‘Daisy Jones and the Six’ hair department head MaryAnn Hennings: ‘It was just a wild ride’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
Hair department head MaryAnn Hennings first heard about the television adaptation of “Daisy Jones and the Six” while working on the film adaptation of “Where the Crawdads Sing,” two big projects produced by Hello Sunshine, the company founded by Reese Witherspoon.
“[Executive producer and Hello Sunshine film and television president] Lauren Neustadter hired me on ‘Where the Crawdads Sing,’” Hennings says in an exclusive video interview with Gold Derby. “So we did that movie, and she was always talking about ‘Daisy Jones’ and how it’s their love child. She was so excited about it that I had a tease before I even went in.”
Based on the book by Taylor Jenkins Reid and co-created by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, the Oscar-nominated screenwriters behind “The Disaster Artist” and “(500) Days of Summer,” “Daisy Jones and the Six” tells the story of a fictional rock band in the 1970s as they rise and fall. Riley Keough stars as the titular Daisy Jones with Sam Claflin playing the enigmatic frontman Billy Dunne.
“I felt like having that book, I knew these characters before I met the actors,” Hennings says. “It was so fun meeting them and just talking with them as themselves. And then when we met to talk about the hair, the actors weren’t the same people – they turned into this sweet young band.”
Hennings says a lot of her job as the hair department head was just following the characters and being as present as possible in their situations — whether that meant picking up the pieces in the aftermath of a drug bender or playing in packed arenas. “It was just a wild ride. And it’s so fun to work with the greatest makeup [led by Rebecca Wachtel] and wardrobe [costume designer Denise Wingate] teams. It’s just a blast to be a part of,” she says.
Hennings has had an acclaimed career as a hair department lead, working on the Emmy Award-winning series “Modern Family” as well as “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and “Speechless.” But “Daisy Jones” and Neustadter, she says, taught her to think differently about her craft.
“I always thought of the characters but [Lauren] really went deep. And it made a big difference,” she says. “We did a lot of tests, so when it came to shooting, we knew what to do. There was never an issue or somebody coming to set going, ‘No, this isn’t right. This isn’t what I thought it was.’ When you collaborate so much it leaves no room for error. And everybody’s so proud of their work.”
Hennings credits Hello Sunshine for helping create that environment, particularly during production. “One of the guys that did the continuity, he would blast ‘70s music. The lighting team had different colored lights scrolling around, and somebody would yell ‘dance party!’ and everybody would dance,” she says of what it was like on the “Daisy Jones” set. “I don’t mean to make it sound like it was the easiest show because it was so hard in so many ways. But if anybody can make a great set it’s Hello Sunshine.”
All episodes of “Daisy Jones and the Six” are streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
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