blackfilm.com correspondent Ellen Wanjiru speaks with the hair and makeup team from Netflix’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Mia Neal (hair department head) and Matiki Anoff (makeup department head) about crafting Ma Rainey’s look using what was accessible to a Black woman in the 1920s, turning a manure-covered, lice-infested bundle of horse hair into Ma Rainey’s shiny wig, and behind the hair: 100 hand-build wigs and 400 haircuts.
The film centers on a fateful recording session of “Mother of the Blues” Ma Rainey in 1927 Chicago, and stars Academy award-winner Viola Davis who plays the proud, complicated, and talented MA RAINEY, Tony and Oliver award-winner Colman Domingo plays the level-headed trombone player Cutler, Emmy winner Glynn Turman plays the sagacious piano player Toledo, Michael Potts plays the composed bassist Slow Drag and Chadwick Boseman, in his final film appearance, plays the charismatic, ambitious hot head cornet player Levee. Watch Blackfilm.com’s interview with the three band members HERE.
Nominations for the 93rd Academy Awards were recently announced and ‘Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson’ (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”) became the first Black women to be nominated in the Makeup and Hairstyling category. Click here to see the full list!
Netflix’s upcoming feature adaptation of two-time Pulitzer Prize winner August Wilson’s play by the same name, MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM, is the consummate dramatic period piece. In a roaring decade known for prosperity, jazz bands, flappers, and bathtub gin, the film does an eloquent job showing an antithetical point of view on the Black experience during that era. A view that explores the consequences of the Great Migration, particularly what was lost when Black people left the rural south for the urban north, and themes that are still relevant today, such as race, culture, faith, sexuality, music, and trauma.
blackfilm.com Speaks With Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom Makeup & Hair Team: Mia Neal & Matiki Anoff
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