Today we’d like to introduce you to Julie Hassett
Hi Julie, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I actually mistakenly became a makeup artist, which is always a strange thing to say, but true! I’ve always been an artist but I moved to LA with face painting experience and started my own little face paint business. Shortly after moving to LA, a friend told me they gave my contact information to someone who may reach out for body painting services and I was terrified of missing out on an opportunity!
So I convinced my sister to let me body paint her in my living room and for the next 2 weeks I proceeded to body paint about 11 more people to create a portfolio. Not long after that, I met someone at a wedding who asked me to body paint for a video he was shooting on YouTube. He also needed a prosthetic applied to an actor and I hadn’t done that before, but I researched as much as I could and figured it out (again, afraid to miss an opportunity).
That sort of became the way I stumbled through becoming a makeup artist. I kept learning as I went and said yes to as many opportunities as I felt I could handle. I slowly started incorporating beauty makeup into my practice, and eventually got the opportunity to department head a series that flipped and became a union production. From there, I department headed 2 seasons of that show and earned enough days to qualify to be in the union!
Since then, it’s been a wild ride of continuing to say yes to opportunities, networking, creating amazing relationships and getting to create along the way. I truly feel lucky that this is my career, even when it’s a bit challenging to balance sometimes.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
There have definitely been a lot of ups and downs in my journey! When I was first starting out, I didn’t know anyone in the industry and really had to rely on word of mouth to get from job to job. It could be really scary and stressful not knowing when or where a paycheck would come from!
Eventually, jobs became more reliable as I gained more experience and created work relationships that brought new opportunities. However, with the pandemic slowing things down temporarily, that affected productions significantly for a while! Then we had a huge burst of work once productions started back up for a couple of years, followed by a big shut down again amidst the writers’ and actors’ strike. The entertainment industry hasn’t recovered yet and is currently struggling, unfortunately. So, I guess you could say, a lot of us are struggling currently! I’m looking forward to moving past this point and into a fortuitous future!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a makeup artist that specializes in beauty, special effects makeup, body painting and face painting.
I think I’m most known for being a body painter, since it’s a bit of a niche skill. I am really proud of that, actually! I love being known as a body painter and I do think it sets me apart from others who haven’t gotten familiar with this skill yet. I really enjoy it and I like to think that my love for it shows up in my work as well.
Aside from that, I love applying and painting prosthetics, covering and applying tattoos and doing soft glam or “elevated beauty.”
What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?
There are so many big shifts happening in our industry right now and it’s really hard to know what’s going to happen. There has been a lot of speculation and to be candid, it’s hard to know what to listen to sometimes!
With work moving out of the state and country to chase better tax incentives, it’s been scary and discouraging to imagine that the future could look the way it does right now if things don’t change. My hope is that our unions will fight to bring more beneficial tax incentives to CA so that the thousands of workers in our industry can continue to live and work and flourish.
Also, with the development of AI, there has been a lot of fear about it replacing the need for makeup artists in the world of film and TV especially. There is a lot to fight for and despite the inevitable changes that come with tech advances, my hope is that our jobs won’t be replaced and we can still do what we love for a living.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.juliehassett.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juliehasit
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LetsGoghPaint?mibextid=LQQJ4d
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@juliehassettbodyart?si=p3bNCrTe3eBsLrX5
- Yelp: https://yelp.to/UPV7JEja52
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@juliehasit?_t=8pEqZx0Fx9S&_r=1
