'The Mummy' Makeup Artist on Transforming Sofia Boutella

An undead monster is coming back to life this week.

The Mummy, set to bow Friday, has Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) finding what he believes is an ancient tomb, but later learns is actually a prison, and awakening an ancient princess, Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), in the process. As the Mummy, Boutella is covered in an scroll’s worth of ancient runic letters from head to toe, a painstaking process that required hours to complete each time, according to makeup artist Lizzie Yianni-Georgiou.

“Her look took about three and a half hours,” Yianni-Georgiou, whose film credits include Guardians of the Galaxy and Notting Hill, tells The Hollywood Reporter. And that was an improvement. “When we first developed it, it was five and a half hours of makeup and hair with five people.”

The writing on Ahmanet’s body comes from the ancient Egyptian funerary text Book of the Dead and “the incantation asking the dead to come and help her,” explains the makeup artist of the lines of symbols running from Ahmanet’s face down to her legs and feet. Yianni-Georgiou used the MAC Penultimate Eye Liner as a stylus to create the prominent black writing, marks and lines.

For inspiration, the makeup artist studied mummies in museums and followed the backstories included in the script. “I had to take into consideration the stories that [director] Alex Kurtzman and the other guys had written to develop her and bring her to life.” (Or undeath, as the case may be.)