Podcast Summary: How to Be Anything
Episode: Bonus: I Used to Be an Artist at Madame Tussauds
Host: Emily McCrary
Guest: Bree Hayden
Date: July 25, 2025
Overview
This special bonus episode of "How to Be Anything" profiles Bree Hayden, who worked as a studio artist at Madame Tussauds in Washington D.C. from 2018 to 2020. The episode gives a behind-the-curtain look at maintaining the wax figures, the artistic and technical challenges involved, and the reality of working with uncanny, lifelike statues. Bree also discusses her path from this unusual job into full-time independent art, ultimately crafting hyperrealistic bottle illustrations for celebrity collectors and exploring her own artistic passions.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. How Bree Became a Wax Figure Artist
- Background Search: Bree was looking for art jobs after moving back to the U.S., coming across the Madame Tussauds post seeking portfolios with "realism, attention to detail, and prior experience with wigs or sculpting wax."
“Who has that? ... I have always loved doing art, I had plenty of artwork to show them that showed my skill range in terms of understanding colors and understanding realism... I did do a few pieces right before applying where I was doing these little miniature skin studies on wax paper.” – Bree Hayden (02:04)
- Portfolio & Interview: Bree submitted pieces demonstrating realism, such as miniature skin studies on wax paper, her closest prior experience.
- Landing the Job: She was offered the position quickly after the interview, opting for art over her science degree background.
2. A Day in the Life at Madame Tussauds
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Early Mornings & Routine:
“I had to be at work every day at 6am... waking up at 4:30 every day, which never got easier. I loved the job though, so it was, it was okay.” – Bree Hayden (03:30)
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Uncanny Encounters:
- Entering a dark, silent museum at dawn, surrounded by lifelike statues, was eerie until she acclimated.
- Bree recounts a frightening moment when she thought a wax figure (Harriet Tubman) moved on its own – until her colleague revealed it was him.
“Out of the corner of my eye I see Harriet Tubman, the wax figure, just move into the doorway... for a split second I thought I was seeing a ghost.” – Bree Hayden (05:10)
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Team Ritual: Bree and her colleague greeted each other every morning to avoid startling one another in the figure-filled museum.
3. Wax Figure Maintenance & Artistic Technique
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Daily Upkeep: Each figure, often nearly 100 on display, required daily inspection for marks, lint, disarranged hair, or paint touch-ups.
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Handling and Repair:
- Figure heads were detachable for hair washing and styling.
“Their head actually comes off of their bodies. So I would take their head off, bring it into the back studio, give them a shampoo, condition, curl their hair, hairspray... it was like playing with dolls really.” – Bree Hayden (06:22)
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Major Restoration: Figures would periodically be taken behind the scenes for weeks of full restoration, including repainting, smoothing divots, and inserting new hair or eyelashes.
- Highly technical: oil painting built with splatter techniques for skin realism; wax warmed for hair insertion.
- Memorable Accident: A colleague accidentally melted a wax figure (left lamp on), and they repurposed the ruined statue as a “zombie” for a Halloween display.
“The figure's eye was just totally melted down to their chin. It was destroyed. But we made the most of it.” – Bree Hayden (09:39)
4. Inside the Madame Tussauds Process & Celebrity Interactions
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Non-Disclosure Realities: Bree had to sign an NDA due to sensitive celebrity reference material.
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Behind-the-Scenes in London: Bree visited the London studio, discovering entire departments dedicated to specialized details like eyes and teeth.
“It might be the sculpting, it might be just the eyeballs, it might be just the teeth. All of these departments are super specialized…” – Bree Hayden (12:13)
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Working with Binders: Each figure has a detailed binder: measurements, preferred poses/outfits, hair/makeup as per historical or iconic moments.
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Moon Landing Exhibit: In 2019, for the 50th anniversary, Bree restored astronaut figures for a new display and appeared on local news – leading to an unexpected brush with Kevin Bacon.
“I look next to me and it’s Kevin Bacon and his brother, real Kevin Bacon and his brother, not wax figures who were on set at the news the same day as I was.” – Bree Hayden (14:33)
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Transporting Rosa Parks: To shoot social media photos of the Rosa Parks figure at D.C. landmarks, Bree covertly carted her on a dolly, covered in a sleeping bag, and fielded concerned questions from confused bystanders.
5. Transitioning to Independent Art
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Pandemic Pivot: Bree left Madame Tussauds as COVID-19 hit, launching her art business amidst industry closures.
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Marketing through Celebrities:
"I thought if I could sell to a celebrity quickly, then that would help me get a lot of eyes on my work." – Bree Hayden (16:51)
- Targeted and succeeded in selling to a celebrity athlete via Instagram.
- Leveraged the trend of celebrity liquor brands: drew hyperrealist bottle portraits and tagged public figures to build her collector base (including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Brett Ratner).
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Current Focus: Bree now works full-time drawing antique bottles in pencil, enjoying the technical challenge of reflections, paper textures, and fonts—all freehand, no stencils.
“I don’t do any sort of tracing or stencil work. I just start from the top and sort of work my way down a piece... I’ve always loved pushing myself to try to do better at what I’m able to do already.” – Bree Hayden (18:47)
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
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On the uncanny realism of wax figures:
“I do have this memory of looking at one of the wax figures up close, straight in the eye and getting slightly freaked out because they look so real. My brain knew it was essentially a statue but I felt like it could move at any moment.” – Bree Hayden (04:07)
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On wax figure restoration:
“The paint job on their skin is a splatter painting technique that needs to be built up very slowly over time. Oil paint takes a long time to dry, so that’s why these took a couple of weeks to revamp.” – Bree Hayden (07:55)
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On making the most of accidents:
“One of the wax figures was destroyed, just totally melted from the lamp... But we made the most of it.” – Bree Hayden (09:50)
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On launching a career in independent art:
“Because there’s so much fan art out there, I honed in on this as a way to target them in a more unique way... I liked the challenge of mimicking all of the different fonts that you come across.” – Bree Hayden (17:28)
Timestamps for Key Segments
- 01:26 – Bree introduces herself and her role at Madame Tussauds
- 03:30 – Early mornings, acclimating to the museum, and spooky first days
- 05:10 – The Harriet Tubman “ghost” moment
- 06:22 – Daily maintenance: headless hairdressing and paint touch-ups
- 09:30 – Major restoration, painting techniques, and the melted zombie figure
- 12:13 – Description of the Madame Tussauds studio in London, division of labor
- 13:50 – Moon landing exhibit and meeting Kevin Bacon
- 14:50 – Smuggled Rosa Parks photoshoot story
- 16:51 – Leaving Madame Tussauds and launching an art career via Instagram
- 18:47 – Bree describes her current bottle-focused, hyperrealistic artwork
Original Language & Tone
Bree’s tone is warm, candid, and full of gentle humor—she is reflective about both the technical challenges and the absurdity of the job. The narrative is conversational, peppered with relatable anecdotes about early mornings, uncanny wax figures, and career pivots prompted by global change.
Conclusion
This episode delivers a fascinating, tactile account of what it means to be a guardian of wax celebrities—melding art, craft, and human oddity—and how creative people repurpose their specialized skills to thrive in entirely new ways. Bree Hayden’s story is humorous, humble, and a testament to both adaptability and artistic intuition.
For more images and details, see the show's Substack or Instagram (@howtobeanything).