How Emmy Rossum Made Her Hours-Long ‘Angelyne’ Makeup Transformation ‘Fun’
Emmy Rossum doesn’t take her celebrity quite as seriously as many of her peers. The Shameless star threw herself into her latest role as the titular icon in the Peacock miniseries Angelyne. Given the celebrity’s signature look, it took a lot of hair and makeup to make Rossum resemble the one-time billboard queen of Los Angeles. It takes hours of prosthetics to inhabit this unique persona. In the spirit of her subject, the actor tried to have a little fun with the process.
‘Angelyne’ brings a longtime LA character to mass audiences
Longtime LA residents are very much familiar with Angelyne. The 1980s and early 1990s were marked by her ever-expanding repertoire of mysterious billboards around the city. She cultivated an air of mystery, refusing to explain herself with any specificity for decades.
The mysterious model — variously self-identifying as a singer, famous-for-being-famous celebrity, and performance artist — didn’t exactly hide. To this day, many spot her in the city, with her trademark avalanche of blonde hair and her pink Corvette. Outside of various knowing references in shows like Bojack Horseman, she has mostly been known as a local LA curiosity.
The Hollywood Reporter changed that with a 2017 piece that both introduced and demystified the aging celebrity to a national audience. Among other unique details revealed, Angelyne had implied she was a Hollywood transplant when she actually grew up in the city. Her trademark falsetto was a farce. This is the mysterious character Rossum attempts to inhabit in the series.
The Emmy-nominated prosthetics artist behind ‘Angelyne’ loved working with Emmy Rossum
Variety reports that Rossum’s transformation each form of Angelyne she took on took upwards of five hours a day. While that’s a lot for anyone, it was important for someone portraying such a bubbly character to stay positive. Rossum, head makeup artist Kate Biscoe, and prosthetics artist Vincent Van Dyke made a point of trying to have fun with the grueling process.
They would keep high-energy banter going. When they needed a break, they’d put on podcasts. Then they’d chat about what they just heard. Anything to fill the time — and to keep Rossum in the headspace required to play this particularly demanding role. Punctuating the long hours with Starbucks certainly helped keep their energy up during the worst of it.
The worst review of ‘Angelyne’ came from the billboard queen herself
Reactions to Angelyne have been mostly positive. The review that might matter the most to the cast and crew, though, wasn’t particularly good. The real-life Angelyne did not enjoy the portrayal.
Though an unauthorized account, producers reached out to the celebrity first. However, the show’s subject told Inside Edition she was put off by the final product.
“I had a little glimpse of it, and I refuse to watch it. It doesn’t do me justice,” Angelyne said. “Would you be flattered if someone played you and misrepresented you?”
Interestingly, the LA legend ended her interview in a strange manner. When Inside Edition producers showed her a photograph purported to be her high school yearbook photo, she balked. She insisted that the picture was someone else, and threatened to end the interview. She says that she intends to do an official version of her own story, with full creative control. But given her history, her real feelings about any of these topics are a mystery. In any case, whoever takes on the role will likely spend a lot of time in the makeup chair, too.
