It all began with one YouTube video for self-taught wig maker Sam James Cox. Now he’s making wigs for some of the biggest movie stars including those on the Wicked movie! Here he tells all…
Sam James Cox first became interested in wig making at the age of 15 after watching YouTube videos and teaching himself the process. “The first wig I ever made was using the netting from a wedding dress, some hair I bought from Primark, and a hook to do highlights with,” he laughs, as we talk on the phone. From there, he went on to do work experience on the tour of Hairspray The Musical at 17, until he was offered a full time position in the West End Theatre, and so moved to London and never looked back. “I worked my way up through theatre from being an assistant to the head of department, and alongside that, always doing my wig making.” It was only then that the wig making began to take over. “I started to get a lot of requests, many from films, and essentially I had a mini studio in my bedroom.” Fast forward to now, Sam is moving into his fourth studio which is a three-storey building in Tower Bridge.
Was it something he always wanted to do? Growing up in Devon, wig making and styling wasn’t really advertised; Sam tells us that back then, he didn’t know it was a career he could consider. “I was always quite creative – my mom was an artist, and she had an art room, and I was always making things. From that first video, something stuck in my brain and I thought, if someone isn’t going to teach me then I’ll teach myself, and so I had the drive to do it.”
Talking about the process, Sam shares: “If it's a wig for a film, we’ll have the designer contact us and say ‘We need a wig for this person’, and then they will come in for a chat, we’ll get a photo reference of what they want, they’ll come and pick out colours, and then we’ll get the actor in to do measurements of their head and we’ll create a form to ensure the wig fits them correctly – it’s all very custom.” The next two to three weeks are spent tying each individual hair, one at a time, following a pattern of hair growth, before the actor tries on the piece and a few more alterations are made. “A film wig takes about 80 hours from start to finish, but when you put that last hair in, it’s the best feeling ever.”
It's a long process, but one of the main challenges Sam faces is deadlines. “Deadlines are getting harder because more films are happening, which makes it difficult for us as it still takes the same amount of time to make that wig,” he tells us. “Sometimes we’re rushing things through and splitting it between different people and kind of Frankenstein-ing it together to make the finished product as quick as we can.”
But seeing their work plastered on billboards is something that makes the time worth it – especially following the success of the movie Wicked, featuring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo. “Everywhere we turn it’s just been our wigs – when we took this job, we didn’t know how big it was going to be and now it’s everywhere. We were in New York in Times Square and seeing a massive poster of the wig we spent hours making, was amazing.”
A far cry from buying hair from Primark, we can’t help but ask what’s next? “We’re working on a couple of films at the moment, and we have a few shows in 2025. We’re looking forward to moving studio and are excited for our next chapter.” Wicked!
