Taylor Swift fooled nearly everyone in her latest music video (and directorial debut), “The Man,” in which she dressed up as her own male alter ego “Tyler Swift” to demonstrate toxic masculinity in the workplace.
It was quite an impressive drag persona, so much so that it was hard to tell at times whether it really was Swift under all that facial hair.
Since “The Man” video came out, Swift herself, as well as the video’s makeup artist, Bill Corso, have shed some light on how the hell this transformation happened. In an Instagram post, Corso showed time-lapse photos of Swift’s transformation into The Man and thanked his prosthetics and “muscle suit” team — totaling at least six people — for their hard work on the project. In addition to the muscle suit, Swift had to wear eyebrow wigs and facial sculptures to achieve the full look. The entire process took four to six hours every day of the shoot.
In her own series of posts thanking the video team, Swift shouted out Corso and his crew for “turning me into a zombie … but convincing a significant amount of people I was a dude is our crowning achievement.” She also noted that she worked with movement coaches Stephen Galloway and Spenser Theberg, who taught her how to walk, slouch, and smoke like her bro character.
