Behind the Scenes: A Movie Star’s Rockin’ Transformation

Ever wonder what it would be like to do hair for film? MODERN talked to movie hairdresser Frank Barbosa, straight from the set of “Greetings From Tim Buckley.” The movie, due out in spring 2012, centers around the legendary 1991 New York City tribute concert to ’60s folk singer Tim Buckley, where his son Jeff Buckley (played by Penn Badgley of “Gossip Girl”) gives his career-defining debut performance, along with other music stars of the era.

Barbosa conceived and created the ’90-esque hairstyles for the cast. “Everyone had their own look,” he says. For actress Kate Nash, who plays one of the singers in the film, Barbosa took inspiration from designer Betsey Johnson’s early look, as well as rock band Siouxsie and the Banshees.

Texture was critical to achieve an authentic style, he says. “It was the early ’90s and there were no flat irons or blowouts then, so we had to put texture back in for the film.”

Barbosa initially considered getting Nash a wig to achieve the drama needed to stand out under the lights of the stage. But Nash was up for a major hair transformation, and willingly placed her hair in his hands. To achieve her style as shown left, Barbosa followed these steps:

First, he used IT&LY’s delyTON demi-permanent 1B with their developer to take Nash from a Level 6 strawberry blonde to black. He also did block coloring with blonde underneath. To create texture, the Sam Villa TEXTUR Texturizing iron was key, he says, and it also gave another cool effect: “The heat from the crimping iron dissipated some of the hair color, revealing chocolate under the black. It looked almost plaid,” he says.

After forbidding Nash to shampoo her hair, Barbosa instead used Rene Furterer dry shampoo day after day, which gradually allowed her tresses to become bigger and evolve into the spot-on “yarnlike” texture he was after. The finished look reveals a true ’90s-era rock star style, which fits in perfectly with the rest of the cast’s transformations. (To see all the hair, be sure to check out the movie in theaters early next year!)

Barbosa, who has done hair for several other films like “Sex and the City 2,” “Bride Wars” and “Rachel Getting Married,” credits his success to his early mentors. “They put me to work, and passed what they knew down to me,” he says. But for all of his Hollywood projects lined up, he says, his true passion is still “being behind a salon chair.”