When you consider the myriad special effects and elaborate production design on display in gorgeous films like Spider-Man 2, The Forgotten and The Producers, you might be inclined to overlook one of the key elements that holds the spectacle together: the hair. Subconsciously, each of us realizes dozens of technicians are responsible for making sure Peter Parker glides smoothly from rooftop to rooftop as he battles Doc Ock, but how many of us take note of the dozens of stylists who tend to his every wisp when he’s romancing Mary Jane? Without that subtle blend of style and realism, these flights of fancy would surely fail to ring true.
Jerry Popolis (Interior Design, '83) is one of those invisible artists who provides the glue that holds Hollywood together. As a hair stylist on films as varied as those mentioned previously, as well as The School of Rock, The Stepford Wives and Their Eyes Were Watching God, Popolis has sculpted the coiffures of stars from Nicole Kidman and Oprah Winfrey to Jon Lovitz and Matt Damon. Whether his work takes center stage or melds seamlessly with the costumes and camerawork, his eye for detail has helped him rise to the top of his field.
Not bad for a guy who spent the first ten years of that career as an interior designer in New York City, Florida and Washington – a far cry from the salons of Beverly Hills.
“In the early 1990s, my career took a turn,” says Popolis, “or should I say, I decided that I needed a change: I enrolled in cosmetology school.” The shift from floor plans to hairlines might have been intimidating, but Popolis was undaunted.
“I began working in salons in and around New York City, all the while doing weddings, print jobs and any hair and makeup jobs that I could.”
His initial break, doing hair and makeup for free on the low-budget Lie Down With Dogs, led to further work with that film’s producer on Digging to China, where Popolis found himself styling Mary Stewart Masterson and Kevin Bacon.
“That was all I needed to get my "days" to join the hair and makeup union,” says Popolis, “and I started getting work on a regular basis. During that time, I also worked on Broadway for several years doing hair for Ragtime, Fosse and Mamma Mia.
Having earned his way up through the system, Popolis can appreciate the differences between large and small-budget films, and is well aware that more money quite often creates more challenges.
“Of course, the bigger the budget, the more pressure [there is] on you to do more and to make it bigger/better,” says Popolis. “The larger the cast, the more hair stylists you have to hire and the more problems you run into with achieving the look required.”
Popolis has managed to overcome those logistical challenges and even achieve further control of the look of his films, serving as the Hair Department Head on his most recent feature, The Good Shepherd. How has the move to management affected his workflow?
“It’s not that hard to manage a large team of hair stylists if you have the right people working with you, helping to make sure everything runs smoothly,” says Popolis. “At 4 a.m., when you’re in the hair and makeup trailer doing the stars, you need someone you can trust to supervise the many (sometimes over 300, in my experience) background actors, as well as the hair stylists who are getting them ready. Clearly, you cannot be in two places at once, so hiring someone you can trust is always wise.”
Organization is one thing; authenticity is quite another. One of Popolis’s greatest artistic challenges comes on period pieces, when evoking the style of a certain age is integral to the believability of the film.
As Popolis explains: "Their Eyes Were Watching God, an Oprah film for which we were nominated for an Emmy, [took place in] 1906 to 1930; The Producers was 1959; The Good Shepherd was 1925 to 1960.”
How does an expert in modern style solve the retro problem?
“I find old salon and beauty magazines on eBay, while online photo archives are simply invaluable. We print up the photos and make up large ‘research boards’ in the extras' holding area, where our additional hair people do those actors. They use the boards to copy the looks that we want for the period we’re shooting that day. Some days, we shoot two completely different periods, so we have to clean up the actors who have been done for one period and re-do them for another, all in the same day.”
Considering the vast difference between his initial career choice and his current claim to fame, one might believe Popolis had migrated far from his training at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, but that’s not quite the case.
“I think The Art Institute of Pittsburgh was an amazing experience,” says Popolis. “I truly felt I was quite prepared to go New York City at such a young age after graduating. [And] I certainly use my rendering, design and balance skills in my current film career.”
Ironically, perhaps Popolis’s most useful lesson of all had nothing to do with art: “I learned quite a lot from the teachers at The Art Institute of Pittsburgh, especially Jacquie Folkes, who not only taught me design; she also taught me manners and how to speak without the Pittsburgh slang. I no longer use "yinz" in my vocabulary, which goes a long way in any career where being provincial is not necessarily an asset.”