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Part of playing a superhero on screen is trying to recreate that character’s most iconic features. For Superman, it is the muscles. For Iron Man, it is his chinstrap beard. For Guy Gardner, it is that terrible bowl cut. Putting that iconic, horrendous hair on Nathan Fillion’s head was a key part of bringing the character to life in Superman and James Gunn has given us an inside look at how they made it happen.

In a post on social media, James Gunn showed just how much work went into making the brown-haired Nathan Fillion into the red-headed Guy Gardner involved more than just a wig. A full prosthetic with a full head of hair was applied to Fillion. The hair then got styled until it resembled the bowl cut that we know and hate. The idea is to make it look as much like a real head of hair as possible, which is a lot more involved than just plopping a wig on an actor’s head.

Judging by Nathan Fillion’s reaction, they had to go through multiple iterations of the wig before they found the right one. “Oh yeah,” the actor commented when he saw the final result in the mirror. “Much better shape than last time.” This means that somewhere out there are multiple Nathan Fillion-shaped heads with worse bowl cuts than what you see in the movie.

“Really, I’m just making this movie as an excuse to give Nathan a bowl cut,” James Gunn joked in the same video. Honestly, given the power, we’d probably do the same.

James Gunn's Superman movie is out now - and we have a lot to say about it. You can also read about Superman's S-Shield through the ages, how Superman and Clark Kent keep their secret identity secret, our recs for best Superman comics, and how to watch all his TV series and movies in order.