Inside Alexander Skarsgård’s Wicker Transformation, From Flax Lashes to His Basketweave Bulge

Believe the hype: Wicker is the wittiest, smartest, most romantic movie of the year. It’s also the horniest, and should we be surprised? The basketweaving lexicon is full of words like “tucking,” “waling”, and “rim,” with willow rods described as “featuring a thick butt end and a thin tip.” That’s crafty…and hot.

The premise of the film is simple: In a medieval English village by the sea, a lonely fisherwoman (Olivia Colman) bucks the convention of marriage by contracting the local basketmaker (Peter Dinklage) to weave her a husband made of wicker (Alexander Skarsgård), sending the townspeople who once tormented her into a frenzy when they learn of his passionate and unwavering affection for her.

Even just the two-and-a-half-minute trailer, released on July 30, had people hot and bothered. Netizens proclaimed their affection for the rattan man, claiming a combination of intrigue, longing, and confusion. “I am 100% going to see the “Wicker” film because I never thought anyone would ever write a screenplay exploring the deeply impure feelings they experienced while walking into a Pier One Imports,” one Threads user wrote. “Women don’t want romcoms, they want to watch a menopausal woman get railed by a wicker basket,” joked another. You can purchase “Worth the Splinters” and “Wicker Dicker” T-shirts on Etsy, while over on TikTok, fans are plotting to steal the life-size cardboard displays of a woven Skarsgård from movie theaters to be able to stare at the sexy sentient basket anytime they like.

The thirstiness—and with it the buzz—surrounding this movie works because Wicker Husband is hot. Would we be drooling over him if he looked more like a laundry basket from Home Goods than a hot dude from Sweden? The audience needs to find him desirable, but they also need to believe he’s woven from reeds. Casting Skarsgård was crucial in making Wicker Husband yearnable, but so was the art of special-effects makeup. One of the biggest questions around this film is how they transformed Skarsgård into Wicker Husband. Was it prosthetics? AI? A spandex suit? We spoke to the team behind the cosmetic cinematic feat to find out.

Bringing on a real basketweaver

To bring the Wicker Husband to life, filmmakers Alex Houston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson brought on New Zealand-based design and visual effects studio Wētā Workshop led by prosthetic makeup designer Joe Dunckley and lead makeup-effects artist Sarah Rubano.

The research and design process for the makeup was allotted 18 months prior to principal photography, so Dunckley had the opportunity to get the execution down to a science. The process started with 2D concept art, mapping out the shapes the team needed to build Wicker Husband. Then they enlisted an actual weaver and textile artist, Jasmin Van Lith, to create samples of realistic weave patterns for the areas needed (Van Lith also assisted in hand-crafting physical garments for the Avatar franchise).

The tricky part was making sure Skarsgård could still emote while wearing the prosthetics. To do this, they used 3D animation software to measure precisely how much movement was needed, ensuring Skarsgård had ample facial expressions. For example, “If you're smiling, the corners of your mouth need to lift 20 millimeters, and we need to allow for that much movement in the weave pattern,” Dunckley explains. “We could take that information [to Van Lith], and she would give us a physical weaving sample that would conform to that amount of movement in that direction.”

From there, Dunckley and Rubano took the weave samples to Wētā sculptors, who would re-create the weave digitally on a scan of Skarsgård’s face and body. Those “appliances” (the wearable pieces) were then printed out, and physical tests of them would be conducted until they landed on the perfect specifications for each piece. “It was an extraordinary development phase and something that we're really proud of because we think they could be the very first 3D-printed prosthetic appliances,” Dunckley says. “[There have been] sculpted prosthetics in 3D before, and you can mold prosthetics in 3D, but we're directly printing the prosthetic appliances that we applied on Wicker.”

In total, they ended up with 10 facial appliances and 50 interlocking body pieces stitched onto power mesh or spandex for Skarsgård to put on, a process that Dunckley and Rubano got down to 90 minutes while filming. When it came to his face, he had ears, lips, and under lips, eye bags, and a piece Rubano referred to as a “Batman mask,” which covered the forehead, nose, and cheekbones.

Additionally, there was a jaw piece and the wig, which was made out of muka, a fiber produced from New Zealand flax. “Those [muka] strands were knotted onto the weave just like you would a human hair wig, knotting onto the lace,” says Rubano.

Making Wicker Husband hot was all in the details

Hotness was the team’s North Star when it came to Wicker Husband, but how much of it was just Skarsgård being…Skarsgård? “He needed to be the object of desire,” says Dunckley. “He needed to be the hot basket. But Alexander himself was the key inspiration for the design.”

That meant making sure the actor was recognizable through the makeup so that his expressive qualities came through onscreen—so that you could sense his calm, confident demeanor and his intent listening skills. “We called his look the ‘Skarsgård Smolder,’” says Dunckley. “It was very intentional to get his likeness into the weave, and there were multiple iterations of sculpts to get there.”

Rubano took steps to ensure Wicker Husband’s face featured “handsome-man” qualities. This included making his cheekbones higher and more defined by adding extra material, creating a strong jawline, and knotting his eyebrows to create a more “robust” shape. His wig was longer when they first started testing it, but they ultimately landed on a refined, swept-back style with a “Harlequin romance” type of vibe. Basically, if you saw him on the cover of a romance novel, you’d buy it.

One element that really sold the fantasy were his eyelashes, also made of muka fiber. Rubano says that they only did his makeup test and “assembled” Skarsgård the Friday before the Monday filming date, and they needed the “robust” lashes to make it all work.

“The eyes were the trickiest,” says Rubano. “We got a little help from visual effects to remove some of the pink out of the tear ducts and a little bit of pink on the eyeball and on the waterline, but [the lashes] pulled us away from ‘human’ into this lovely, beautiful wicker creation.”

Dunckley shared that they almost went with sclera lenses (contact lenses that cover a majority of the eye) painted with a basketweave print to make Skarsgård completely unrecognizable. And if you’ve seen the film, you know those didn’t make the cut. “When we tested them, we were like, ‘He's gone, he's no longer the romantic lead. He's too alien,’” Dunckley says. Without them, Skarsgård felt more accessible. “The window to the soul was there.”

Skarsgård’s wicker bits almost weren’t

One of the most talked-about moments of the film is the 10-second, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene of Wicker Husband wading naked in the river. And yes, the bulge matches the basketweave.

While we were prepared to get intel on the decisions behind the size and shape of the “wicker ween” prosthetic, Dunckley admits that he can’t take credit; costume designers Tóth András Dániel and Godena-Juhász Attila were responsible for the woven willy. “Our build focused on the hips up,” Dunckley explains, “and that shot came a little later.

When it was decided to do the wide river shot, András and Attila helped out, “so it’s actually a costume fabrication build,” explains Dunckley. The penis is padded to look like the same shapes that are already throughout the body, and the weave of it is a “puff paint-type finish” which was printed on spandex, with the coloring matching the prosthetics so the final look was cohesive.

Other much-talked-about body parts from the film are Skarsgård’s wicker nipples (which he gifted British talk show host Graham Norton when appearing on his show for the film's press run). But there was a point in the design process where these itty-bitty body parts got discarded. "There was a lot of debate during our design phase as to whether or not he should have nipples,” says Dunckley.

“People seemed to have strong feelings one way or the other. Why would a sentient wicker being have nipples? On the other hand, why not?!” Dunckley adds. “Now, seeing all the attention that the wicker nipples are getting out there in the world, it's a good thing we did!” Built separately, the fiber nips were made using traditional hat-making techniques and then woven onto the suit as a final step.

Alexander Skarsgård really is yearnable

Skarsgård was a dream to work with, according to Rubano, and a total team player—resilient and zen in the makeup chair with a great sense of humor.

“He sat so quietly, like a statue, and then he'd come to life when it was time [to go to set],” Rubano adds. “Joe and I looked after him over the course of the day, and he looked after us because he was so respectful in the makeup. He made sure that he was looking after it, so it endured the course of a long shoot day.”

Rubano notes that to help bring some comfort to filming, they would peel off the lips and eyelashes so he could eat in peace, and they made him a beard bib to keep it clean. “He was just wonderful to work with. We were very lucky.”

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