How Sandra Hüller Got Ready for the Oscars 2024
By the time makeup artist Jo Baker arrived at Sandra Hüller’s room at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles on the morning of the Oscars 2024, the German actor and first-time Oscar nominee had already gone for a swim and plunged her face into ice water. “When you walk in and you have calm skin and a calm person who is just ready to sit and be present, it makes my job very, very easy,” says Baker from her car late Sunday evening, finally with a moment to spare on Hollywood’s biggest night.
Hüller getting laced into her custom Schiaparelli.
Courtesy of Jo Baker.
Hüller was understandably at ease in the hotel suite, surrounded by a team who has been working with her for decades—a career that recently pierced the mainstream with a wave of accolades and buzz. Hüller earned her best-actress nomination for her role in Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall, in which she plays a novelist on trial for killing her husband; she also appears in Jonathan Glazer’s Zone of Interest as Hedwig, the monstrous wife of a Nazi commandant who oversees Auschwitz. The resulting flurry of attention has made Hüller a sudden fashion-world favorite—she just appeared in Phoebe Philo’s newest campaign—–and Hollywood circles are taking note. Every single one of Baker’s clients gasps when she mentions the nominee is a new client. “They tell me how they’re obsessed with her,” says the makeup artist, who began working with Hüller this awards season. “I’ve never had someone whom all the women have been so in awe of. I think it’s because she’s fearless. She doesn’t want to be dolled up and made to look like a fairy cake,” adds Baker, with a British quip. “She’s just a smart, super talented, grounded person.”
Glamour at its most alluringly extreme.
Courtesy of Jo Baker.
Baker had seen photos of the custom Schiaparelli dress—a Daniel Roseberry design in black velvet, with an exaggerated winged torso—and decided to recreate the same effect with beauty. That meant zeroing in on Hüller’s eyes. “It’s quite a hard [feature] to do,” says Baker, referring to the actor’s narrower hooded lids. “For me, I love the challenge of how to make this eye even more intense and even more the center of focus.” She began with a layer of Triple Threat Eye Primer by Bakeup Beauty, the brand she launched in 2022, to create a smooth canvas for makeup. Then, using Benefit’s They’re Real Extreme Precision Liner, Baker sketched “this kind of kicked-up extreme angular liner in sharp spikes” at the outer corners of each eye. “I love the optical illusion that you can do with these black liner looks because you really are tricking the eye to believe that it’s wider than it really is.” A few individual lashes, a swipe of Benefit’s They’re Real Magnet Extreme Lengthening Mascara, and “boyish full brows” completed the look.
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