Hollywood hairdresser Sean Flanigan (SF) was on the set of “Grey’s Anatomy” when beautyschooladvisor.com (BSA) caught up with him on his cell phone. He’s the head hairdresser for the ABC series and also a spokesperson for Joico products.

BSA
You can take time to do the interview while you’re on the set?

SF
Yes, Ellen Pompeo is rehearsing a scene with Jim Pickins, so I have 15 or 20 minutes to sit and wait.

BSA
Meredith and Dr. Webber? Right they're rehearsing? Oh, sorry. BSA is a star struck fan. How did you get to do such cool work?

SF
About six months out of beauty school, I started getting involved with theater. I always recommend starting in theater when hairdressers and make-up artists say they want to do work in tv and movies.

BSA
You mean move to New York or L.A.?

SF
Not necessarily. Look in the city where you’re living. There probably are local community theaters. Just go and volunteer. No one turns away a volunteer hairdresser. Or try a nearby college—colleges have theater departments, and they’re always looking for people to help.

BSA
But can’t you get enough practice doing hair in a salon?

SF
Film and television aren’t just about haircuts and blow dries. Period hair styling and wig work are huge! When you do this kind of work, you end up being a specialist.

BSA
What is period hair styling?

SF
That’s making the hair look the way it did in another time period. You may be working on a movie that’s supposed to take place in another century. When I worked on the set of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” we...

BSA
You worked on “Buffy?” Oh, sorry. Starstruck. Continue.

SF
When I worked on “Buffy,” there were a lot of flashbacks, and we had to recreate the looks of the day. At beauty school you learn things like fingerwaves and pincurls, which everyone thinks you need only to pass your state boards. But we used those techniques to get the hair to look the way it did when people set hair that way.

BSA
You said you do wig styling, too.

SF
Right. Wigs are a big part of this. For example, the story could have a fire, and we have to make the character look like a burn victim. How do you make hair look singed when the actor has a full head of hair? Or sometimes, a flashback requires that a character look younger. For “Grey’s Anatomy,” we used a wig to make actor Chris O’Donnell look younger in a flashback. We often use wigs to make women’s hair longer. There’s a lot of that type of thing. And on “Buffy,” we had to turn actors into all sorts of creatures.

BSA
How does someone learn to do wigs?

SF
Go to a retailer that sells wigs, where people know how to style them. Ask a lot of questions, buy a few wigs and then go home and practice. Maybe you can offer to assist someone who does a lot of wigs. Get some books, take classes at a beauty school but mostly you have to experiment to get good. There is a lot of art to wig styling. It’s not just a wig that you stick on.

BSA
On “Grey’s,” the women wear a lot of ponytails and look pretty messy a lot of the time. Do you do that on purpose?

SF
I’ve gotten so many comments from “Grey’s” fans who love the fact that the actors look like real people! But Katie Heigl, who plays Izzy—I could put a paper bag on her head, and she’d still come out looking like a beautiful woman. And she has great hair. I’m her regular hairdresser. With Ellen Pompeo, I do her hair only on set.

BSA
You were the one who made Katie Heigl—can I call her “Katie”?—look so great for the Emmys?

SF
Thank you, yes.

BSA
It sounds like tv work is a lot of fun.

SF
At “Grey’s Anatomy,” I have four “clients.” So I do the same people over and over instead of having a large client base as you would in a hair salon. We’ve become a tight family—sometimes it’s a dysfunctional family, but we do have fun! A regular weekly television show can require you to be on set 65 to 85 hours a week. They don’t necessarily do scenes or even episodes in order, so the challenging part is keeping track of what their hair looked like where they left off. We have to make sure their hair looks the same.

BSA
Now it sounds like tv work is hard!

SF
It can be hard work, but if you want to succeed at this, you will. It’s the same old adage—put your heart and soul into your dream, and you’ll succeed.

BSA
Speaking of dream, do you do McDreamy’s hair, too?

SF
Patrick Dempsey? Yes.

BSA
You have a really cool job.