Oscar-nominated artist had ‘terrific’ time disfiguring Margot Robbie in Mary Queen of Scots

Transformed: Jenny Shircore, far right, on set with Margot Robbie

Margot Robbie's Oscar-nominated make-up artist said the star “went all the way” to enable herself to be transformed into the smallpox-scarred Queen Elizabeth I for hit movie Mary Queen Of Scots.

The actress, 28, spent up to three hours in the make-up chair while Jenny Shircore applied a prosthetic nose and painted on boils and blisters.

This week Shircore, who studied at the London College of Fashion, received an Academy Award nomination for best make-up and styling for the film.

She said transforming Robbie from beauty icon to 16th-century monarch was a “terrific experience” for both of them. “Margot wanted it to be correct, she wanted it right,” she said. “She feels the part of Elizabeth and she went with me all the way to get the look right.

“As an actress, it’s horrific, it’s ugly and it’s disfiguring, and she totally acknowledged and accepted that, but you go with it because she is now living and portraying [the character]… She and I together have to get her there. It was a terrific experience and journey.”

She told the Standard she spoke to doctors and visited hospitals to get an idea of what the queen would have looked like. For the boils which came after Elizabeth contracted the deadly disease, Shircore spent “a long time” creating the make-up before taking hours to apply it to Robbie.

Shircore, who learned her trade on TV shows including the BBC’s Doctor Who, has already had Oscar success thanks to the Tudor monarch — she won the Academy Award in 1999 for her work with Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth. She added that she felt there was more demand for make-up artists now, because of increased use of prosthetics in cinema.

“Make-up has developed and has become much more sophisticated —there’s so much more you can do,” she said. “Along with that you have CGI. The two work together quite successfully.”

Shircore said she was “thrilled” about her nomination, adding: “I was working in the make-up trailer for a film I’m working on at the moment, one of the Kingsmen films, and I picked up my phone to make a phone call and there were hundreds of texts saying congratulations.”

Fellow Briton Alexandra Byrne also received an Oscar nod for her costume designs on the film, which tells the story of Mary’s epic power struggle with her cousin Elizabeth I and stars Saoirse Ronan in the title role.

Academy Awards 2019 Oscar Nominations - In pictures

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