Make Up Artist Ve Neill Reveals Her Work in Mockingjay

Ve Neill, the make up artist in the movie adaptation of Mockingjay, has revealed to Entertainment Weekly the experiences she had in making the film.

What’s next in the Hunger Games movies and how do you help tell the story through makeup?

We’re going into the third book, which is when they go to war. We have a lot of distressed looking makeups as opposed to glamour.

How big is the part of the Hunger Games makeup department that you oversee?

We have three makeup artists who are on all the time and we have one make-up artist who runs our tech unit, who works with us concurrently doing interior and pickup shots. She sometimes has fifteen people working with her. Right now we’re doing stuff in District 13, so we have 20 extra makeup artists, and there are even more people in the hair department. We have a lot manpower because there are over 400 extras.

What’s it like working with the stars of the movie? 

They’re all wonderful to work with. They all have children… well Josh and Jennifer don’t, but a lot of our other adult principals have children and, of course, their kids are all really happy that their parents are working on the Hunger Games, so that’s fun for them. We have a terrific director and we don’t work hellacious hours. No 19-hour shoot days. They try to keep it to 12 hours so that everybody stays relatively healthy and rested.

Ve also raves about the cast of Mockingjay: “It’s going to be pretty spectacular. Julianne Moore is on with us now as President Coin and she’s great. We have quite a few new characters who’ve joined us … They’re all wonderful to work with. Jennifer [Lawrence] and Josh [Hutcherson] are absolute dolls. It’s nice to have a group of actors who enjoy coming to work.”

Read more about her interview at EW.