ELLE: ‘The Runaways’ Movie Makeup

How does Joan’s makeup look transform in the movie?


Going off the pictures, she initially just used a brown eye shadow and that was it. Then that morphed into a smoky eye with brown eye shadow and black liner. She added blush and lipstick to it during her glam phase but eventually went through more of a punk stage where it was just harsh black liner everywhere. At the end of the film, we show Joan in the ’80s, where she really went into pinks—she’d wear a bright pink jacket with bright fuchsia lips and a pink-and-purple smoky eye. But that look was created mostly for promotional photos; once those promotional days were over, she went back to her basic black liner and brown shadow without any lip color or blush. And that’s the same makeup look she wears today.

How does Cherie’s makeup change over the course of the movie?


We did about 10 or so different makeup looks for Cherie. She was so all over the place with her makeup that I had plenty of choices to pick from. I sat down with the director and Dakota and we chose which looks we wanted to use because there were so many. Cherie was a real shapeshifter with her makeup. She did this brown winged eye shadow for awhile, and then she did this crazy silver shadow with glitter and thick black eyeliner with bright striped cheeks. She also did a blue-and-gold smoky eye which is really cool—I would’ve never thought to use those two colors for a smoky eye.

Toward the end of the film, we really see Dakota’s look change as Cherie gets more and more haggard and tired. It’s a big, shocking look—very different from how Dakota Fanning has appeared in other films. So I’m waiting with bated breath to hear what people think because it’s a shocker. I can’t give away too much, but if you know about the demise of the Runaways, you’ll understand why Dakota looks the way she does at the end of the movie.

Read the full interview with makeup artist Robin Matthews at ELLE HERE.