Amazon’s Red One has several holiday-themed villains on hand like evil snowmen and a winter witch named Grýla , named after the monster from Icelandic folklore. Another mythical figure that shows up is Krampus, here reimagined as Santa’s (J.K. Simmons) adoptive brother and played by Game of Thrones’ Kristofer Hivju. But he’s not just Santa’s estranged bro: depending on how you roll, he might be the best part of the movie and also hot as hell.
Talking to Variety, Hivju, costume designer L.J. Shannon, and makeup artist Joel Harlow discussed how Krampus’ suit came to life. For Shannon, it was imperative that he be attractive to somebody. “Whenever I’m creating a creature, my team makes fun of me because I’m like, ‘I want chicks to dig him. He’s got to be hot.’ There’s something about a lovable creature where you are drawn to them,” she explained. “Any bad guy has to be well-rounded enough that they’re interesting to watch, and there’s a part of you that kind of roots for them.” Hivju echoed that sentiment, and recalled how Shannon would ask him about the kind of butt he wanted to have, and the time spent on ensuring he’d come off as a fun “hedonistic half-god” audiences would love.
Just visually, there’s a lot going on with Red One’s Krampus: along with the suit, there’s the six horns, hands, gloves, teeth, and lenses. Harlow noted that the horns especially took a lot of work: “You have to have an under-skull that supports those horns, which needs to blend seamlessly with the silicone skin, which [also] needs to blend seamlessly with the hair pieces that go on top.” For Hivju, the entire thing took four hours to put on—later reduced to two and a half hours—in a process he likened to what Colin Farrell went through for The Penguin. And despite his skin going “bananas” with rashes, the actor ultimately figures “the reward for how it looked was worth it.”
So between this, Tommy Dewey in Your Monster, and Venom, it’s been a good fall for people into monster guys. If you’ve seen Red One, or even just seen the scenes with Krampus, let us know in the comments below if the costume team succeeded in making him a babe.
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