Watch Bridgerton’s Yerin Ha Breaks Down Her Beauty Transformation [Season 4 Part 2]

What’s funny with the bath scene actually,

that bathtub water is oily.

So, a lot of my makeup, I think,

started to rub off a little bit.

I’m Yerin Ha and this is The Close Up.

[upbeat music]

[classical music]

When I got the role,

I immediately purchased the book on my iPad.

I binge read that, re-watched

all the seasons of Bridgerton.

A big mental hurdle of just telling myself that I am going

to be the next lead of Bridgerton.

I never saw myself in that romantic lead character role,

so I was like, I can’t do this, I can’t do this.

I can do this, I can do this.

I did not have a British accent in my back pocket,

I will say.

You are so eager to see me that you cannot wait

until my return to Penwood House.

I am flattered.

‘Cause when I went to NIDA,

the teacher told us that Brits don’t like to hire Aussies

because we have a lazy accent.

And then the audition came along

and I was like, oh crap, I should have practiced harder.

But luckily Jane Karen, the dialect coach on Bridgerton,

she literally held my hand throughout the entire process

and the thing that I struggled

with the most is when you think you’re doing it,

and you’re like, water.

And she’s like, water.

And I’m like, water.

And she’s like, water.

And I’m like, I think I’m doing it.

For Bridgerton, we work with a historical advisor

and her name is Hannah.

She actually did come with a bunch

of different historical sketches

and paintings of a maid like, falling asleep

because she’s so tired.

She was saying like, the maids held all the gossip

and they actually knew everything

that went in the household, which you get

to see a lot more in this season.

When I stepped into the Bridgerton drawing room

for the first time, Tom Verica gave me a tour of the set

and I was like, this is crazy.

Some of them are real houses.

I remember going to one,

I think it was shooting at Cavender House,

and they were saying it’s up for sale for 75 million pounds.

It’s crazy the amount of cash those people have.

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With the makeup, it’d be a very no makeup makeup look,

so we kept it really simple, paired back.

Vali would use a Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk Foundation,

Dior concealer, and just an eyebrow pencil,

a very simple liner.

Nic Collins, the head of makeup and hair department,

she talked to me about what products I like to use,

what kind of eyeliner shape I like

or I, she thinks is flattering,

would test different colors on me

to make sure it suits my skin tone.

I think what’s great about the makeup team

is they get a shot list obviously,

and whenever there is a closeup they’ll spend extra time

cleaning up anything and you get really close

with your makeup person, let’s just say that, yeah.

She would pump on that blush a lot.

I think my cheeks can take a lot of it.

I believe that’s a Dior tint, lip tint as well.

Miss Gung, may I have your first dance?

You may, Mr. Bridgerton.

This scene is right towards the end.

She’s really coming into her own skin at this point,

so there’s a bit more of a color on the eyeshadow

that she didn’t really have as The Lady in Silver.

It was a lot simpler than this.

And even with that lip color,

I think it’s just those little nods

to perhaps Sophie being more comfortable in her skin

and embracing her womanhood and her femininity.

We tried a lot with different eyeshadow palettes

and I think we went with a Dior eyeshadow palette

I think, like a little almost pinky hazy hue.

My makeup artist, she did this great thing of wetting the,

it was almost like an eyeshadow actually, and she wet it

and she used that almost as the eyeliner

rather than using a liquid eyeliner

because those can come across quite heavy, I think.

So, having something more powdery gave it a bit more

of a subtler texture to it.

[gentle string music]

Sophie.

Wow, yes.

Going into a wedding look, you know,

you’re really embracing all your flaws

and you know, when you see someone

standing at the other side of the aisle

completely looking at you in love,

it really does help you play the arc

of where you’re about to go.

They just wanted my skin to look glowy

and dewy, maybe go a bit heavy on the mascara.

[Director] Those are your real lashes?

Those are my real lashes, yes.

[Director] Hey, look- Congrats.

A lash perm can do a lot of things.

[classical string music]

It is a pain sometimes to go to the bathroom

in those toilets,

but you just have to do it to keep your skin hydrated.

It is so difficult to the point

where sometimes you just don’t wanna drink water

and stay dehydrated because it’s annoying [laughing]

to go and, to the bathroom.

But no, you do have to stay hydrated and it’s important.

It’s important to stay hydrated.

I would prep kind of at home.

When I’m working I do tend to splurge

a little bit, so I do go for like an SK-ii,

like Pitera essence and then just a simple

but thick moisturizer

that would really keep my skin hydrated,

so I’d go for like the Tatcha cream,

go for the Beauty of Joseon eye cream.

You know what, I would actually go to Face Gym quite a bit.

That was a thing that I discovered while living in London.

Face Gym is a gym for your face.

It’s such an original title.

Basically, they just try to massage your face

and lift it in a very natural way, I guess.

[gentle music]

What’s funny with the bath scene actually,

that bathtub water is oily,

so a lot of my makeup, I think,

started to rub off a little bit.

It’s just a little bit of oil

to make your skin look really nice

and glistening and [laughing] smooth.

There was like a powder that they put in

to make it opaque.

I thought they were gonna use a bath bomb,

but no, it was like a powder that they did

and they would just stir it with their fingers

and I was like, I can help you.

Let me stir it for you.

I’m proud of being able to do the intimacy scenes

’cause I was really scared of them.

I obviously deal with self-confidence

or lack of, as I think a lot of women do,

and so being able to feel comfortable in my skin

took a lot of courage, I think.

Luckily for me, because I didn’t have to have like,

lipstick or lip gloss, it was all really easy

for the makeup team.

I think I could say that, but it was just about making sure,

’cause I have a few tattoos actually, so we’d have

to make sure that they’re not being rubbed, you know,

onto the sheets or the costumes or whatever

with our movements.

We have an amazing intimacy coordinator,

Lizzy Talbot, and she talks with us beforehand,

like one-on-one and then she,

we also have quite a extensive rehearsal period with her.

What’s great about the scripts is that it’s written

in a lot of detail, I think,

of how they imagine the intimate scene

to play out and then Lizzy would kind of talk to us

about what do we feel comfortable with,

what do we feel comfortable with showing?

And then she’ll create almost like a blueprint

for us to follow.

Some people prefer to do it like, literally

in paint by numbers, like literally

put your hand here, then here.

But I think because Luke and I had gained

quite a lot of trust, she trusted us for us

to be able to follow the arc that she painted.

It’s amazing because what sometimes you think feels good

doesn’t always look good

and there’s a lot of toe pointing

to make a good intimacy scene look good, you know?

And it’s not something I think you would actually clock

if you’re watching it, but it just looks prettier

from an audience perspective.

‘Cause yeah, some flexed feet, I’ve seen some takes,

it’s, it does not look great. [laughing]

[gentle string music]

I actually had short hair beginning filming of Bridgerton

so we had to use a wig, actually.

Sophie’s transformation is something

we talked about a little bit quite early on with Nic.

You know, when we see her in the Penwood household,

she has a really slick bun.

Even her costume represented that, with like the high color

and the darker tones

and then as she transitioned throughout the series,

we wanted her hair to be looser, maybe the necklines

to be softer.

Little details like that I think really helped me remember

what stage I was in,

’cause we also shoot quite of sequence.

For that masquerade ball we wanted

to almost take a spin on a bun, the classic bun

that she would wear and we’d know that she didn’t have

as much time, so we thought that she would just

kind of elaborate on that.

So then she would add a plait around the bun

and have like these little curls on the sides,

just like extra little bits,

but then it would also be quick

to like, fix up when she goes back home.

We did a few different hair trials for the wedding look.

We wanted Sophie to obviously be a bit more extravagant

than what we’ve seen her throughout the series,

but still a bit simpler perhaps

than perhaps other brides would be.

And so I guess this is like almost an extension

of the Queen’s Ball look.

But yeah, that was my own hair.

But then with a lot of extra, I think maybe like three

or four extra hair pieces on top of that.

[lively string music]

With more of these extravagant dresses, you know,

we obviously had the corset, then the petticoat,

the little stockings for the shoes.

To be honest with you, it’s really

just the corset that is a bit of a pain.

True lace-up corset, you do really have to grab on

to something because you do lose your balance.

Yeah, I’m bracing.

I’m like, oh, yeah.

We tried on the silver dress

and there was like an embellishment team, a team

that created the bows like, separately to add it on.

They measured my hand

and everything from different circumferences

I didn’t even know you would need.

There’s the jewelry team, the mask team,

there’s hundreds of people.

Yeah, it’s insane.

Yeah, we tried on different colors,

like, the specificity of, you know,

the different type of silver.

Is it silver enough or is it too cream?

Like, they would argue over,

to us, what seems like very small details,

but to them is like quite big

and you know, those little layers make up

for such a beautiful image, which is why

they’re so incredible at what they do.

There were so many different iterations of the mask

because we want to cover enough of her

that Benedict doesn’t realize her,

but also be able to see enough of me

to see my expressions, I guess.

We would spend a good morning putting on the makeup

to then cover half the makeup.

But yeah, they molded my face

and the material is actually so delicate that we had

to put compeeds on the inside of the mask

because my skin is quite sensitive

because they kind of see through,

like the color is quite transparent

and it’s thin enough that it just sticks on

like a thin layer on top of the fabric

that it looks like the fabric.

It also protects my skin.

Well Sophie’s necklace obviously holds a lot of weight

and yeah, the costume team told me

that obviously the amethyst pendant

is the Korea national gem, which I didn’t know, actually,

and so they made it into like a purple little necklace

that she would always wear.

It was a memory of her mother.

She would always look at it

and remind herself to never become like her

and not make mistakes like her.

[gentle classical music]

It’s amazing what hair, costume can do to your posture,

to your gestures, or even like, things like having an apron.

It just really reminds you of like your work and your duty.

The costume and makeup team really helped me be able

to feel like Sophie

and be able to go on that journey with them, yeah,

and not do it alone.

I wouldn’t have done it without them.

[gentle classical music]