Prosthetics designer Richard Martin knew that the first time audiences saw Eddie Redmayne in full makeup in The Day of the Jackal, it was going to be a make-or-break moment.

“It’s the bar-setter,” he explains. “The original concept was that no one was supposed to know the janitor was Eddie in prosthetics until he started to take them off. Before the show came out, magazine articles gave the game away; however, if you take any premise away and watch this, all you see is this old boy committing this atrocity.”

Martin was inspired by the diner scene and title sequence in Quentin Tarantino’s iconic 1994 film Pulp Fiction — a moment of calm before mayhem ensues.

“Here you see someone that looks exactly the same as the janitor, and suddenly, the action happens. He takes his face off, and it’s the Jackal. It’s like the start of Pulp Fiction, when the music hits, and bang! Here we go,” the prosthetist says, admitting it was “nerve-racking” to pull off.

Peacock‘s reimagined and updated take on The Day of the Jackal is based on Frederick Forsyth’s novel and the 1973 film. In this 10-episode incarnation, Redmayne plays Alex Duggan, the titular assassin being pursued by MI6 agent Bianca Pullman (Lashana Lynch).

Martin, also known for his work on The White Lotus season three and The Substance, strives for “absolute realism,” using materials that mimic skin so no one can see where his work begins or ends.

“If you can see it’s someone in prosthetics, you’ve failed,” the Brit muses. “Filming in Vienna, the green room was in a hotel around the corner, so we made Eddie up, and he walked through the street to set. It was about 5 o’clock in the evening, so there were loads of people around, but he strolled through in his full prosthetics with Alexandra Reynolds, his movement coach, and they were chatting.”

Martin hung back “about 20 yards” to watch the passersby’s reactions and see if anyone recognized Redmayne, but “nobody batted an eyelid,” he recalls with a chuckle. However, the extent of the prosthetics combined with the filming conditions created uncomfortable challenges.

“With the janitor makeup, the only things not covered by prosthetics were the tops of Eddie’s ears,” Martin says. “He had a bald cap, a full forehead, cheeks, neck, both front and back because I gave him a hump, nose, lips and earlobes, as well as a full wig. We were filming at the peak of summer in Budapest, and it was over 30 degrees [86 Fahrenheit]. It was mainly studio stuff, and they’re not air-conditioned at all, so it was sweltering. Eddie also wore a thick foam rubber body suit under his costume.”

Between takes, Redmayne would sit near an air conditioning unit in his tent. But because Martin uses silicone, which is water-tight, the sweat couldn’t go anywhere. “We found that blisters would form underneath the piece on the thinner areas of the prosthetics, particularly the bridge of the nose,” he laments. “I had very sharp needle-nose tweezers, so I’d go in and pierce it, slightly open it up, dab it out, then pop it back down; otherwise, it looked like he’d come out in hives. At the end of the day, when you stripped everything off, there was a pool of sweat in his clavicle. It was pretty grim.”

This story first appeared in a May stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

UPDATE 5/29/25 at 8:52 a.m. ET — Ben Stiller has some thoughts on Pat McAfee’s hot take about celebrity New York Knicks fans attending a playoff game against the Indiana Pacers.

Stiller, 59, replied to a clip of McAfee’s pregame jumbotron message — in which he called Stiller, Spike Lee and Timothée Chalamet “sons of bitches” — via X. “Yes. Weird,” the actor wrote on Tuesday. May 27. “We were happy to be there and cheer our team and other than that Indy fans were awesome .”

Stiller also replied to other fans criticizing his reaction, writing in one X response, “No bitterness at all Indy fans were amazing good win for you guys.”

Original story below

The New York Knicks are on the brink of elimination from the NBA Playoffs and if you ask Boomer Esiason, the celebrity Knicks fans sitting courtside might be to blame.

The quarterback-turned-talk-radio-host unloaded on the stars, including Timothée Chalamet (once with girlfriend Kylie Jenner by his side), Spike Lee and Ben Stiller, who have been front and center throughout New York’s Eastern Conference Finals series against the Indiana Pacers.

“I think [the Knicks] are sick and tired of all the damn celebrities at home,” Esiason said on the air Tuesday before Game 4. “They’d rather get away from all that.”

The Knicks are just 3-5 at Madison Square Garden during the 2025 NBA Playoffs compared to 6-2 on the road. The star-studded distractions traveled to Indiana for Game 4, which the Knicks lost, 130-121.

Related: Timothee Chalamet and Kylie Jenner Cheer on the Knicks at Playoff Game

Timothée Chalamet and Kylie Jenner are bringing their love courtside. On Monday, May 12, the couple cheered on the New York Knicks at the team’s playoff game against the Boston Celtics. Chalamet, who was born and raised in New York City, had prime seating alongside Kylie and her sister Kendall Jenner in the Madison Square […]

ESPN’s Pat McAfee pumped up the partisan Pacers crowd before the game on Tuesday, shouting out each of the three, as they were met with a chorus of boos.

“We got some bigwigs from the big city in the building,” he yelled in a pregame message shown on the jumbotron. “Let’s send these sons of bitches back to New York with their ears ringing!Let’s turn this s*** up.”

Former Knick and current member of the Minnesota Timberwolves Julius Randle spoke about the pressures of playing on the New York stage in a story for Yahoo Sports published on Monday.

“It ain’t fun, it ain’t fun,” he said. “You can’t really focus on the game, you’re focused on everything else other than the game itself. You’re living and dying with every single shot, every single turnover, every single loss. It’s not a fun way to play.”

Related: Lady Gaga, Doechii and More Stars Who Attended Super Bowl 2025

The 2025 Super Bowl was a truly star-studded affair. In a rematch of the 2023 championship, the Kansas City Chiefs took on the Philadelphia Eagles at New Orleans’ Caesars Superdome on Sunday, February 9. (The KC squad notably won the first time around, which saw brothers Travis Kelce and Jason Kelce face off on the […]

Knicks players know that it comes with the territory of playing in the biggest sports market in the country — and for a team that hasn’t won a championship since 1973. The celebrities courtside are nothing new, particularly Lee, 68, who has been a mainstay at MSG since the 1990s.

He was at the center of the action when the Knicks and Pacers met in the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals. As Pacers legend Reggie Miller was torching New York to the tune of 39 points in Game 5, Lee was heckling the future Hall of Famer. Toward the end of the game as Indiana pulled off a 12-point fourth quarter comeback, Miller made his now famous choke gesture at Lee.

Though he can’t say the same for his feelings about the Pacers, Lee says there’s no bad blood between him and Miller.

“That stuff is two-plus decades old,” he told the New York Post in a story published May 6. “There’s no rivalry between Reggie and I. It’s all love.”

Game 5 is scheduled for Thursday night in New York and it’s a safe bet that the stars will be out once again.