Pamela Haddock: Making-Up Ross

Pamela Haddock via Bristol 24/7

Pamela Haddock had a job that was the envy of people across the country: that of Aidan Turner’s make-up artist on Poldark S2. And BAFTA nominated Pamela certainly appreciated the work: ‘He is so beautiful that it was a pleasure to make up such a handsome man every day. When people found out I was doing Poldark, out of all of the projects I’ve ever worked on, they'd get this stunned face and one person actually asked me if I touch Aidan…. Obviously I have to touch him otherwise I can’t make him up. Every age group of woman seems to have fallen in love with him. As a result, I had a certain status for a while because I was looking after one of the most handsome men around which is nice and did help get me up every morning.’

Enjoyable though making-up Aidan may be were there still challenges for her? 

‘With Aidan,’ she says, ’it is about the scar which will naturally fade and eventually,  in years to come, almost fade away like scars do. I was very nervous to be taking that on. It’s always there but in some lights it picks up and some lights it doesn’t which is what a natural scar does.’

And what about the make-up for the fight scenes?  As Pamela explains,‘Ross gets into lots of scrapes. I love applying injuries and bruising – it’s one of my favourite aspects of the job. I love the changing bruising patterns that happen in real life and again, with Aidan I didn’t want it to look fake  but I wanted people to see the bruising and wonder if he has actually hurt himself. Sometimes on camera I have to darken his bruising but I don’t want it to be obvious. Aidan is so attractive he even looks handsome with a black eye!’

Yet when we come to watch Poldark Pamela hopes her work will go unnoticed. ‘All I ever want is for people to believe it and not really notice the make-up. They shouldn’t be looking at the make-up and the hair; they should be enjoying it so much they don’t notice those things and they just believe it is real.’

Poldark returns to BBC One on Sunday 4 September at 9 pm.

Source: BBC Media