Interview: Makeup artist Denise Kum on working with Gong Li and Mulan's epic battles
Monday, February 8, 2021 at 11:48PM by Nathaniel R
Gong Li and Denise Kum on the set of Mulan
Mulan may have been released in September but some of its most memorable looks -- battle scarred villains, matchmaking painted faces, Gong Li's masked face and taloned hands, and Mulan's hair flowing in battle -- are still remarkably easy to conjure up with great clarity months later. We were thrilled to speak with its gifted makeup artist Denise Kum about her career and work on the Disney epic.
We spoke over Zoom while she was in Prague completing work on a World War II drama called Operation Mincemeat before diving into full fantasy with Amazon's forthcoming series The Wheel of Time based on Robert Jordan's bestsellers. Kum's work stretches from lush period pieces, through grounded dramas, to high fantasy and superhero franchises. She likes to genre hop. One consistent throughline in her work, though, is her frequent collaborators. "I've worked with Niki since I was very young," she says with obvious love for Mulan's director Niki Caro. Mulan was also a reunion with the costume designer Bina Daigeler who she's known for years and production Designer Grant Major "I've know him since I was, god, 18 or 19. He's actually the godfather of one of my daughters." This tight-knit filmmaking family's shorthand was helpful on Mulan though she's quick to add that "That's an unnatural situation for a film of this scale."
[this interview has been edited for length and clarity]