What Hairstylists Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson Need Subsequent for Hollywood — Interview

“It was all the time fascinating to me after I discuss to folks they usually say, ‘It was arduous for me to see Viola like that,’…they type of make the identical feedback that folks made, who wrote about [Ma Rainey],” Neal says.

In placing collectively the search for Davis’s transformation into Ma Rainey, the triad make-up and hair group — alongside costume designer Ann Roth, who received the Oscar for Greatest Costume Design for the movie — based mostly their creation from seven footage they present in analysis, in addition to quite a few descriptions of the blues singer’s presentation. Neal says that in Ma Rainey’s time, she was typically described as “the ugliest lady in present enterprise” and, whereas “ugly” is just not a phrase Neal would use to explain anybody, the group couldn’t ignore it. In response to Wilson, Viola additionally leaned into it.

“Viola loves a metamorphosis. She loves being actually genuine to her character. She needs to provide the uncooked, the true…she channels who she’s enjoying,” Wilson says.

Wilson started styling celebrities within the late aughts, first for actor Keke Palmer on the show True Jackson, VP. She’s been Davis’s personal hairstylist for 12 years now. Meanwhile, Neal’s introduction into entertainment styling came post-college, after interning at a professional apprentice program at New York’s Juilliard School. She had thought she would have to wait many years before she got to style hair on Broadway, but it happened during the apprenticeship, and her career soon took off. But it was 10 years ago, when she met Roth, that Neal says her career changed dramatically.

“She put me on productions and sat me at tables with people who I never would have had the opportunity to cross paths with. Something nobody really talks about is that it’s easy to really get kind of pigeonholed in this business,” Neal says.

By this, Neal means that the opportunities for Black hairstylists and makeup artists to work on shows beyond ones with all Black-casts can be limited.

“It is unusual. A lot of the times people will [say] okay, we’re doing a Black show, we’re gonna hire a Black person to do this. And for me, it’s like…I like period pieces, I like all types of things, I love doing research,” Neal says.

Wilson believes the industry needs to dig deeper and get to the root of Black stylists’ limitations in production. Of course, like any representation dearth, it’s never about one production, but rather an entire industry landscape that makes the barriers to entry difficult for Black people — from financial constraints to mere lack of exposure to the possibilities of careers in the field. There is certainly no shortage on the genre of stories that cover how a lack of diversity in makeup and styling can fail Black actors on set, from stars to supporting roles and extras.