Local woman part of Oscar-winning team
A local woman who started her career at Betty-Lou’s House of Beauty in downtown Peterborough was part of the team that won an Oscar for best hairstyling and makeup for the movie Suicide Squad.
Suicide Squad was shot in Toronto, in the spring and summer of 2015; the action film was released in August 2016.
Carol Hartwick has been doing hair for film and TV for more than 25 years. She lives at her cottage in Curve Lake and travels to Toronto for work.
Remember the pink-and-blue pigtails worn by Harley Quinn, the crazed girlfriend of the Joker? That was a wig and Hartwick helped create it.
She was the key hairstylist for the movie, meaning she was the right-hand woman for the head of the hairstyling department.
She was there when actor Jared Leto’s ponytail was shorn, by another hairstylist, so they could give him the Joker’s green ‘do for the film.
That dye-job wasn’t easy, Hartwick adds.
“We tested 17 colours of green before we nailed it down,” she said.
Hartwick, 56, grew up in Cavan and raised her family there (she only recently moved to her waterfront cottage in Curve Lake – she plans to retire there).
She studied hairstyling at Thomas A Stewart Secondary School. Hartwick was already a pro at age 17, working her first job as a shampoo girl in a salon in Millbrook while still in high school.
Her next job was at Betty-Lou’s House of Beauty on Hunter St. It was a busy salon.
“We were booked solid – that’s where I got my training,” she said.
Hartwick moved to Toronto in her 20s, to do hairstyling for CBC television.
She lived there for eight years, but then moved back to Cavan when she got married. When her three kids were growing up, Hartwick would go to Toronto and stay there for long stretches to work; the children would stay home with Dad. Then she’d be home, between shoots.
Over the years she worked on movies such as Mean Girls, Cinderella Man, RoboCop and Jumper (scenes of which were shot in downtown Peterborough).
When she’s working in Toronto, Hartwick stays at the house of a friend in the city (sometimes she’s there for months at a time, during a shoot).
On the set of Suicide Squad, Hart wick did the tiny braids for Canadian actor Adam Beach (he played a mercenary called Slipknot).
Meanwhile Leto’s hair was tricky to maintain: the vivid green faded easily beneath the bright lights. The dye-job had to be touched up frequently.
“If it fades, it’s going to show,” Hartwick said. “It has to be exact – the haircut, the colour. The maintenance is quite intense.”
On Sunday, Hartwick didn’t go to the Oscars: Three other members of the hair and makeup team accepted the statuette.
She wasn’t even watching the show on TV. Hartwick was spending the evening with her daughter, who’d just returned from an Australian vacation.
Her sister-in-law, Debby Hartwick, broke the good news via text message. The win is an incredible honour, Hartwick says.
“But it’s not why I’m there – I love doing hair,” she said. “The art of the job is where it’s all at.”