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Hair, in the right hands, can be it's own character. It can reflect a character's mood, part of their personality, or what their intentions are. Chelsea Barber is an expert at her craft -- the art of hair.
Thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me. Congratulations on the Winchesters. It is an amazing show. I seriously hope we get season two.
I know, me too. There's rumors that we do, but we're not sure yet. I've been told to keep the stage and keep the wardrobes for season two, so that's a good sign.
How did you arrive at Ada's spectacular hairstyle?
I did not do the pilot. Unfortunately. The first person who did the pilot was not a good fit for the cast. But I have my amazing key hairstylist. Her name's Miranda Welsh Jones. We didn't love the twist specifically because we didn't feel it was seventies. However, it's a supernatural/sci-fi so it was okay.
The passion Twist is actually very modern and we did try to change that for a while. But Miranda would go in and go very small and micro link in her twist. We did that every, probably every four weeks and Miranda would redo it -- they created a very great relationship because Demetria, who plays Ada, had her hair cut the last time someone did it. She was very hesitant. Her and Miranda fell in love and had this really fun relationship.
I did not create that style. She was one of the few I was not able to change and I really tried to change her hair.
With regards to Jojo and Carlos, I spoke with Jojo, and they said that before they started the show, they always had their hair up. They very, very rarely had it down and they could not say anything but good things about your department and how much confidence it gave them. And it was just a wonderful, wonderful thing to see. How much work did it take to maintain their fabulous mane?
Well, we have some really good products, however, with JoJo, because we're in New Orleans, so it's humid and it is windy and it's rainy because they came during hurricane season with their hair. We did get sponsorship from some really incredible products. Kusco-Murphy was really great. In between every two or three takes, I would have the girls run in and spray them back wet to reactivate the curls and reactivate the product. But when the wind was going, I was like heavy, heavy, bring the product in. But also the cast are so good at being aware. Cause we would tell them, Hey look, your hair's going crazy. Can you just at least try to touch it? So they would all try to touch it themselves and help us out because it was long days, but fast and hot. It was crazy weather. We even had a two different times we had to leave for tornadoes.
Wow.
We don't get tornadoes in Louisiana.
No, that's a little strange. I know. I've seen a couple of videos of horrendous rainstorms and stuff like that, so that must have been so much fun to work with.
It is. I honestly, the hardest person was Meg because her hair is pinned straight and most of the styles were curly and it was really hard.
So was it intentional to have Betty's hair down in the personal scenes and up in her professional scenes?
That was production's choice. Yeah. I thought it would be interesting that her hair was suddenly down and then up. But it was storytelling for them that when she went to go see the kids, it was supposed to look a little softer and sweeter. So she didn't look as much as a cop as if she just hurried up and pulled it down. I did fight for that to not work that way specifically. But when she's not in her cop uniform, yeah, she's supposed to be sweet, innocent, beautiful. So almost supposed to dislike her, but love her because we want Mary with him, with John. But you also have this incredible Betty character who's beautiful. She's Latino, she's spicy, she's sharp and innocent at the same time. So you have to like her in a sense at the same time. And its seventies -- even the cops back them were glam.
Ruth Connell recently complimented her department for the episode she was in at a recent con. I would love to hear more about how you navigated the demands of the episode, which had the speakeasy and the clowns.
Oh, so hardest episode of my life, one. It was, we only shoot seven to nine days in episode, sometimes five. This one was huge. I am severely terrified of clowns. I have the biggest phobia and I still had to help create the clown looks for cast and help. I purchased all the wigs and helped create the wigs. The witches were fun. I mean, Ruth is an absolute gem. She's so sweet. She's so easygoing, she's grateful, she's beautiful. Speakeasy was honestly one of the most proudest episodes out of all of them.
As for the clowns. I will never see them. I know what the hair looks like. I don't know what the faces look like. I've heard they are terrifying and cool at the same time. But it was a very challenging episode, but worth all of the stress. And I think it was honestly, if anyone was worried about us having a season 2 -- 12 with the clowns and the witches, let 'em know that we deserve a season two. Everyone put in so much work to make that happen. It was incredible to see.
Also a cool thing about Limbo, which I didn't have to see his face. I brought in one of my favorite people and she hand-tied on lace every piece of hair to make his pieces. And it took her a week or two to do that. And it was just three little pieces and she had to make an extra set for his stunt double. Wow. And was, she's incredible. I've never seen someone with that kind of patience. It's not me because I can't.
Yeah. So what did you enjoy most about working on the Winchesters?
The cast. Honestly, you're not always lucky enough to have such a wonderful cast. Kind of just depends on the individual, but every single one of them, they were so lovely. They even told me they had a meeting before they started shooting and said, we can decide how this goes. If we're in a bad mood, everyone's in a bad mood. How do we make sure everyone feels good? And even they would work 16 hour days, sometimes longer. They were there with us early in the morning till the end of the day and made sure they were always still friendly and lovely and happy and outgoing and would talk to the background, who a lot of actors would never even look at background.
Not all of 'em, but that's very common. Have conversations, build friendships with them. And I just making it an easy day because nothing is easy about working in film. It sounds glamorous, but it's not if they can be in a good mood because essentially they're being treated as mannequins. No one was mean to them. But do that act like this, do this way, cry, crying. The fact they can turn around and be like, hi, how are you? And remember facts about people in their life was honestly one of the most enjoyable things, being around good humans, which is not what you see every day in life, just in general.
The cast worked really hard. Meg worked her butt off. Actually, the cast got sick two or three times during the whole episode, like sick. And there was a time all of us were sick and we were all still working because it wasn't Covid, you're still working. And we were like sniffling having fevers, and we were just like, let's get it out. Let's just do it. Meg lost her voice for a whole episode,
God, and had to do ADR for almost all of it. It was episode, whichever one I think I want to say might have been 10 when Tom showed up. Every day she didn't feel good. Didn't matter. She showed up 110%.
Wow.
I think that's what made it worth all of it. Awesome. And we had great, had a great crew. We really did. Great team everything. Yeah.
Tell us about styling Jensen for both the finale
I saw his photo for Supernatural and for the pilot, and he was not allowed to cut his hair. He's working on something else and he was like, whatever you can do to make it look exactly the same. So I styled it for the last one and he was like, this is spot on. I honestly didn't even think you could do this, but it, he is so lovely -- both him and his wife and I actually did not know he could sing, but wow. He can really, and they're just, they're so lovely.
They just walk up to you and just want to talk to you and be like, how's it going? How's life? They're like some really nice outgoing people that everyone talks about how lovely they are, but not actor personas. It is refreshing. When you like someone and you're like, oh, I really like their acting -- and to find out that they're really nice people, you're like, oh, thank you. I can still like you. It's a relief.
Do you have any funny behind the scenes stories to tell?
I'm sure have a tremendous amount. There was one time I went to go touch up Drake. So you have to understand for some reason, and I guess maybe it's their age range, they're all in their early twenties. They love talking about farting. So I have quite a few fart stories.
Drake and he's giggling and I'm like, what? And all of a sudden I start choking. I'm like, what is that? And he's laughed. He farted on me. I don't know what he's eating, but he eats a hundred times a day. And it was brutal. Another time Nida decided to tell us that farting and smelling someone else's fart builds your immune system. And if anyone farted, she'd be like, well now you're got a stronger immune system. Don't have to worry about Covid. We're all good.
Tom's first day shooting, I had built a relationship with Drake, Meg, JoJo, Demetria and Bianca. But Tom had just showed up and for some reason I was already comfortable ... I'm carrying two chairs, a bunch of bags, and we're removing locations and I'm got all this baggage on me and I'm like, Ugh, I can't believe we're moving already.
And I hear a voice that I think is Drake, and it says, you want to carry my coffee too? And I turn around, excuse my language, and I yell in his face and I say, fuck off. Because I think it's funny. And it's Tom, and this is my second interaction with him at all. And his face just instead of getting mad, he has this big smile and he laughs and he's just so happy. I'm mortified!
My third comes up, she's grabbing all my stuff. She's like, I'm so sorry. She's not usually this rude. I'm like, I'm getting fired. Rude.
He loved it after that. Best friends. Absolutely. All you got to do is scream in someone's face and tell 'em to fuck off and they love you.
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