The Makeup Artist Who Gives the Stars More Than a Touchup

New York Times

07-04-2025

Debi Young nodded in her maternal way, validating Jamie Hector's concerns. Hector was nothing like Marlo Stanfield, the sociopathic shot caller he depicted in 'The Wire' nearly a generation ago. But the latest script had called for Stanfield and a woman to be intimate in a car. Hector, then 28, mentored young actors and fretted about promoting promiscuity.
He voiced his problem to Young, officially the show's makeup artist and unofficially its moral compass.
'There will come a day when you can say what you want to do and what you don't want to do,' Young told Hector. She knew the sex scene was important for the character and that Hector needed to trust the writers. 'Right now? You're trying to bring people along with you,' she added.
Then, the woman cast and crew referred to variously as Big Sister, Den Mother, Divine Mother or Mama Debi topped her advice with instructions that dropped Hector's jaw: 'So, you go into that scene and you just bang the hell out of her.'
Hector, now 49, laughed at the recollection. 'What she has to say is always on time, always important and always sincere and coming from a righteous place,' he said.
Young is a youthful 71 whose most common credit is department head of makeup. She is a mainstay of HBO with credits on 'Watchmen,' 'Treme,' 'True Detective' and 'Mare of Easttown.' She has received four Emmy nominations. But it's her deft advice, bendable ear and ability to cultivate trust that has made her a go-to for a constellation of Oscar-winning stars, many of whom are appreciative of seeing a Black woman in a position of authority.
'You're going to find a world of people who want to talk about Debi,' Hector promised. 'You're going to find Regina. Mahershala.'
The two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali: 'Ms. Debi's chair is where your day begins. It's the safest place on the set. I'd even say something like a boxer's corner. She whispers things that impact your perspective on life, and therefore you can't help but think about a character differently.'
The Oscar winner Regina King: 'She's like your Yoda.'
The Oscar winner Da'Vine Joy Randolph: 'It is her spirit, her heart. Her spirituality. Her decorum. Her morals.'
Young said, 'I know they always call me for makeup, but I always know I'm there for so much more and God reveals it to me each time.'
'I'm here to cultivate a space where you can do your best work,' she said.
Young's chair is variable and mobile. It can be a salon on wheels with a headrest. It can be a park bench, a brick wall, a boulder, a tree stump, or a tall director's chair. The people she tends to can be excited or depressed, tired or alert, happy or sad or some mix of all of those feelings.
'It's a movie set,' Randolph said, 'There's always going to be something. There's always going to be confusion or, 'What are we doing here?' Or frustration. Or long hours. And she was just the maternal figure who was always there.'
Young's break arrived on 'The Wire,' the gritty depiction of the Baltimore that she grew up in.
She was raised in the Lafayette Courts projects in East Baltimore during the Civil Rights movement. She felt incubated by parents who spread their altruism. Her father, a barber, sometimes spent the day ferrying children to the beach until everyone from the neighborhood could dip their toes in water.
Occasionally, she and her siblings attended the movies while their parents worked. Young rushed home, hoping to recreate the looks she had seen. She didn't have many options of lipsticks or powders or get awfully close to what she had seen onscreen. But her father predicted that one day his daughter would be in the credits.
Young worked at a police call center before deciding to earn an esthetician license and join a cosmetic boutique. A client told Young that she'd be hosting a television show and asked Young to do her makeup for it. Soon, Tim and Daphne Reid, married actors who were hosting a talk show, asked Young to join. Stars like Eartha Kitt, Pam Grier and Georg Stanford Brown appeared on the show.
In 2001, Young received a call asking her to lead the makeup department for a new cop show. Usually she read a script twice, once to follow the story, again to envision which characters and scenes require makeup. She found herself tracing through 'The Wire' scripts a third or even fourth time, catching new descriptive details each time.
Each brought along its own Rubik's cube set of challenges. Young remembered David Simon from his days as a cops reporter. His co-creator, Ed Burns, was a longtime homicide detective. Young had spent years making people look better on camera, but this show offered a new challenge: preparing actors— sometimes depicting murder victims— in makeup as descriptive and realistic as the comprehensive writing called for.
'The Wire' was, on its surface, a cop show but was really a portrayal of individuals pitted against institutions. It struggled for viewers and quick green lights for subsequent seasons from HBO executives. Now, it is heralded as one of the driving forces of television's peak era.
'Debi understood the historical and spiritual significance of the place she held within that show,' said Sonja Sohn, who played the character of Detective Shakima Greggs. 'She was from Baltimore. Baltimore's story was being told. '
Wendell Pierce, who worked with Young on 'The Wire,' said she should be known as one of the show's creators.
'Her humanity and her understanding of human nature was helpful for me understanding the characters,' Pierce said. 'Her knowledge of Baltimore helped how I would develop my character of Bunk, where he was from, who he would be hanging out with, the places he would go.'
Long before Michael K. Williams transformed into the shotgun-toting, run-if-you-see-him Omar Little on 'The Wire,' the character did not have a permanent role, let alone a name.
On his first day, Young observed Williams's nervousness, placing a hand on his shoulder.
'You're not here by accident,' Young said. 'You're here by divine order. I want you to go out there and dance as hard as you can.'
He was self-conscious, she ascertained, about the long scar that ran across his face.
'We know maybe you didn't like what happened during that time, but it's there,' she told him. 'It's part of you. And it's going to take you places.'
Young decided she would not do much with Williams' skin beyond treating it.
'Then at night, when he had his long cloak on with the gun underneath, I would put baby oil gel on his face, so that when the light hit him, it would hit his cheeks and his nose,' she said. 'If he's peeking around the corner, you're going to see his face because of the shine in that light.'
'The Wire' even led to Young working with her future daughter-in-law, Ngozi Olandu-Young. Young first met Olandu-Young while she worked at a mall cosmetics counter. Young noted her patience and began mentoring her. Olandu-Young joined 'The Wire' as an assistant and married Karlo, one of Young's two sons. 'She just makes everyone feel like family,' said Olandu-Young, who has gone on to receive two Emmy nominations for her work.
With Young, one job begets another. First there was 'Homicide: Life on the Street,' which led to 'The Wire' which led to 'Treme,' which is where Young met the future Oscar-winner Ali. He told her he would try to hire Young if he was ever in a position to land a personal makeup artist.
Ron Schmidt, a producer on 'Watchmen' recruited Young while she worked with Ali on 'True Detective.' In the anthology crime drama, Ali played a character whose life is unspooled across three different time periods.
'That role challenged me like nothing I'd ever experienced,' Ali said. 'I really struggled to keep going some days. Whether I spoke to what was troubling me or not, every time I seemed to need it, Ms. Debi would whisper before a take, 'I'm praying for you, baby.' I can't articulate what having an ally like that means. But it makes all the difference.'
King, who starred in 'Watchmen,' said Young was a leader. 'I recognized how the producers actually leaned on her for, I guess the best way to say it is, for advisement,' King said. 'That was the first time I had ever seen that.'
Sister Knight, King's 'Watchmen' character, often wore an airbrushed mask. Young noticed King's sensitivity to the mask and suggested the shooting schedule be rearranged so that she wouldn't wear it on consecutive days.
'There were decisions made based on her suggestions because of how much she was dialed into not just the needs of hair and makeup that the actors needed, but just the personalities that we had,' King said. 'We're all different and she's tuned into that.'
Halfway through 'Watchmen,' Schmidt asked her to work on 'Mare of Easttown.' And the cycle continues.
Jamie Hector, who all those years ago heeded her advice as a young actor, is now trying land Young for a project he's working on. It's one of his highest priorities, and he knows he has competition.
'Everybody wants her,' he said. 'She sets the tone.'