“We love to play with blood,” Interview With the Vampire hair designer Francesco Pegoretti says gleefully of the substance that’s the literal life source of the characters whose beautifully frightening appearance he helps craft behind the scenes. “We feel like kids playing with these things to create monsters,” adds makeup designer Vincenzo Mastrantonio. “When we start adding the blood, we also put in the fake teeth. That’s when it all comes together.”

The Emmy-nominated Italian duo took over their respective departments in the second season of the AMC gothic horror, determined to make it their playground. A new cast of characters in a brand-new city meant that Mastrantonio and Pegoretti didn’t feel beholden to the work of their predecessors. “We watched the first season, but this was another moment, because we start in 1940s Paris,” explains Pegoretti. 

When Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson), the 145-year-old vampire who in present time is giving the titular interview, and his eternal child-companion, Claudia (Delainey Hayles), finally arrive in the City of Light, having made their way through a gritty postwar Romania, they soon discover the Théâtre des Vampires, led by magnetic thespian Santiago (Ben Daniels). For Mastrantonio and Pegoretti, this larger-than-death troupe of vampires, parading as humans playing vampires, was the real joy and challenge of the season. “There were a lot of characters, and you had to understand the story of each character,” says Pegoretti. “This group consisted of around 20 vampires, each one with a different origin story, who became a vampire in different moments in history. Some are from the 18th century, some from the 16th century. We had to remember the details of these moments.”

Every scene set inside the Parisian theater, bar one, is shot in relative darkness, forcing Mastrantonio and Pegoretti to work with a palette that not only was character appropriate but also had the desired effect on camera. “For the hair, I didn’t use wigs with very solid colors, I put in a lot of highlights to make the color more real,” says Pegoretti. “If it was too dark, on camera I could see nothing, only the shape of the head. So, I tried to find light colors to create the dark colors.”

Mastrantonio leaned into the drama, whether it was for Claudia’s Shirley Temple-like stage character Baby Lulu, or the actors and their striking appearance onstage and off. “We had to think about different looks because in the theater they play different characters, but also outside the theater we imagined different makeup, especially for the women,” he says. “We made a lot of changes [to their appearance].” 

The male vampires may have had less time in the hair and makeup trailer, but it was no less important to distinguish them from the living. “We made them look a little bit pale,” says Mastrantonio. “Just a little something that you feel but you don’t really see. You cannot recognize that they are vampires, but you can feel it, that there is something strange about this bunch of people.”

While the changes to Louis and hedonistic French vampire Lestat de Lioncourt, played by Sam Reid, were more subtle, there were still adjustments made to their looks in season two. Lestat received a longer, more flattering mane and Louis a more vampiric complexion. But it was Claudia (with Hayles replacing Bailey Bass in the second season), who in her quest to look older than her stagnant 14 years, became the most exciting canvas to play with. “We start with her [during World War II] when she was underground, and we make her look dirty and muddy,” says Mastrantonio. “And after we arrive in Paris, she wants to look older.” While Mastrantonio had Claudia exploring heavy eyeliner and sultry red lipstick, Pegoretti worked with different wigs to express Claudia’s desire to appear more age appropriate. “Her body and face show a very young girl, but when she arrives in Paris, she finds this beautiful fashion world with elegant women, so she changes the shape of the hair and is more into the fashion of the moment,” says Pegoretti. “I found beautiful references of elegant women in the ’40s with textured waves. We played a bit with her.”

The season, as a whole, presented the duo with the opportunity to travel not just through mainland Europe but through time, creating 16th century vampires known as the Children of Darkness, Old World Vampire Daciana and the campier version of Lestat in the early days of the vampire theater. The sheer scope of re-creating Paris in the 1700s for one episode is not lost on Mastrantonio and Pegoretti. “It was a huge cast, but honestly, I loved the 18th century scenes in the theater,” says Pegoretti. “We had a lot of characters onstage and also the people in the crowd. It was a lot of work, but it was everybody working together. I am very proud of the results.” 

This story first appeared in an August stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.