Leonardo DiCaprio couldn’t wait to get rid of his “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” mustache.
In order to transform his actor character, Rick Dalton, into a Western villain for a pivotal scene, the 44-year-old Oscar winner’s longtime makeup artist, Siân Grigg, created a super-exaggerated horseshoe mustache — much to DiCaprio’s chagrin.
“The mustache drove Leo mad, because I had to leave it really long and it always went in his mouth,” Grigg, who has worked with the star since “Titanic,” told The Hollywood Reporter.
“It was so hot out and the mustache kept going in his mouth, and he’d be spitting it out. He did the same thing in the scene as they filmed ‘off camera’ when he was supposed to be losing it a bit. It made us laugh as he kept spitting it out and the wig was quite long as well.”
Grigg added that she intentionally made the facial hair look fake, explaining, “It was meant to look phony because they didn’t have good materials back then like we do now. It was correct for the period — a Western film being made in the ’70s.”
“We were copying the style of films shot in that period and also covering Leo’s character up to look different and unrecognizable, which in the movie he’s not used to,” she said.