Maria Sandoval: Hairstyling the Mandoverse

An essential part of the creation of a character, whether it’s film or television, is hair—especially in a fantasy or sci-fi story. Star Wars is no stranger to this treatment, as many of our most beloved characters possess iconic hairstyles that can only be pulled off by the wild talent of the Hair Department. Head of this unique ensemble of artists for the Mandoverse is Emmy nominated Maria Sandoval, joining us in an exploration into the fascinating design and development of wigs and hairstyles in The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett.

Sandoval has always been a creative person; her passion for hair styling started at an early age. Although she confessed she wanted to pursue a career as a makeup artist after studying at NYU, Sandoval quickly realized that crafting hair was her calling—that would lead her to her absolute dream job. After a hiatus to focus on motherhood, the stars suddenly aligned as Maria Sandoval’s lifelong love for Star Wars and desire to return to her career both came true when Jon Favreau brought Star Wars TV productions to California (where she resides), and the hairstylist got the opportunity of a lifetime to contribute to the galaxy far, far away. “A friend of mine mentioned that her boyfriend was about to start a new project, a Star Wars TV show. I said, ‘Ok, he has to hire me, he doesn’t have a choice [laughs]. I arranged a meeting and just told him, ‘You can find people with better resumes than me, but you’re not gonna find anybody else that has the knowledge of the subject matter. I’m one of those nerdy fans that knows everything.’ He liked me, took a risk and hired me. I’ve been a part of it ever since,” Sandoval shared.

Believe it or not, the majority of hairstyles in the Mandoverse are wigs—time constraints, secrecy, and overall design complexity make them the best option to bring characters from animation into live-action while introducing new ones. Sandoval reveals the secrets behind the hairstyles of Bo-Katan Kryze, Koska Reeves, Fennec Shand, Luke Skywalker, and finally the Emmy nominated Coruscant coiffure featured in The Mandalorian Chapter 19: The Convert.

Bo-Katan Kryze

The introduction of Bo-Katan to live-action in the second season of The Mandalorian was a real treat for Star Wars fans. The beloved character from the animated series The Clone Wars and Rebels was voiced by Katee Sackhoff who was also cast as the live-action version of Bo-Katan—something that rarely happens in Star Wars. With Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni’s attention to detail and direction, the props team created an authentic version of Bo-Katan’s beskar armor, while Maria Sandoval worked on a wig that would complete the character’s memorable look. She said, “At the time I was kind of new to the process. I took it literally, I felt she had to look exactly like the cartoon character. When [Katee Sackhoff] went in for her first test, the filmmakers said the hairstyle looked like a wig and to interpret that this is what Bo-Katan would look like if she were real, not trying to do a cosplay of her, so we made some adjustments. It was really important to them that she looked like a certain version of Bo-Katan that Dave Filoni had drawn. She had shorter, slightly darker hair.”

In Season Three of The Mandalorian, Bo-Katan went from supporting character to the true protagonist of the story, which meant a look upgrade was in order. “I felt like I could have done something slightly more flattering for Katee in Season Two. If we’re gonna see this much more of her in the new season, let’s give her something to work with. It’s still a version that we’ve seen of her in animation, but it’s just a little softer and more realistic. Katee agreed with that, and wanted to show that some time had passed and that she was sort of not as much in that battle mode mindset anymore. So we just decided on a slightly longer look,” Sandoval explained.

In a recent interview with Fabio Fiori, 1st AD Kim Richards said that one of the hardest things they did on the show was taking Katee Sackhoff’s helmet off. Bo-Katan’s wig was so delicate that Sandoval had to be at the ready running in take after take to brush it. “Television is a funny medium because, as an audience, we complain all the time that nothing’s ever realistic. Like when somebody wakes up in the morning, and they’ve got a full face of makeup on. Their hair is perfect, but if they woke up and were a mess, everybody would be like, ‘Why does that person look like such a mess?’ There’s that weird little suspension of disbelief.” Sandoval added, “It also would be super distracting if, when she took it off, it was sticking up all over the place, you know what I mean? It’s never the same twice when you take a helmet off, your hair doesn’t go in the same exact way; no filmmaker wants to go through editing and have to make decisions about which look they wanted.” Combatting this challenge required different versions of the helmet and several takes where Sandoval would step in and brush it in each transition.

One more interesting detail that fans may or may not have noticed is that in the show when Mandalorians put their helmet on in the live-action shows, their hair miraculously disappears—a nod to the animated series. Sandoval explained that “it’s all editing, because usually the talking and action scenes were filmed on different days. On the days they did action scenes, the actors never even came into the hair and makeup trailer, they just put on balaclavas and just went straight to set.”

Koska Reeves

One of the most recognizable hair designs in The Mandalorian is Koska Reeves’ crossed braided hairstyle, another iconic creation by Maria Sandoval. “Mercedes [Varnado] really could never come to us because at the time she was in the WWE and her schedule was crazy. We knew that we wouldn’t have a lot of time with her, but I also knew that she wears wigs when she wrestles, so she was fine with wearing wigs on the show. Since she’s a Mandalorian, we wanted her hair to be really contained, sort of battle ready. I took some inspiration from some of the Viking hairstyles and stuff that I’d seen from other photoshoots and TV shows and just sort of compiled some things one day and put it all together. The cross braids looked great on her; it gave her a really distinct look.” Sandoval also revealed a detail in the hair design that might have been missed by fans, but it added so much more to the character’s background story: “She has a little tail that comes down in the back, so I made a little cover for it out of silver hot glue. I put it in a mold and then twisted it around to make a cover for her ponytail, and I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if this was made out of some sort of armor?’ Dave Filoni really liked that idea, so he went to the props guys and asked them to make it. She’s so high status and such a wealthy Mandalorian that she has a beskar armor shield on her ponytail!”

Fennec Shand

Chapter 5: The Gunslinger marked the first appearance of Fennec Shand, the bounty hunter and master assassin played by Ming-Na Wen. The character soon became a fan favorite, her edgy style inspiring cosplayers and her silhouette appearing in merchandise. At the end of the episode, Shand was supposed to die. But Ming-Na’s performance and the uniqueness of the character convinced the showrunners to bring her back in Season Two—and eventually took on a leading role alongside Boba Fett in the titular limited series. Maria Sandoval confessed she went crazy with Fennec Shand’s braided hairstyle because she knew the character was just a guest star on the episode. “It took forever every time she came in. The tail itself is a piece, but the rest of it was her hair that I’d have to braid. I’d get her there early in the morning and do all the braids … sometimes she could sleep in, but sometimes I had to do it from scratch. You know, I’m not a super fast braider, but it was a lot of work! She was only in for seven or eight days the first time she worked because it was a one and done.” But the character survived, and by the time The Book of Boba Fett came around Ming-Na Wen was going to be in almost every episode, so Sandoval had to come up with a simpler, more practical way for her hairstyle. “All of her hair now was basically a wig except for the edges that I would braid into her actual hair every day. That’s all we had to do every day, and it made things a lot quicker. It took a while to get to that point; we had to change the style in order for that to work because the braids had to go down the sides of her head so that her hair could go into it instead of going straight back. We sacrificed a little bit with the style; I wasn’t quite as happy with the aesthetics of it, but it made the process a lot simpler.”

Luke Skywalker

Bringing back Luke Skywalker in The Book of Boba Fett was an incredibly collaborative effort—the double performance by Mark Hamill and Graham Hamilton was highlighted by the artistry of the Costume and Hair departments (topped by ILM’s work on the face swap and Respeecher’s de-aging of Hamill’s voice)—the final result is still shocking today. Once again, Maria Sandoval worked her magic by creating an incredibly authentic wig that looked so natural many fans thought was real hair. The development of the ‘Lukealike’ wig (a term coined by Mark Hamill) is even more intriguing than the final result: “I talked to the filmmakers to find out exactly what they wanted Luke to look like. They decided collectively that they wanted him to be as close as possible to how we last saw him in Return of the Jedi, so I went through all that footage and looked at it really, really carefully. When you look at stills from that movie, it’s really hard because the lighting was so different from one shot to the next. I actually asked Mark Hamill at one point if they had dyed his hair to make him look ambiguous [dark vs light side] or if they were trying to show a progression of age. By the time Return of the Jedi came around, his hair was much, much darker, but he said, ‘No, my hair just got really light in Tunisia.’ I had to choose which color I wanted to go with; Do I wanna go with the color from the throne room or did I want to go with the color from the sail barge? It was an incredibly expensive handmade wig, so you can’t just throw color at it all the time.”

Sandoval added that the haircut was just as challenging as the color: “The first time I cut it on a real mold of Graham’s head; I would cut it down a little bit and then put it on Graham … I think I probably gave him five or six haircuts in one day because once it’s gone, it’s gone. Also, it’s a funny haircut, like a bowl cut and a mullet at the same time, not something that you would do now in 2023 on anybody that came in the salon. I had to look at it with the perspective of it having to look like this certain character. When Graham got to the set and Mark saw him, the first thing he said was, ‘Well, you got the hair!’ I don’t even think Mark knew that it was a wig.”

Coruscant Coiffure

Chapter 19: The Convert brought the fans to Coruscant, going back to the unforgettable opera house from Revenge of the Sith, showcasing some of the best coiffure of the entire galaxy—which earned Maria Sandoval an Emmy nomination for Period and/or Character Hairstyling. “Getting to go to Coruscant has been in the back of my mind for two seasons. The idea for me is that it’s kind of no holds barred. I’ve always loved the original designs of Padmé Amidala, the things that they came up with in the Prequels and how they took all their inspiration from indigenous cultures and 1920s architecture. I tried to emulate it and come up with something that was then 30 years later [from Revenge of the Sith]. I regret that we didn’t see more of it … you literally have to freeze frame to see any of the work that we did, but it was important to me that even though we saw very little of it, the episode was the one we got recognized for because I think it shows the love of Star Wars within The Mandalorian, the familiarity of Coruscant, but it also feels new. I had a really good time trying to make that work,” she said.

Sandoval’s artistry is the cherry on top in the creation of Star Wars heroes and villains on television. This article barely scratches the surface of the Hair Department’s work in the Mandoverse as most characters feature masterpiece hairstyles, each one with a story to tell (we will have to feature Sandoval once again to discuss Ahsoka). If you enjoyed her behind-the-scenes bits and want to learn more, then make sure you follow Maria Sandoval on Instagram and let us know which hairstyle in the shows you like the most on our social media platforms.

DISCLAIMER: This interview was originally published by Fabio Fiori on TatooineTimes.com.