to the film’s Hair Department Head, Cheryl Marks, we basically lost it. We talked to Marks about all the best looks from the sequel, the hardest things to deal with on-set (spoiler: It wasn’t a cast member) and even got a few how-tos and pointers on recreating our favorite styles.
When we first spoke to Marks it was Academy Award-weekend, she was on her cell, driving down the highway on her way to makeover a celeb (she wouldn’t drop any names) for an award show after party. It was all very Hollywood. But it’s not where the hair stylist began her career. “I started in New York, I did an apprenticeship at [Vidal] Sassoon, I lived in London for a couple of years, I was into the fashion world first,” she explained. “I started coming out to LA because I was working with a couple of production companies and photographers and kind of fell in love with LA.”
Soon she was booking TV shows and independent films, even snagging several award nominations before landing the opportunity with Pitch Perfect. “I worked on small movies before—this is my first big one,” she confessed. “I've done The Voice the last few seasons and I've been Emmy-nominated three times, and I was just nominated for Guild award as well.” She jokes, “It’d be nice to win one, one of these days. But it's nice to be nominated.”
Turning the discussion to her latest work, Marks tells us that creating looks was the easiest part due to director Elizabeth Banks’ vision. “The nice thing with Elizabeth, because she is so fashion forward, she was really involved in the look with me, and because of my background from The Voice, she knew that I could push the hair quite a bit,” she explained. To “push the envelope,” the two drew inspiration from the characters, trying to show how The Barden Bellas had evolved from awkward freshman to bona fide artists. “The performance hair is really pushed,” she added. “Elizabeth really wanted them to be rockstars.”
To give them each an individual look, the two created inspiration boards for every character so they could design and plan a number of styles—from stage hair to office-appropriate ponytails. “First you have your school looks, or different performance looks, then different performances are broken up into performances, and then their “going out” look, or their dating look,” Marks explained. “Then Beca, or Anna Kendrick, had an internship this movie, and we have a look for her so she can still be her slightly edgy self, but she’s in the workforce, so we couldn’t push it too far.” She laughs, confessing that during the hip-hop scene she went all out and even Banks, who hired her for her ability to push the envelope, would reel her with a casual “That’s a little too far.”
But even with all that planning and design work, the finalized looks were not necessarily what showed up on screen. “Each girl had a lot to say because this is the sequel, they knew who they were. I mean, Rebel knew who Fat Amy was,” she laughed. “I had 10 girls with personality every day. And don’t forget Elizabeth turns into Gail as well.” But while the girls each had their own ideas for their characters, they never demanded changes, and, on the contrary, actually helped Marks get into the mindset of the Bellas. “They’d always say, ‘Oh, you know, Fat Amy would do—‘ I mean, they’d, they reminded us of who their character was, you know? Anna would be like, ‘No, Beca wouldn't worry about that.’ Or, you know, just things like that,” she said. “We never had any problems with hair and the girls.”
The real trouble came in the form of a Louisiana summer. “First of all, let me just say, the first film was shot in the fall and winter of Louisiana, and the second movie was shot in the dead of summer,” Marks laments. “So I had to come up with a lot of movie magic when they were shooting outside." Her team consisted of one assistant from LA and another five to 13 local hairdressers that were on constant call. On days when competition scenes were being filmed, they could have up to 138 stylists working on hair and makeup. With the humidity they passed on any product that had water as the first or second ingredient due to frizz, and were constantly standing just off screen, hot tools in hand, ready to rush in and do touch-ups between takes. “We’d totally do a lot of touching-up. And the humidity—it's not even humidity. It was like being in a steaming shower."
It got so bad that when using extensions they would actually layer the faux hair on top of the actress’ real strands just to keep the volume down. “There was a scene, there was a party scene: they were dancing, they're all frizzy and sweaty that's okay, because that's the way they're supposed to look—you’ll see that in the movie, but when they were performing, we really had to keep them together,” Marks explains. “When they're performing, especially The World, one of their biggest performances, they're outside— and we did it with a lot of touching up.”
Of course, Marks realizes not every woman will have a 13-person team of stylists to make her look Anna Kendrick-gorgeous on a daily basis. “We really wanted to make contemporary hair that the girl in the Midwest could relate to. With most of the hair,” she explained. “We wanted them to look like students, but because they’re part of the Bellas, they’re rockstars now. I think that's why it was such a big hit. Everybody somehow related to that movie, the first movie.” Marks explains in addition to our favorite characters, there are new girls that take on personalities of their own. “Chrissie Fit is a Latino girl, I have Hailee Steinfeld, and she's the new young Bella—there’s somebody for everybody to relate to.”
Of course we couldn’t end the conversation without getting some tips on recreating the looks on our favorite characters, Beca and Fat Amy. “Her bangs and her high pony was her custom look in the first movie; and it really, really worked, and it really established Fat Amy,” she explained. “We went back to that every so often, but Amy now has a boy crush, so we wanted her to look pretty as well. She wore her hair down quite a bit in this movie.” To get Rebel Wilson’s opening performance look, work in small sections to give your hair the best volume and curl. “We used the one-inch barrel of the Whirl Trio Interchangeable Barrel Styling Wand to curl the hair. For the top of the hair, we did a lot of back-brushing to give the hair volume, and then smoothed over to give her a Hollywood glam look.”
For something less glam but more fun, try Anna Kendrick’s rap style. “One of the most fun hair looks I got to create was for the hip-hop scene with Anna. We really got to funk up the hair,” Marks exclaimed. "We did small cornrow braids on one side of the head. Then, adding extensions to create more fullness, I curled the hair using the T3 Whirl Trio Interchangeable Styling Wand, alternating the direction of every other curl.” Of course, if you don’t have a team of cosmetologists at your beck and call, it might be best to employ a friend, or fellow Bella, for help.
