During his work on the fourth and final season of HBO’s Emmy-winning dark comedy Barry, makeup department head Corey Castellano had the opportunity to oversee a quite memorable character transformation, bringing to life the long-discussed alter ego of Fuches, known as The Raven.
Fuches is, of course, the family friend of military veteran Barry Berkman (Bill Hader), played by Stephen Root, who guides him on his path toward becoming a hitman and pushes to keep him there, even as he looks to start his life anew as an actor. The character’s transformation would come about following the last of many betrayals by Barry, who left Fuches to rot in prison after ratting on his criminal cohorts to secure his own exit from behind bars.
The Raven, as we come to know him, is a more hardened figure than the Fuches we knew, who’s covered from head to toe in tattoos. In conversation with Emmy nominee Root for Deadline’s video series The Process, Castellano explained that in his initial thinking surrounding the designs for these tattoos — among them, a dire wolf, the grim reaper, skulls, “lots of girls with guns” and visual nods to the raven itself — he “took a little bit of inspiration” from a military veteran friend who was likewise covered in tats. “I remember talking to him about them one time, and he said, ‘Well, they were all camouflage. It was to make people think I was a badass, but I’m really not. I’m just a nice guy,’” the makeup designer shared. “It kind of occurred to me that that might have been a little bit of Fuches’ mindset, that he wanted to have this persona, this presence that he was embracing. So I looked for ideas that would lean into a harder, scarier look.”
Castellano said that while most prison tattoos are done with only black and blue ink, given limited access to other materials, he chose to give Fuches’ a “little pop of color” as a nod to his assumed “kingpin” status amongst his fellow prisoners. In terms of the application process, he said, “we use a special printing process, print the tattoo designs in reverse on what we call a waterslide paper, similar to what they used they use for crackerjacks, but obviously much larger and much more realistic. Then, you just put them on and do a little water transfer, and maybe clean up an edge or two.”
Among the most challenging tattoos to apply was a large one of a raven that figures prominently on Fuches’ person. “Doing anything that’s contoured is tricky, naturally, and I think we more than once had to reapply a couple times to get it to lay just right in there,” Castellano said. “But getting that design and having it wrap your neck the way that it did and always be front and center was pretty important.”
Created by Hader and Alec Berg, Barry wrapped up with its finale on May 28. During his time on The Process, Castellano gets into the early days of his career; his draw to handling blood and gore and other specialty makeups; his first experience working with Root on beat-up facial makeup for Barry; the techniques he used to realize Fuches’ “Quasimodo” look for when he gets beat up in prison; navigating a “Saving Private Ryan moment” in the finale involving the aftermath of a big shootout and a grenade explosion; working with Henry Winkler on his Season 4 beard; giving actors a voice in their own transformation and dealing with makeup allergies; evolutions in tattoo printing techniques since he started in the field; favorite looks created for background characters; who he collaborates with most closely on set; and why working on Barry has been one of the top experiences of career.
Root, for his part, speaks to seeing Barry emerge as one of HBO’s most acclaimed series, his character Fuches as “a gift from the gods” on the rare kind of “magical” show that comes along only so often, starting out on the series as a “screaming moron” version of Fuches and recalibrating the character after the pilot, the emotional center of Fuches and his love-hate relationship with Barry, where the character’s long-teased transformation into The Raven starts emotionally, getting beat up constantly on Barry, his experience with the makeup application process, and making “five or six new best friends on this show” that he’ll take with him going forward.
View the full conversation between Castellano and Root above.
