Vintage styles have a way of coming back in vogue, and fans of the midcentury aesthetic love to participate in events like Dapper Days. But to truly capture the authentic spirit of the era, you need an expert, which is where Joyce Gilliard shines. As the key hairstylist on National Geographic’s Genius: MLK/X, Joyce was responsible for styling actors portraying legends like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X across several decades of time. Ahead of the finale’s premiere, I had the pleasure of interviewing Joyce Gilliard about her entry into film and TV hairstyling, the research process for this series, and just how real it all sometimes felt on set.
(Nat Geo/Joyce Gilliard)
Alex: I'm sure many of your friends and family know that you worked on Genius: MLK/X. Have you been getting a lot of feedback now that they've been able to actually see your work?
Joyce Gilliard: Yes, I have a lot of friends and family that are watching religiously, all of the episodes, and everyone saying the same thing about how great the hair looks.
Alex: It looks amazing. What was your research process like to recreate Black hairstyles from the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s?
Joyce Gilliard: When you first get called for a job on a period show like this, the first thing you do is research the period, because we can't have contemporary hairstyles showing on screen when it's a 1960s era. Me and the department head collaborated. We would go find Jet magazines, Ebony magazines. stories from news articles, and even research movies from back in the day. MLK movies, Malcolm X movies, documentaries, anything that's going to show the period. We would look at especially some of the older movies, as well, because when you Google a lot of pictures now, a lot of [the results] are period-inspired hairstyles. You have to really dig deeper and find real articles from that period so that you can get authentic looks.
Alex: One of the conversations I often hear about Black hair is that there wasn’t a wide variety of products available for different hair types, which would’ve been true of the decades this series is set. Did that create any difficulties in bringing these looks to the screen?
Joyce Gilliard: Well, I grew up in my grandmother's beauty salon, and she's been doing hair, God bless her soul, since like the 1920s. So as a little girl, I grew up in the salon, and I used to watch her do press and curls back in the day, where you would have the straightening comb and put it in a stove and heat it up and style the hair. So we did a lot of that on Genius: MLK/X. A lot of straightening hair textures, a lot of hot curling, we used a lot of different techniques from back in the day. Even with the products, they had products to press the hair out and we researched hair products just to press out some of the hair textures. So it was fun. It wasn't difficult because it's something that I grew up doing all my life, and I knew what products I needed to use, what worked and what didn't work. And nowadays, a lot of actors and actresses are wearing their natural hair textures without chemically processing it, so it makes it look even more authentic now because back then, they only scratched and curled their hair, or they didn't do anything at all.
Alex: Is your grandmother the one who inspired you to become a hairstylist? How did you segue that into your work in the film and TV industry?
Joyce Gilliard: Yes, I grew up in my grandmother's beauty salon. She used to keep me in her shop, and I used to sit there and practice braiding hair on my baby dolls in her salon while I watched her do her clients’ hair. And her clients used to say that I had a natural talent for styling hair, and they would ask, ‘Are you gonna be like your grandmother when you grow up?’ And I would say, ‘Yes, I'm going to do hair just like my grandmother.’ As I got older, my grandmother taught me certain things. She's the first person who taught me how to finger-wave hair, and she used to let me practice on her head. She used to wear the waves, even if it looked horrendous, she would sport the waves until I got it right. It helped me to grow as a stylist, and that's what inspired me to do hair. It was because of her. And as she became older, I ended up doing her clients' hair. They watched me as a little child grow up in this beauty industry, styling hair, and then I ended up doing her old clients’ hair. So that was something significant in my life. And then I was always a dreamer, so I always dreamed of being a stylist to the stars. As a little girl watching TV, it looked unattainable to me. Like, how would I even get in the business, you know? And I really feel that God orchestrated my path and led the way, because I put it out there in the universe, and he led the way and this is where I ended up today.
Alex: That’s amazing. A key hairstylist is typically focused on the lead cast of actors, but as I watch the show, I can’t help but think about the large crowds of extras in scenes like the March on Washington from episode six. The team must be huge to achieve these historic moments. Did you have a hand in helping the extras get styled?
Joyce Gilliard: Our department, we had the core hair team, and then we had a background coordinator, and the background coordinator worked closely with me and the department head so that we could make sure that everyone had the tools they needed, the supplies they needed, to make sure that these background artists were as authentic as possible. Because that’s the meat of the story. The background hair stylists were amazing. When I tell you they all brought their A-game, I'm just so proud of them for what they did. We had the research. We had tons of boards. I had boards with hairstyles on them from the 1950s, and 1960s hairstyles, kids' hairstyles, and men's hairstyles, and they were all labeled according to what style. I just let them use their creative geniuses to recreate these styles for the show. Sometimes we had fifty hair stylists working. When you see all the big scenes, we had like fifty to sixty hair stylists working to make sure those looks were authentic. And everyone's hair had to get touched. Everybody. I used to always tell the AD team (assistant director), that we cannot let anybody slip through because that's the one person that's going to be in front of the camera, or by the first team. So we made sure that their hair all looked of the period. The background coordinator did an amazing job because a lot of times I was in the trailer with the main cast, so she made sure that she had the team together where we could just make sure that everyone looked authentic to the period. And it worked.
Alex: It sounds like an extraordinary task, which leads me to my last question. When you’re working on a series like this with two monumental Civil Rights leaders, I’m sure there’s a certain amount of pressure to get it right. But on days when the actors are about to go shoot a scene like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, are you able to put that out of your mind, or does it weigh on you?
Joyce Gilliard: No. it weighs on you because it’s like you're feeling it. You're feeling the words of the speech. You feel like you're there. So no, you can't you cannot disconnect from it because when it's something as powerful and as passionate as the speeches were, it hits home. It really hit home. And it made you wonder, ‘Can I have been able to be there during that time period?’ Because the times back then and the times right now are so different. But it weighed on me many, many, many times to hear the speech because it's like you were hearing Dr. King or you were hearing Malcolm X. And just to see them embody their spirit and their energy was just amazing.
The final two episodes of Genius: MLK/X premiere tonight at 9/8c on Nat Geo, and stream tomorrow on Disney+ and Hulu. As you enjoy the conclusion of this historic journey, perhaps you’ll pay closer attention to the hairstyles, the result of much research and collaboration by Joyce Gilliard and her team of talented artists.