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How Hair and Makeup Artists Transformed Johnny Depp for ‘Black Mass’

Hair department head Gloria Casny loves Johnny Depp’s commitment to his characters. To achieve the distinctive, slicked-back look of mob boss James “Whitey” Bulger in “Black Mass,” the actor had his hair blow dried flat, capped and clipped to accommodate the prosthetic and ventilated hairpieces that transformed him into the balding criminal.

For Bulger’s bare head, Casny first used a store-brought lace wig, which she cut and arranged on a mannequin. Then a ventilator (yes, that’s a job among wig pros) — hand-stitched stands of hair on a piece built in tandem with the makeup team’s prosthetics.

Stitched over 22 hours, the delicate hairpieces had to be created daily.

Casny and her team also had to accommodate fluctuating hairstyles during the film’s 20-year span, such as hair rising and falling over the ears. As hair darkened or grayed, Casny developed an elaborate map illustrating rows on the head, and colored hair was woven in.

The makeup chief used vintage Gillette hairspray to captured the look of the ’70s. Crafting Afros for a busing scene proved trickier: Her team built “Afro puffs” — outer rings of hair that added volume.

“There were lots of wigs on men,” Casny says.

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