Gabriel May

The concept of Gabriel originates from co-creator Ingrid Bisu's fascination with "medical anomalies, twins, parasitic twins, teratomas."[1] She researched the subject and was heavily inspired by the urban legend of Edward Mordake—a English man that supposedly had another face on the back of his head that would whisper for him to do violent things.[1] Bisu pitched this concept of a twin living on the back of a woman's head and taking control over her body, which he liked, and they both found to be metaphorical.[1] Writer Akela Cooper is responsible for developing this pitch into a screenplay and furthering this concept into the characters of Gabriel and Madison. The creators were initially unsure if they could adapt the story of two characters inhabiting the same body (as Gabriel's movement is entirely backward.)[2]

They wanted Gabriel portrayed by actual performers instead of being CGI, as they believed it would have been out of budget and taken away the realism.[2] After meeting contortionist and body language performer Troy James and Marina Mazepa, they became confident in the film.[2] Gabriel's movements were entirely practical and required extensive choreography and rehearsals.[2] Wanting to create a unique villain, Wan describes designing and bringing Gabriel to life as challenging.[3] He attributes the success of the character to the psychological build-up by Annabelle Wallis (Madison's actress/Gabriel's host)[3] In addition to Gabriel's physical performer Mazepa, who learned the body langauage for Gabriel quickly and performed her scenes backward and blindly—wearing a prosthetic life cast of Wallis's face on hers and an animatronic depiction of Gabriel on the back of her head.[3] Mazepa filmed the entire fight scene in the final act without any added effects.[3]

Lisa Norcia, the costume designer, based his attire on killers from giallo films.[4] In particular, from the 1970s era.[4] She wanted the character to look modern with subtle homages to "movie monster" villains from the past.[4] Norcia closely studied films from the genre, which inspired his black gloves with the gold zipper—a focal point of his design.[4] Norcia decided to place Gabriel in a full-body coat that resembles something used.[4] Norcia envisioned the attire as humanizing him but hinting at something more animalistic underneath.[4] Norcia wanted to hide a lot of his physical characteristics, attributing to his silhouette-like appearance.[4] Norcia had to work her design around Gabriel's different actors.[4] She had to design eleven different versions of Gabriel's outfit to mask the different-sized actors portraying him—which she attributes as the most challenging aspect of the costume design.[4] Each actor had a coat specifically sized and assigned to them, although additional stunt work required adjustments (such as shoulder pads added).[4]

Design studio Spectral Motion is the company behind creating Gabriel's deformed face and the character's effects.[4] Several versions of the animatronics existed for the different people portraying him in a scene.[4] The effects company created a standalone emotive animatronic of the character with a head that could pulsate through the skull—and a face for Marina Mazepa and Annabelle Wallis to wear on the back of their heads.[4] The company also designed pull-over Gabriel masks for additional stunt performers and a young Gabriel/Madison animatronic puppet.[4]

When the company became involved, they initially intended to use "green-screen limbs" for the complicated practical effects but abandoned it after learning Mazepa's talent.[4] They brought Mazepa into their studio and did a lifecast to determine how their work could complement her stunt performance.[4] The company describes Mazepa as able to do her work backward while wearing the Gabriel mask—a complex animatronic.[4] For some of the scene work, the company made posable legs to attach to the costume.[4] Like the costume department, the special effects firm had four different versions of Gabriel for specific scene work.[4] The effects team had to bring all the different versions of Gabriel's designs on set so that the technicians could dress him in whatever way the scene required.[4]

During the scenes featuring a younger Gabriel, a prosthetic got attached to Madison's child actress Mckenna Grace back. Grace had to puppeteer the prosthetic as she was acting—the only movement out of Grace's control was the animatronics facial movement.[5]