How LGBTQ hair and makeup artists are grappling with the fallout from the SAG-AFTRA strike
Standing in solidarity with the writer and actor strike, there’s one group that isn’t being heard from, despite dire implications: Hollywood’s LGBTQ hair and makeup artists.
“I’m at the point where I’m about to apply for food stamps,” said Derrick Kollock, a TV and film hairstylist who is Black and openly queer. Kollock has worked in the industry for almost 20 years, having worked on The Deuce, When They See Us, and the upcoming Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain film Mother’s Instinct. “If Billy Porter can come out and admit that he’s [allegedly] gotten so broke, that he has to sell his house, I can come out and say that I’ve gotten so broke, I have to get food stamps now.”
Kollock was referencing the award-winning queer actor and performer, who recently announced having to sell his house due to refinancing since the actors’ union went on strike and his upcoming projects fell through.
“I don’t know when we’re gonna go back [to work],” Porter said in an exclusive interview with Evening Standard. “The life of an artist, until you make ‘fuck you’ money—which I haven’t made yet—is still check-to-check.”
In the interview, Porter also references a Deadline story in which an unnamed Hollywood executive said he plans to starve out those striking until they have to sell their apartments. “So, to the person who said [that]: you’ve already starved me out,” he said in the interview. His recent announcement to divorce his husband of six years, however, could also play a role in him losing his house, though it doesn’t undersell the fact that because of writers and actors striking, hair and makeup artists are directly losing work, too.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) are on strike over better negotiation as executives of the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) seek to lessen the costs of production by supplementing artificial intelligence (AI) in Hollywood. The strike demands renegotiations over residuals, higher wages, staffing minimums, AI limits, and more.
LGBTQ actor Jasmin Savoy of Yellowjackets weighed in on why the strike is important. In an Instagram post, she wrote: “I have been in TWO hit seasons of a popular TV show and two major box office successes. At MINIMUM, I should own my car (still paying it off, four years to go), and to be honest I should be able to afford to buy a house. NOWHERE CLOSE!” including a screenshot of a residual payment she received for only $4.40.
There is yet to be any telling of how long the strikes will go on for, but hair and makeup professionals are having to pivot to find work outside of TV and film, afraid to lose housing and insurance security as they scramble for side hustles.
“For three, four, five months before the writers went out, studios weren’t willing to greenlight projects, so many of us have been unemployed for a lot longer,” Linda Dowds, a Los Angeles-based makeup artist who has been in the TV and film industry since 1987 told ABC News last week.
For D’Angelo Thompson—who had already been working in the industry during the WGA strike 10 years ago—the current strike is not unprecedented.
“Work stopped, but it wasn’t as much work that stopped [because] I was continuously working in non-union and union projects [back then],” said Thompson, a Black queer makeup artist with over 20 years of experience in the industry, from American Horror Story to I Wanna Dance With Somebody and the Wendy Williams Show.
“We all expected [this strike] to happen, because we understood the whole process of streaming and that actors were not being compensated correctly, and writers are making pennies on the dollar when it comes to streaming service residuals,” he said.
The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) is a union that represents artists behind-the-scenes, including hairstylists and makeup artists. Out of its 362 local unions, there is Local 706 that represents those working on Hollywood productions, and Local 798 representing 22 Eastern states and D.C.
IATSE had settled their negotiations over one year ago and is not currently on strike, but if members fail to reach a minimum of hours per year, they can lose union protection. The COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on wages for IATSE members—as it did for workers worldwide—and now the strike is hitting even harder, especially for those who are openly LGBTQ.
Thompson tells Reckon that he’s seen major positive changes of representation since the beginning of his career, and that “there’s a lot more of us behind the scenes and in front of the camera. It’s also good to see family and community on set because we understand certain nuances that maybe other [hair and makeup artists] don’t.”
When Kollock joined the IATSE union, he almost immediately became a department head running the hair team for an office that works with various movies. Despite the glamorous work of being a hairstylist or a makeup artist in TV and film, he says the money “is not all that” because hair and makeup artists are “at the bottom of the pole, making nowhere near everyone else that works in film.”
Kollock has been living in his Newark, N.J. apartment for four years, and is now dealing with rent arrears since the strike due to him being three months behind on rent.
“The only reason why I haven’t put up a GoFundMe or anything like that is because all of my friends are in the same boat as I am,” he said.
Thompson expresses having been fortunate enough to be able to stay afloat with additional work on the side. Thompson said he lost 50% of his work when the WGA strike started, which increased to 80% when SAG-AFTRA joined the strike.
The 10-year industry veteran is earning extra income as a beauty consultant and an author and will be teaching in the fashion department at Kent State University this fall.
Deja Smith was the makeup artist when Laverne Cox posed for the front cover of Time Magazine’s issue of “The Transgender Tipping Point” in 2014. Smith, who is a queer Black woman, has since worked on the critically acclaimed show POSE, ultimately scoring two Emmy nominations for her makeup.
“Getting to experience that cultural shift that happened from that moment, it’s so much more clear to me how important visibility is when it comes to media in front of the camera and behind the scenes,” said Smith, who started in the industry in a time when queer Black women didn’t have the same opportunities to be taken seriously.
She tells Reckon that people were rarely inclined to compensate her fairly and that she had to settle anyway for the sake of earning money.
“Survival mode is a real thing for a lot of people still today; not only are you working against the amount of people who are in line for the same job, but you’re also dealing with people’s opinions about you, how you present yourself and what it means to work with you in a capacity where other people can see you aligned with the talent,” she said.
Smith describes the diversity of behind-the-scenes work in TV and film to be far better than when she started in 2006, though she criticizes the intention behind hiring diverse staff members as something that is “trendy” today.
“Until people make it a part of their daily, weekly, monthly yearly practice having diverse staffing and environments, I’m going to see it as a trend because it’s only around certain months that we see the diversity, equity and inclusion happening publicly,” she added.
Like Thompson, Smith considers herself lucky to find alternative ways to support herself as she’s been able to use her savings.
In the grand scheme of the strike across writer and actor circles, Smith says she must be hopeful that the underdog is going to win “because we’ve seen what money and power has [negatively] done to our world thus far.”
Above all, she fears that there won’t be a space for up-and-coming hair and makeup artists “who have value and who can contribute to our community of craftspeople,” she said.
“The people who have been working in the industry for years are struggling. I’m a newcomer compared to them—and I’ve had to learn and fight to get in—so I can’t imagine what it will be like for the next generation of artists who are waiting to show what they have to contribute. I have to be hopeful that this is a means to an end and a win for us—the everyday people.”
Kollock wants the industry to know that being LGBTQ is a strength in the world of film and television.
“We have the art of creativity in us just by being LGBTQ,” Kollock said. “The strike has shot me down. People say, ‘Don’t let what you do for a living be your [whole] life,’ but it’s my livelihood. This isn’t about my life; this is about my livelihood.”