CR 012: Debi Young on Bringing Kindness, Authenticity, and Artistry to Every Project
The award-winning makeup artist discusses her work on "The Wire," her proudest career moment, and why she always aims to lead with love.
There are a couple of things you should know about Debi Young.
First, you know her work, even if you may not recognize her name. She’s provided the makeup for some of the most notable film and television projects of the past 30 years: The Wire, Mare of Easttown, Treme, The Wiz Live!, Jackie, Fences, Queen Sugar, Castle Rock, True Detective, Watchmen, Leave the World Behind, and Shirley—just to name a few. Her work has earned her an NAACP Image Award for We Own This City, as well as four Emmy Award nominations. She’s been profiled in Vanity Fair, has worked with some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry, and is Mahershala Ali’s go-to makeup artist.
Second, once you meet Debi Young, you realize that all the bona fides and accolades—as deserved as they are—are the least impressive things about her. She has a calmness that puts whomever she is speaking with at ease. Interviewing her is less of a question-and-answer session and more like connecting with a longtime friend, even if you’ve only just met moments before. When discussing her work, it’s obvious she’s proud of her accomplishments but is just as interested in the connection she establishes with others on set. “It’s a spiritual thing for me,” she says. “I know I’m always there for more than makeup.”
Wendell Pierce, who starred in The Wire and Treme, vouched for this aspect of Debi’s personality when I profiled her last year for Shondaland. “I can’t remember the last conversation I had with Debi about makeup,” he told me, laughing. “Our conversations are always so much more deep, and so much more loving. She cared for us on and off screen. She was like a den mother on The Wire. And then she became a New Orleanian when she was in New Orleans for Treme. She becomes a part of the culture. To this day, she is more than just a colleague, she is family.”
Debi takes this aspect of her job seriously and tells me she doesn’t take one moment for granted. “I want for others what I want for myself and my family,” she says. “I just try to stay in the divine flow. I try to do the right thing. I don’t care what your higher power is; if you know that it’s something greater than you leading you in the right direction, I want you to stay in that flow. Make sure that you use your gifts to add value or elevation to somebody else’s life because that’s where your blessings are going to come from.”
Having recently wrapped up work on an upcoming, star-studded Pharrell Williams musical, Debi is now taking some time off to visit with family and tend to her garden. She recently chatted with me over a lengthy Zoom call about her influences, her proudest achievements, and some of the more gruesome scenes from The Wire.
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SANDRA EBEJER: I was looking over your IMDb credits, and the first project listed is Serial Mom, which was released 30 years ago. When you think back to those early days of your career, what comes to mind?
DEBI YOUNG: Well, my actual first feature film was The Meteor Man with Robert Townsend, and there was this excitement because [I was] doing a movie. We were working six days a week, all night. That was the film schedule, and we were so excited to be there. When they were wrapping us to go home, we really didn’t want to leave, because it was just so exciting. By today’s standards, they would say that it was not a good work environment, working six days a week and all nights, but we had a ball.
Do you still feel that sense of excitement when you go to work?
I do. You know why? I know I’m going to do makeup, but I always know there may be something more that I’m there for. And every job is different. Every single project is different. And my objective is to get the words off the pages onto the screen. That’s very exciting for me.
I want to ask about some specific moments from your career. One of the most crucial plot points in The Wire is Brandon’s murder. His death, which is so gruesome, really sets the stage for all that happens after. What do you remember about that moment, in terms of the makeup?
My key makeup artist [on The Wire] was Sandra Linn. Sandy and I didn’t have a makeup effects department—it was us. But we knew that David Simon’s a reporter, and Ed Burns, the other producer, was a homicide detective. We knew they knew how it looked, so we wanted to make sure that we were not disappointing. They shoot out of sequence, so they were showing [Brandon’s] autopsy scene before the stabbing. So we had to do the autopsy scar and then do all the stab wounds. Sandy and I started thinking, “Is he right-handed? Where would he have defense marks?” We were making cuts everywhere. It was crazy. But when we walked [Michael Kevin Darnall, the actor] out to the set and when they took the robe off him, people gasped. And we were like [fist pump], “Yes!” That was a big scene for us. And then we had to reproduce it later when they find him on top of the car. Then you have to do aging of the wounds out in the elements. The autopsy scene is more cleaned up.
Another memorable moment is the teeth scene from Leave the World Behind. You shared on Instagram that you asked Gary Archer to build the teeth. Can you talk about how the process works when there’s a scene like that in the script?
I had just used Gary Archer on Shirley, for Regina King, to reproduce Shirley Chisholm’s front teeth. His work is magnificent. I will send the actor to him to have a dental cast made of his mouth. I knew that these teeth [in Leave the World Behind] would have to be pulled out while they were filming, so I called him and said, “Can you produce a breakaway prosthesis for me? I want it to be random.” I wanted for [the actor, Charlie Evans] to be able to pull out whatever tooth he felt like he needed to pull out. So, that’s what Gary did.
And this is the other thing: Charlie has allergies, so I had to create a blood that could go in his mouth because he couldn’t have the regular corn syrup [based blood]. I used organic food coloring, cassava syrup, and some carob syrup. It looks so good. I remember my husband and I went to the screening in New York, and I heard the audience like, “Ewww!” I was like, “Yes!” [Laughs] Because honestly, authenticity is in the tiniest details. You can really mess up just by overlooking something like teeth.
You’ve also done plenty of work that did not involve loads of blood and gore, like Bubbles’ skin in The Wire or Jean Smart’s rosacea in Mare of Easttown.
I love the tiny details. I want it to look authentic. I want it to look real. Sandy was the one that established Bubbles’ look. She had previously worked on The Corner, so she had already done the research for heroin addicts and how the veins look and how the needle marks were and all that. And we’re [alike]—we both like to get in and make sure that we’ve got it all covered. She’s very nimble in applying the prosthetic piece. Her fingers can really get in there, and then I would be the one painting it up to make the bruise or the scar or the jagged edges or whatever. We worked as a team.
When were you proudest of your work as a makeup artist? Were there any particularly challenging moments that you felt proud to have pulled off?
[On] The Wire, Ernest Dickerson was directing this episode, and he told me, “Somebody’s going to get beat to death, and the beating is going to be so bad we can’t use a stunt person.” He said, “You’re going to have to have a puppet made. We will start off with the real person, then go to the stunt person, and then the final beating will be on the puppet.” So I contacted [prosthetic artist] Matthew Mungle and told him I wanted to send the actor to have a puppet made from the bust up, but I wanted his mouth to be movable and I wanted it in a contorted kind of way. I sent the actor there to have the casting done, and every mole, every skin tag, whatever the actor had, the puppet had.
When I saw it, I felt like we were so accomplished to pull that off. Because you have to choose the right person to do it, and you have to give them every detail that you can give them about what you want. When David Simon heard that the puppet was in of this person and when I opened that crate, I had never seen him smile so big. [Laughs] He was so happy! And one of the producers told me when it went to editing, “Debi, the editors told me that they got sick to their stomach when they saw this scene.” I was like, “Yes!” I feel like that was a major [moment]. That makeup and Brandon’s makeup were, I think, iconic for The Wire. I mean, we did so many things. Sobotka floating in the river with the slit throat. There were just so many.
How do you decide which projects to take on? What appeals to you most when considering work?
In the beginning, when I took The Wire, I didn’t know how fantastic it was going to be. I’d worked with Clark Johnson—he was an actor on Homicide, and he’d started directing—and when he got The Wire, he recommended me to be the makeup department head. So I got my start on The Wire through Clark. I didn’t even know what the show was until I started reading those scripts, and they were something to read! Now, when you’re starting out, you do what people ask you to do. But as I’ve gotten into my career, I don’t want to do just anything. I am attracted to fantastic writing, because if you don’t have the storyteller, you don’t have the story. Or if it’s like Watchmen—we had multiple alternate universes—that’s exciting to me. But I think the first thing is, is this a good script? And I go from there.
Who are some of the artists who inspire you?
There were a lot of makeup effects artists—Rick Baker, Dick Smith—and Kevyn Aucoin for beauty makeup inspiration. There was a book called Stage Makeup by Richard Corson and it showed you so many things. [These are] people I didn’t know, but looking at the detail that they put into the makeup made me want to learn more. These days, there are so many people that I think their artistry is just beautiful, like Mike Marino. His team created the aging makeup for Mahershala [Ali] on True Detective, and it was so realistic.
I want to switch gears and talk about a secondary aspect of your job, which is the support you provide to the actors who sit in your chair. Wendell Pierce told me last year that you were “like a Zen master.” What enables you to bring that sense of calm to your work each day?
What I do is way greater than me. That’s how I see it. I feel like my gifts are used to elevate the lives of others. I want to provide a space so that they can do their best work—not just the cast, but my team. I don’t do chaos; I don’t do drama. I pray a lot. I always ask God, the universe, “Have me do what I’m here to do.” People are people, and life shows up for everyone, and so there are moments that you might need to put your hand on somebody’s shoulder for a minute or give them a hug. I want people to be in a space where they feel safe and where they feel like they’re not restricted.
I remember I was down in Georgia working on Underground. Two things happened on that show that I didn’t expect. A man walked up to me one day with tears in his eyes. I think I only said hello. I smile all the time and say hello to everyone. I like everyone to feel seen. He walked up to me and said, “Can I talk to you for a minute?” I think it was all based on me saying hello and smiling every day. He told me about a personal situation. I think he was going through a breakup or something, and I just put my arms around him and told him that it’s going to be okay. And on that same show, I was walking from the van to set. There were [crew members] sitting on the back of the truck, and I was like, “Good morning, gentlemen.” And this man said to me, “You’re here for more than just makeup. I see an aura around you.”
I take it as, like I said, something way greater than me. I feel like the work I do or the love that I try to spread is what I’m supposed to be doing. In some ways, it’s my little ministry of touching people. I don’t ever get preachy. Whatever that moment is that presents itself, then I’m asking the power higher than me, “Okay, you wanted me to witness this, you let this happen in front of me—now, how would you have me handle it?” I’m always asking for that guidance because I don’t want to say the wrong thing to anyone.
You shared on Instagram that the advice you’d give your 21-year-old self is, “Things happen for you, not to you.” What do you mean by this?
Years ago, I was asked to be part of this art project. There were three questions, and one was, “What advice would you give your 21-year-old self?” I’ve always heard “if I knew then what I know now,” how we will all make different decisions. But there was a book that I was reading that I’ve kept around for many years, since a friend gave it to me in 1993 or something, called The Wisdom of Florence Scovel Shinn. And from reading that book over and over again, I got that we are all the sum of our experiences. I realized when I experienced something I felt was horrible or I didn’t want to deal with, I needed to experience that so that I would be prepared for what’s ahead of me. That is one of the biggest revelations for me, because then you don’t get so bent out of shape.
There was an affirmation in Florence Scovel Shinn’s book: “I will not be fooled by false appearances.” I’ll say that to myself when I’m going through a bad time. I know the universe is always working to correct things for me or for us, so that’s how I see it. And I’m saying this thing is happening for me, not happening to me, because every time it has helped me down the road. When people say stuff to me like, “She stole my job,” I say, “No, because if it was yours, you would have it.” You get people to think a little bit differently, so they don’t feel so victimized.
What can you tell me about the film you just worked on?
I just finished a Pharrell Williams project, Atlantis. It’s very loosely based on his life. It’s a project I loved so much. It’s a musical. It had Kelvin Harrison Jr., Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Halle Bailey, Missy Elliott, Janelle Monáe, Quinta Brunson, Brian Tyree Henry. It was phenomenal. Singing, dancing, inspirational. I think it’s going to reach across generations. It’s pure joy, but more importantly, I felt like it was pure Black joy. Because sometimes Hollywood does not want to make movies about happy Black people. If you are exceptional, yes. Or if you are drug addicted, prostituting, pimping—they like that stuff. But people in the middle trying to live their lives? They don’t want to do it.
This film was pure joy. It’s for a child [to wonder], “How big can I dream?” That’s what it’s all about—what [Pharrell] had inside of him, his gift. Friends or family might tell you, “You should get a safe job working for the government,” and you push your gifts down, because you listen to the people that love you. But then one day you realize, “I can’t contain this. I have to do what I love.”
What do you want your legacy to be?
I want my legacy to be that the love that I spread and the kindness and the encouragement that I gave take people to where they wanted to go. You know, [there was] a young man, a production assistant on True Detective. I could see that he was a special person, the way he dealt with the background people. One day, we were leaving in the same van and he said, “Can I stop by base camp and pick up my food?” P.A.s don’t make a lot of money, so sometimes, whatever they get at lunch, they get a little extra for their dinner. So he went to base camp with me and the van driver. I didn’t know him at the time; I just knew him as a P.A. on the set. He came back. He was so upset. And we were like, “What?” He said, “She threw my food out.” And we’re like, “Who?” The person that’s above him threw away his meal, as if she had never been a P.A. before, as if she had never known that they don’t make any money. She threw it away.
He was so upset. He was sitting in the front seat, and I was sitting behind him. I reached into my wallet and pulled out a $100 bill and I folded it. He was getting ready to get out of the van. I said, “Don’t worry. You’re going to have dinner tonight.” And I put the money in his hand. He didn’t see the money until he was out of the van, and then he starts running back. “No, you can’t do this. You can’t give this to me.” I said, “You cannot block my blessing.” He still has that $100 bill. He didn’t spend it. He kept it, he said, to make him remember. Because I said to him, “What she meant for harm, God meant for good.” His mom sent me a note saying how it touched him.
There are so many things, so many moments, and sometimes you don’t even know that it’s a moment until they come back and tell you, “You may not remember me, but I remember when I was a P.A., you were so kind to me.” I just want to know that I made a difference, and I touched lives in the right way when I was here. That’s it, plain and simple.
To learn more about Debi Young, find her on Instagram.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
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