What you see on a TV show: An actress with gorgeous, flawless skin, long eyelashes, and makeout-scene ready lips. She looks like the type of girl everyone secretly hates because she always, always looks perfect. So not fair.
What it’s really like behind the scenes: An actress with a huge pimple that you’ll never see. Ditto for chapped lips, under eye circles, and crows’ feet. The trick? The makeup artist and the lighting department’s expertise hides it all completely.
News flash: Actors don’t naturally have gorgeous skin or flawless features. A ton of effort goes into creating that illusion for a television show — especially nowadays, with HD cameras picking up every last zit/pore/wrinkle. Yikes.
Being the curious beauty editor that I am, I visited the set of the popular show “Community” to talk to Head Makeup Artist, Pamela Lljubo-O’Brien. I wanted to find out what really goes on behind the scenes of a TV show.
After just one day of seeing what happens on set, I was amazed at some of the beauty secrets I found. Like the fact that a kissing scene is an entire production in itself — I’m talking mouthwash, mints, and no lipstick allowed. And, did you know actors actually get facials at the end of each day?
To find out more, I talked to a handful of other TV show makeup artists, including Stephanie Massie, Head Makeup Artist for “Modern Family,” Tracy Anderson, Head Makeup Artist for “Sons of Anarchy,” and Thereze Berquist-Barker, Head Makeup Artist for “Brothers & Sisters.” They shared these never-before-heard tips, just for us.
Check out the backstage secrets I discovered.
