Warning: This Interview Contains SPOILERS For Star Trek: Section 31

Star Trek: Section 31′s makeup and hair department heads Shauna Llewellyn and Ryan Reed took Michelle Yeoh’s Star Trek movie to another level. Both Reed and Llewellyn previously worked with Yeoh on Star Trek: Discovery, and they embraced the opportunity to upgrade the look of Yeoh’s iconic character, Emperor Philippa Georgiou.

Set in an unexplored region of space and time in the Star Trek universe, Section 31 finds Emperor Georgiou pulled back into action to stop a new threat to the United Federation of Planets that ties back to her past sins in the Mirror Universe. Georgiou teams up with an eclectic group of superpowered Section 31 agents to save the galaxy.

ScreenRant had the pleasure to chat with Shauna Llewellyn and Ryan Reed about achieving the fantastic looks for Star Trek: Section 31‘s characters, and the joys of working with Academy Award winner Michelle Yeoh once again.

Michelle Yeoh’s Emperor Georgiou Got A Glow-Up In Section 31

“With Michelle’s Input, We’re Able To Take Her Section Look To Another Level.”

ScreenRant: You have both worked with Michelle Yeoh on Star Trek: Discovery, and pre-Oscar. Was Discovery a similar experience as Section 31, or was Section 31 like another level for you?

Ryan Reed: For me, it’s twofold. Because I got the chance to work on season one of Disco, I was able to help create the world, especially with [the characters’] looks, With Burnham and all the looks that she went through, as well as Michelle, from her captain look, and then later when we see her in the Terran universe. And then towards the end, actually, I think we also saw her in that, in a pre-Section 31 look. So I was able to set that tone and be creative, but it was still at a different sort of level where I felt like we were just creating this whole new environment and world. We still had a lot of people to put in their two cents, as per usual. Actors have their say, producers have their say. And I felt like I did have a say, but it was a little say. On Section 31, I really felt that we were able to explore a sense of creativity and have nobody hold us back. That was such a great experience, and quite different from the Disco experience.

Shauna Llewellyn: To Ryan’s point. Discovery was very structured, especially makeup-wise. There’s Starfleet, you have your Vulcans, and stuff like that. Most of it was a pre-existing look that we had to honor and kind of follow, whereas [with] Section 31, we’ve never tapped into that section of space. So it was like anything goes, and we really got to design and create looks that were truly out of this world. It was just so much fun, but completely different. I still got creative fulfillment out of Discovery, but in a much different way.

Section 31 is a different era of Star Trek, as you said, and outside of the Federation. Was pushing the envelope with some of the looks of the aliens and the humans one of the things that made you want to work on this project?

Ryan Reed: Yes, definitely. For sure.

Shauna Llewellyn: That and Michelle. In Discovery, we did have Georgiou, but we also slightly tapped into her Section look, and then we got to take that look and elevate it a bit with costumes and hair. And with Michelle’s input, we’re able to take her Section look to another level, and then all the other looks that went along with it. But it was kind of fun to do a spin-off of something that was loosely established in Discovery, and then take it to the next level.

Let’s talk a little bit about Michelle, who kind of had a glow-up. Her look is so much more elaborate, especially in the nightclub. Did Michelle have ideas about Georgiou and come to you with them, or was that more of a collaboration?

Ryan Reed: For me, Michelle always has input. Which is great because Michelle Yeoh is someone who’s basically done it all. And especially for us, we were working off the tail end of Wicked. So for me, the challenge was to create a look that she hasn’t had before. And I’ll tell you, Michelle has had almost every look in the book, so we had to differentiate between other things. And this one was pretty fun. I usually go off of the costumes as well, which helps a lot in in my designs, for sure.

Shauna Llewellyn: Yeah, it was definitely a major collaboration between the costume, hair and myself,and definitely Michelle. But the costume — especially to your note with the silver around the eyes — is just seeing that dress almost made it easy for me to figure out which direction I wanted to take that look, which happens to be my favorite look of the show. Yeah, it was really just a collaboration, but it’s really easy to get a visual once you get the costume involved. And then Ryan and I work together a lot. So then, we kind of play back and forth, and then bring our ideas to Michelle. She gives her input, and then we all tie it together.

How Young Georgiou’s Terran Empire Look Was Achieved

“We Didn’t Know That That Was How Georgiou Became Emperor…”

We also saw Georgiou’s origin in the Mirror Universe, and how she became Emperor. Everything’s kind of sH๏τ with a yellow filter. It’s kind of like Traffic, whenever they go to Mexico. Did that affect the way you did makeup and hair for Miku Martineau as a young Georgiou?

Ryan Reed: Yeah, it was a little bit different. For me, it wasn’t that difficult because we wanted a super broken down look. So we went in with products that would give that feel that she really, really went through the ringer in order to win her kind of Hunger Games-esque trials, in order to become the Emperor. So there was a lot of sweat, a lot of dirt, a lot of grime, and messy, messy hair and stuff like that. So it’s a little bit easier on my part. I think Shauna probably had a more challenging time.

Shauna Llewellyn: I mean, slightly more. But when you read the script, you got the vibe of what she had to go through. And this last horrible task that she has to do. She really went through it, and you wanted to reflect that it wasn’t as much about how they were going to shoot it, filter-wise. Because I felt like once we made her look appropriate to someone that endured all the challenges that she had to endure to get to the last stage, it was an easy visual. But what was interesting for us is, like working on Discovery all this time, we didn’t know that that was how Georgiou became Emperor until we read the Section 31 script. So it was actually really fun for us, in a way, because that was news to us too.

Crafting Alok Sahar & Quasi’s Looks In Section 31

“It Was About Making Sure There Was A Clear Differentiation Between The Two.”

I remember Sonequa Martin-Green and Michelle Hurd spoke about how important it is to have hair and makeup artists who understand African-American hair and skin tones. You have Omari Hardwick and Sam Richardson in Section 31 and they both look great. Can you tell me a little bit about achieving their looks?

Ryan Reed: For me, it was about making sure there was a clear differentiation between the two. So Omari had a really, really short, closely cropped haircut, and Sam had a little bit longer. And that was my whole thing: Let’s make them stand out as individuals. And so, their characters would have a strong look behind each one of them.

Shauna Llewellyn: In a way that, for me, was almost scripted. You see that the Alok character, he’s militant, he needs to look clean and sharp. And where Sam was more fun. And so it was easy to have him a little looser. And then the eyes for him were what was really striking. And kind of the differentiation between the two of them.

Creating Lieutenant Rachel Garrett’s Many Looks In Section 31

“We Really Wanted To Make Her Almost Unrecognizable Undercover.”

Section 31 reinvents the Rachel Garrett character from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Obviously, Kacey Rohl is younger and a Lieutenant, but she also had some really interesting looks, especially when she went undercover in the nightclub. So tell me about coming up with not just her Starfleet look, but her nightclub looks, her undercover looks.

Ryan Reed: Eeven her Starfleet look was a little bit loose compared to what normal Starfleet officers look like. But even in that, it was a huge difference between her undercover look, and that was so fun because we haven’t gotten to see this before. Let’s play. She’s going to be in this awesome nightclub with all sorts of aliens and people from different planets and parts of the galaxy. And why not have fun with making her fit in, as opposed to making her stand out?

Shauna Llewellyn: Yeah, like for the Starfleet look, I was pretty much locked in because of established looks. That was more clean, natural, simple. And then we really wanted to make her almost unrecognizable undercover, which I definitely feel we accomplished. It was pops of color. I took a hint off of Ryan’s wig with the blue, made the stronger lip, and it was a fun look to design, but definitely more makeup, heavier, sharper contour, more play. It was just such a contrast between the natural Starfleet look and then her two undercover looks.

Reinventing Star Trek’s Classic Deltan For Section 31

“We Definitely Wanted To Have A Sєxy, Alluring Look For Her.”

You have Humberley Gonzalez as Melle, who also must have been asn interesting challenge because she’s bald, and she’s a Deltan. You have to make her Sєxy. You had to make her alluring. She has empathy powers. Tell me a little bit about designing Melle’s look.

Shauna Llewellyn: She’s so striking that even bald, she didn’t need hair to still be strikingly beautiful. The Deltans, of course, we know they have that allure to them, those special powers, so we definitely wanted to have a Sєxy, alluring look for her. And I think, definitely, it was like play on the eyes with the lashes. We went a little bigger with the lashes. And she also really brought the character with acting, but I think it was a thing where we just wanted to make her look as sensual and as possible. And again, she didn’t need hair. Hair, no hair, she’s gorgeous.

It’s a classic character, the Deltan from the first Star Trek movie reinvented for this movie in this era. She looked great. Come to think of it, Ryan, Omari, and Humberly’s characters are bald, so I guess you didn’t have to deal with them as much, right?

Ryan Reed: Well, I’ll tell you, Humberly has about three heads of hair for one person, so to get that under a ball cap, it was a lot of gel and a lot of hairspray.

Is Fuzz A Vulcan Backstreet Boy?

“That’s Definitely Not What I Was Going For.”

On his Instagram, Sven Ruygrok joked that Fuzz is like a Backstreet Boy. Was that what you were going for?

Ryan Reed: (laughs) Oh, yeah, that’s definitely not what I was going for. You know, the costumes had these illustrations of the characters and he had this really kind of light blonde hair in the illustrations. And I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s interesting,’ And when Sven was cast, he does have light hair, but not quite that light. So I thought it would be fun to play off of that, and also to see a Vulcan… like, what would a Vulcan look like in the far future? We don’t have to be totally confined to our preconceived notions of a Vulcan. So we definitely played with color and texture.

Shauna Llewellyn:​​​​​​​ Yeah, I will say costumes and hair kind of pushed the envelope on Sven as a Vulcan in this universe. Makeup, we kind of still kept it traditional, with the exception of we normally pale out their skin a little bit more, and so we didn’t really do that with him. Because, again, we were changing it up a little bit. But otherwise, we still did the contour. And you know, for the most part, he’s still a traditional Vulcan.

Bringing Back Star Trek’s Classic Cheron Alien For Section 31

“That Was A Fun Character To Help To Create.”

I also wanted to ask you about the half-black/half-white maître-d’ character in Georgiou’s nightclub, who’s a classic Star Trek alien. Tell me about that.

Ryan Reed: That was a pretty famous one, you know. For me, he was totally a prosthetic character. Prosthetics dealt with him, but I did the hair. And for me, it was just making sure that the wig that we had was the right color on the right side, and then that was it. He was also fun, a fun guy to do. We kind of took a modern take, kind of like a current hairstyle on his makeup. I thought that would kind of be fun to do and. That was also that was a fun character to help to create.

Working With Michelle Yeoh On Star Trek: Section 31 Was The Best

“She’s Just Lovely And Fun To Work With, And She’s Completely Into It.”

Who did you love working on the most? Whose look did you like playing with and working on?

Ryan Reed: Oh, they all were great. But I gotta say, Michelle Yeoh was my favorite.

Shauna Llewellyn:​​​​​​​ ​​​​​​​Absolutely, just because she’s also just lovely and fun to work with, and she’s completely into it, you know. So it just makes coming to work fun. And she’s so generous, too, but it just makes coming to work a fun environment. And the fact, again, that I think Ryan and I, not to just put words in his mouth, but we’re proud that out of all the stuff she’s done, we really feel like we’ve made her look like nothing she’s ever looked like before in any other project. And so we really kind of hang our hats on that, because that was a big achievement.

And again, her end look in the silver dress, my absolute favorite. But it was also really great to work on the young Georgiou character, how that design turned out. I was very happy with that whole look. It was just really completely different from all the glam and the fun that you see in the bar stuff. So I love the contrast from beginning to end.

More About Star Trek: Section 31

In Star Trek: Section 31, Emperor Philippa Georgiou is tasked with protecting the United Federation of Planets. She must also face the sins of her past.

Check out our other Star Trek: Section 31 interviews:

• Michelle Yeoh
• Alex Kurtzman & Olatunde Osunsanmi
• Omari Hardwick & Kacey Rohl
• Sven Ruygrok & Rob Kazinsky