You know a movie has reached peak buzziness when it’s not only its plotline being dissected, but also the nitty-gritty of its aesthetics. That’s certainly been the case for “Wuthering Heights”, director Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel of the same name. In less than a month since its much-anticipated film’s release, we’ve already witnessed discourse on everything from the historical accuracy of its costume design to the emotional significance of Margot Robbie’s blush placement. One facet that’s been neglected? The film’s wonderfully rugged, and surprisingly fake, facial hair, displayed most notably on Heathcliff, played by Jacob Elordi. 

Fake beards are commonly used in film, TV and theatre, and the experts behind them take painstaking measures to ensure audiences are none the wiser. While Elordi’s real beard is what filmgoers see in the beginning scenes of “Wuthering Heights”, the actor is wearing hand-laid, meticulously applied fake facial hair in much of his later bearded scenes. The logistics of the fake beard in question were managed by Siân Miller, the make-up and hair designer responsible for the manufactured scruff. With over 30 years of experience, Miller is an expert on all things showbiz beauty and even wrote her university dissertation on the history of beards. 

Ahead of the film, Miller was tasked with convincing Fennell that a fake beard could be shot at a very close range and could withstand the elements, like the wind and rain they expected to encounter on location on the moors. To put the fake beards to the test, Miller applied one to a stand-in actor, whom Fennell then blasted with a wind machine and water. “It was a butt-clenching moment of ‘please stay on, please stay on,’” says Miller. Luckily, it did, and Miller was given the green light.

There’s been a growing amount of discourse around fake facial hair taking place online recently. In January, a TikTok accusing controversial influencer Jake Paul of wearing a lace-front beard went viral, after he was spotted with a full beard shortly after having surgery on the broken jaw he suffered in his knockout loss to Anthony Joshua (for which he would have had to shave off all facial hair). The same month, a tweet making fun of the very obvious fake beard in the 2026 horror film Return to Silent Hill also blew up, with the author noting the beard took them out of the scene. Still, as the interest in fake facial hair has continued to grow, the marketplace has taken note. 

Kenneth Ng, a Hong Kong-based businessman and founder of WigsisFashion.com, introduced fake beards to his site two years ago, when his co-founder put a piece of a hair extension on his cheek for fun. The horsing around resulted in a market study, which Ng said revealed a “big demand” for fake beards. Today, Ng employs a full team of beard makers, who design and create the beards in-house, using an updated version of the lace method. The process entails designing the shape of the beard on Illustrator, preparing and marking the lace, then beginning ventilation, AKA individually knotting the hairs into a lace base. “It takes a few days, depending on how complex the beard looks and the density,” says Ng. “The longer the beard, the harder it is to ventilate.”

As with artificial hair pieces like wigs, not all fake beards are created equal. In the decades that Miller has been in the entertainment business, she’s seen multiple methods come into fashion. The first involves taking the shape of someone’s jaw, transferring that onto lace, and then using a knot hook to create the beard itself, similar to how one would create a lace-front wig. As cameras became more precise over time, though, hair artists began laying individual hairs over the edges of these beards, lest any seams become visible. “You’ve got to work cleanly, swiftly and with a huge amount of dexterity,” says Miller.

Fake beards can be incredibly difficult to make. The third and most tedious method of faux-beard making, which was ultimately chosen for “Wuthering Heights”, involves creating and laying on a beard entirely from scratch using individual hairs. It’s a practice that Miller says has become popular in the last 15 or so years of filmmaking, and one that’s been employed in many bearded film moments, such as Matt Damon’s beard in The Great Wall. On the “Wuthering Heights” set each morning, Roberto Pastore would take an hour and a half to apply Elordi’s fake beard, which was recreated from scratch daily. The beard was then tweaked and curled with an old-fashioned hot iron to ensure it looked as realistic as possible.

So who decides the amount of aesthetic hairiness of a fake beard on screen? As fellow hair and make-up designer Alina Rose Stout points out, the art of fake beards can involve many roles, one of the most essential being hair and make-up designers like Miller on “Wuthering Heights”. “It really is all up to the designer when it comes to creating the look,” says Stout. “They take into account the person that it’s going on, the story, the vibe, and of course, the period it’s trying to portray, along with the style of the actual [show or film].”

Fake beards aren’t only popular in the entertainment industry, either. Mina Hernandez-David, a 26-year-old based in London, practises cosplay, a recreational activity in which people dress up as fictional characters, and owns a fake beard from WigsisFashion.com. “I used to cosplay a lot of female characters, but being trans, I always felt quite dysphoric in them,” says Hernandez-David. “I didn’t like it, so I started cosplaying a lot of male characters… that’s how the fake beard got involved.” 

Though the fake beard Hernandez-David purchased was specifically designed to look like the character they were trying to play (Jayce, the protagonist of the wildly popular fantasy series Arcane), they still had to do some cutting and sewing themselves to make it as realistic as possible. Ultimately, that customisation paid off; Hernandez-David used to often get misgendered at cosplay conventions, especially before starting hormone therapy, but that happens less now that they have their fake beard. “It’s just very gender-affirming and nice,” says Hernandez-David. “From now on, I definitely want to incorporate fake beards into more characters.”

While the conversation around how much historical accuracy period pieces owe us is sure to continue, one group that takes no liberties when it comes to authenticity are the teams behind fake beards, especially as the expertise of professionals continues to grow. And who knows, since merkins are experiencing a full-on fashion industry revival, maybe faux beards are soon to follow. As Miller put it: “It really is an artisan skill.”