Hair today and hair tomorrow – get to the roots of what goes into making the Beyond the Gates characters you love (and love to hate) look so hair-riffic!
SON’s Adam-Michael James jumped at the chance to have a talk with the quintet of quality stylists that form the Beyond the Gates hair team ahead of Friday night’s Daytime Emmys ceremony – at which they are up for Outstanding Hairstyling and Makeup. Hair’s what happened!
Key Takeaways
- Hair helps define each character’s personality and development.
- Wigs and extensions offer versatility, protection and continuity.
- Anita’s cancer storyline required careful research and sensitive styling.
- The team manages dozens of performers and demanding filming schedules.
- The hair department’s work earned Daytime Emmy and NAACP recognition.
Meet the Beyond the Gates Hair Team
SOAP OPERA NEWS: On Beyond the Gates, Fairmont Crest and beyond isn’t just known for rivalries, romances, and scandals. It’s known for the crowning achievements sported, especially by the ladies of the DMV. And the reason for that is the show’s Hair Department – the show’s Emmy-nominated Hair Department, by the way – and they’re all here to chat with us at Soap Opera News about everything that goes into not only creating styles that flatter characters, but how those styles can be characters all on their own. Straight from Hairmont Crest – yes, I went there…
BEYOND THE GATES HAIR TEAM: (laughs)
SON: …this is Beyond the Gates‘ hair team! Welcome, everyone! I’m so psyched to be having this conversation with all of you! Now, first, I’d like to have each of you introduce yourselves and tell us what you do specifically in this team effort.
WANKAYA HINKSON: I’m Wankaya Hinkson. I am the Hair Department head and hair designer for Beyond the Gates.
WAYNE JOLLA, JR.: I am Wayne Jolla. I’m the hair barber. I cut all the men on the show who speak.
CHRISTY MILLER: I’m Christy Miller, and I help with the ladies on The Gates.
JEREMEY JOHNSON: Jeremy Johnson, also a hairstylist.
ANTOINIA PRATT: Antoinia Pratt. I help with the background, help with the scheduling, and manage the department.
SON: Hey, background hair counts too.
HINKSON: Yes, it does!
How the Beyond the Gates Hair Team Creates Each Character’s Look
SON: Now, with Beyond the Gates being the first soap with a predominantly Black cast since Generations went off the air in 1991, you must have had plenty of room as the incoming hair team to help create the show’s look from the ground up, as any hairstyle is not just strands arranged in a certain way, but often a personal expression. What was your mutual mandate from the beginning about how those living inside and outside the gates should look?
HINKSON: It started with me getting a call from Sheila Ducksworth [president of the CBS Studios/NAACP Venture and an executive producer of Beyond the Gates] and her telling me she had this new soap opera that was coming in – and she wanted to bring me on board in order to help design the look for the show. I started with basically breaking down the script; I met with Sheila and Julie [Carruthers, also an executive producer of Beyond the Gates], and they kind of gave me a breakdown of each character.
Then I made boards for each character and started pulling different looks that describe the character. Once I come up with maybe about six to 10 looks for each one, I give it to Sheila, who then goes through and approves which ones that she likes. We narrowed it down to about three looks. Then I start talking with cast and kind of painting them the picture and collaborating with them as well, because it’s a joint effort between me, the cast, and you know, director, producer, show creator, showrunner. So it’s kind of finding that ground in the middle.
We took off from there: we built closets and hair pieces, wigs, hair extensions, all that good stuff, based off of each character. I wanted each character’s hair texture to kind of match [their portrayer’s], but to be completely different. So that way, when viewers are watching, everyone gets a chance to kind of find themselves on screen. Then the calls went out and I found the dream team that was able to help bring all the looks to life. And we’ve been rocking out three seasons in. [EDITOR’S NOTE: The show began filming Season 3 in September.]
SON: I was going to ask how much input the actors have in the styles. Like, have you run across any inspirations that they had or any difficulties that they might have had?
Why Hair Matters to the Characters of Fairmont Crest
HINKSON: Well, I know when I talked with Miss Tamara [Tunie, Anita Dupree] first, she definitely wanted to keep her salt-and-pepper look. The rest of the ladies, once Sheila and Michele [Val Jean, Beyond the Gates‘ creator, showrunner, executive producer, and head writer] decided that these were the looks, that’s kind of what we had to marry. When they want a bump up or if [the character] is going out on a date, or if it’s a holiday or a family get together, things like that is where [we] might switch up a bit. But once the looks are established, we kind of marry them.
SON: Leslie’s collection of wigs pretty much became a running joke the show’s first season. Personally, I’m kind of sad that we haven’t seen much of them this year, but it seems that wigs, weaves, hair pieces, extensions, et cetera, are an important part of the culture for Black women, especially. Could you explain to us who aren’t in the Black community why that is?
JOHNSON: I think it’s a form of expression, honestly. [And] lot of the times we try to protect the hair that’s underneath from heat and things. We do try to capitalize on the health of the hair, the natural hair. So the wigs and the extensions and pieces allow us to do that without causing and creating damage.
Outside of the show, I would say that a lot of Black women feel the same way, to protect their curl patterns and things from the flat irons and things of that nature. They would prefer to use wig pieces and again, [it’s] an expression. If they want to bump it up, bump it down, it’s a quick way to do it without having to go to the salon and change it up.
HINKSON: Yeah. And everything is so fast-paced here, so being able to have those pieces helps us to be able to shoot simultaneously different episodes and switch out to [and] have turnover looks and also help with continuity. Sometimes our natural hair can tend to curl one way one day, and then the next day it’s giving you something completely different, and I just wanted to be able to keep the continuity of the hair across the board accurate.
As Jeremey said, we found it as a way to express ourselves, to kind of show up as a different person sometimes and add a little fun and flavor in our lives. I’m a hairpiece girlie, so I loved it.
SON: Hey, my mom had wigs too, so I totally get that. There are those characters whose look has remained mostly constant the last year and eight months, and then there are others who change it up on the regular – I’m looking at you, Kat, and June. So, what informs these reinventions? It seems to me Hayley went from having her usual parted look to bangs as soon as Bill dumped her – for trying to kill him, but still.
JOHNSON: Being that Hayley’s character was never really Hayley, she was always underneath an alias. I feel like we used wigs to kind of show the alias portion, and now we’re trying to showcase who she truly is as a character, who Val really is. So because she’s such a layered character, I feel like using the wigs is a great way to express what she’s going through. She still has a lot more changes to go through. So expect some more expressions from her.
SON: And it’s probably not a coincidence that the first time we saw a major change in her style was when Leslie took her shopping.
HINKSON: Yeah, exactly. I would even say, as the characters grow, you kind of learn them a little bit better to where you feel like, well, she wouldn’t wear her hair straight. She’s a natural hair girlie. This one, if she goes to court, she’s gonna wanna press her hair out, she’s gonna wanna pull her hair behind her ears – speaking of Naomi. Nicole is more buttoned up, more professional, so she’s gonna kind of stay the same for the most part. Dani, who’s more of the fashion girlie, she switches her look. And then she has a daughter who’s a fashion girlie, Chelsea, who kind of switches up her look a lot.
I try to make sure that we keep it in a family of the families in a sense, where, you know, they’re similar to their moms. And I know Christy has been doing some really good things with Lauren (Vanessa) lately.
MILLER: Yeah, because she went from kind of a southern charm girl to now this girl that’s in the casino with the guy. So I’m having fun doing those things with her as well.
HINKSON: It’s kind of storytelling through hair.
SON: Yeah, and I don’t know that a lot of shows do that. What does it take to go from a hairstyling concept to having it camera ready on set?
PRATT: We do have a schedule. Once we get the scripts, we plan it out daily. Sometimes there’s 40 or 50 people on a weekly basis that we have to prep for, and they’re all timed, and that’s how we get it done.
HINKSON: Yeah, a lot of preparation here. Again, the hair pieces help us out a lot because we get to style them without it being on their head. So, by the time [the actor gets] in the chair, it’s easier just to kind of drop it on them and comb them out instead of having to do the whole process very single day.
SON: So, you guys are working even when you’re not working.
HINKSON: Literally. We work all day long. I was just curling a wig before this interview!
SON: You guys probably have nightmares about hot irons and stuff! I can’t recall if other soaps also have hair teams or just one stylist who handles everything – does Beyond the Gates have a whole team because there’s more to consider when creating and maintaining looks for the cast?
HINKSON: Yes. And there’s a lot of cast. I think about 400 have passed through our chairs just within the last three seasons. We do maybe 26 people sometimes in one day, and then you still have to do the changeovers, and you still have to freshen them up, tighten them up after lunch. And if [they’ve] been [on set] for a while, you still have to come back and freshen them up for that. So, we’re constantly working all day long. As many hands that we can have on board is all the better, so we’re just not crawling out of here at the end of the night.
SON: At least you’re not doing it alone. I want to be in one of y’all’s chairs one day. I’m just saying.
HINKSON: You have to one day. And it’s definitely going to be Wayne. He’ll get you all the way together.
SON: Let’s do it! Earlier this year, wigs weren’t just a borderline punchline for Leslie, they were part of Anita’s breast cancer story, with the diva choosing to cut her hair off before chemo ruined it and then going with pieces as her treatment continued. Given that extra storyline weight, how did that influence your choices for her? And how do you feel this attention to her hair contributed to her story?
HINKSON: We definitely wanted to tell a real story, so a lot of research went into Anita’s cancer look. We wanted to see how much hair typically sheds when [cancer patients are] starting the chemo. I wanted to make that less and less each day because it’s constantly shedding.
Once we got to the scarf phase – and we never really established if [Anita was] completely bald, but she [took] it down low enough to just wear her headscarves and then sometimes go into the hair wigs, that bob wig, so she could kind of feel a little bit like herself until her hair started growing back. Now we’re in the phase where it’s starting to grow back and getting fuller [because] she’s doing a lot better. I just wanted to tell an authentic story for her and [for] it to look as real as possible, and for the audience not to pay more attention to what [Anita’s] hair was doing instead of what the message was to the people.
SON: I’ve done enough of my own acting and background work to know that scenes are mostly filmed out of order, and that can wreak havoc on continuity. How do you keep everybody looking consistent?
PRATT: It took a minute to get used to the soap opera world. So we found a system that works for us and keeps everyone organized. [We have] continuity pictures; that really helps. We have to get almost every single episode of each person and that keeps us on track. And then background also.
HINKSON: We wouldn’t have a show without background. So they should look just as special or feel just as special as main cast. Antoinia came in just focusing on background, but once we were moving and realized how how many people, how much continuity, all that stuff, we had to give her that role of solely managing the department and holding us together so we can process everybody and not have any slip-ups. Where her hair was supposed to be straight, but now it’s curled, you know? Because sometimes it’ll be the same [soap] day, but it’ll run between like maybe four episodes. So you’ll see the episode and think, oh, it’s a new episode, we can change her up, but it’s still the same day. Soaps are definitely a little different, but I think we’ve created our own lane to where it’s almost effortless what we’re managing and executing.
SON: Let’s not forget about the guys. Although men’s styles usually aren’t as complex, there’s still an art to them, especially for Black actors. How different and similar is your process for dudes compared to dudettes?
JOLLA: They style the ladies when the hair isn’t on their heads. I have to do all my styling on the heads. So I spend about 45 minutes to an hour at the beginning of the week, and maybe towards the end of the week, throughout the week, [I do] touch-ups. Because we could be filming the same “day” all five days, so I have to make it look continuous. It’s just my own little process I got up here, man.
HINKSON: [Every guy] has a different cut or a different fade, so to have that many men and to be able to make them all completely different to where men can find themselves…if you remember barber shops back in the day where you [could] kind of pick a number or pick a cut on the wall that you want? We’re basically a cut. If we line them all, they’ll say, I want a number five, and that’ll be Andre.
SON: And now every time I see Andre, I’m going to think number five. (everyone laughs) We simply cannot forget to talk about y’all’s daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Hairstyling and Makeup. How did it feel when you got the news? And does the nomination mean more to you because it’s for a period when the show was still new and in its first season?
JOHNSON: I don’t think it means more for that reason, in my opinion. I think it means everything just because we’ve all worked so hard over the course of our careers doing movies, different episodics, different soaps. I feel like it does hit a little bit more because for me, it is a historical thing as to why I got the nomination. But I think the nomination itself, I feel just blessed for the fact that I was able to get it to showcase that I’ve worked hard. You know what I’m saying?
HINKSON: I definitely think us working hard is what got us nominated. We put our best foot forward every single day; we all pride ourselves on our work. It’s a big deal what [the actors] look like on screen. We’re not just doing something and throwing it on TV and it’ll work. It matters to us. We’re watching the monitors. We’re paying attention. If we can run in and fix something without it being a pickup [shot] or something like that, we’re flying in. So being able to showcase our our gift to the world is a huge blessing. For [the Daytime Emmys] to nominate us is pretty cool. And we also got an NAACP nomination as well! To be two-time nominated so far in our first season, I’m like, go ahead, Hair Department!
MILLER: We’re the pulse that keeps the show going.
JOHNSON: I call us a “soap-isodic” because we’re not a soap and we’re not an episodic. But the amount of detail we pay attention to as far as the soap world goes definitely comes from the fact that we’re all experienced in episodics.
JOLLA: It speaks to our passion for the craft. We all really love it. We’re not just doing it for the paycheck.
SON: It definitely shows. Is there anything that I’ve missed that you want to make sure our readers and Beyond the Gates watchers know about?
HINKSON: To remember that each character is telling a story. We see characters like June, who’s going through her transition and evolving and growing and now finding a stable job, the [character’s style] will grow as well. They’re characters. It’s not really about what’s on trend as much as we’re making sure that when you’re watching the show, you’re not just watching for hair. You’re watching the show and you get lost within the scenes and what’s going on.
JOHNSON: If you are watching for hair, remember that sometimes we have to make it seem like [characters are] doing their own. Or some of them, we pay attention to curl patterns. So, if you feel like somebody’s hair is big and bushy, it’s because we have people with big and bushy hair in the world. We’re trying to showcase people of different looks.
JOLLA: And different people – some people live beyond the gates, and some people live outside the gates.
HINKSON: [We] tell a story [through hair]. I think that’s our main thing that we would like [people to know].
SON: I’m so impressed with the level of work and artistry that y’all put into every scene of a soap that’s so important to have on the air, especially in this current political and social climate. Plus, it’s just a hell of a lot of fun to watch. It sounds like you guys are having a blast.
HAIR TEAM: We are.
HINKSON: And we’re just the biggest family. Everyone loves each other, everyone genuinely respects each other. So I think that’s what makes coming to work every day so pleasant. We love our cast, we love our crew; that makes you want to come to work every day and do your best.
SON: I know how precious your time is, so I appreciate your spending some of it with me and with Soap Opera News. I’ll be crossing my fingers, and my tresses on October 30 –
BEYOND THE GATES HAIR TEAM: (laughs)
SON: – that you guys walk away with that Daytime Emmy, and that the show wins the other 14 awards that it’s up for. Thank you for everything that you do to help make Beyond the Gates the unique and special show that it is. Articulettes strong!
BEYOND THE GATES HAIR TEAM: (cheers)
HINKSON: Thank you so much.
So, which character has the best hair on the show, and whose next hairstyle change would you most like to see? Tell us in the comments!
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