PRACTICALLY MAGIC BY ERIN PEDERDSON AND CHLOE BRINKLOW
PHOTOGRAPHY: Erin Pederson
WORDS: Chloe Brinklow
Donni Davy’s two-time Emmy-award-win – ning work on Euphoria ignited a social media makeup movement and pop-culture contagion, while subsequently redefining beauty’s place in traditional film and television ecosystems, spring-boarding new pathways for makeup artistry both on and off the screen.
Her father is an acclaimed sculptor and her mother a (pre-digital) graphic designer turned volunteer museum tour guide – notably at LACMA and Getty Villa. But while Davy’s creative trajectory was predictable by way of lineage, it was not linear. Graduating from New York’s Pratt Institute in 2010 with a BFA in photography catalysed a series of pivots, kicking off with a two-week make-up course and a move back to the West Coast, taking any makeup job she could and putting her degree to good use photographing her work. It was a producer who brought her on to Moonlight, then Under the Silver Lake – two films from A24, which inadvertently got her the interview for head of Euphoria’s makeup department, earmarking the beginning of her longstanding creative partnership with director Sam Levinson.
Davy’s approach to character development – synthesising disciplines and visual syntax to inform the makeup arc, in the same way a show creator would the overarching story and character arc – is deeply considered, though, she is clear on her role. “My job isn’t to go rogue; I’m hired to tell the story,” she says. “Sam’s trust is everything. If he says nothing, I know it’s working.”
In her early work on Euphoria, Instagram and Pinterest provided the library for makeup ideation and moodboards. But since season one, the platforms have been flooded with makeup content mirroring Davy’s own work and translation of reference points back to her. “The incredible work is endless, and everywhere, to a point that it’s overstimulating and numbing, so I have to filter,” she admits. “Now, I need to be in a bubble thinking about the character, looking at the scene, the clothes, the lines and the character saying them. I know the audience is looking at the actor’s face, their eyes, their mouth. So I’m always thinking about how it’s going to enhance the story. How does the makeup interact? How can it feel new?”
For SIDE-NOTE, Donni Davy looks back on her magical journey.
DONNI DAVY: I was never expected to have a non-creative career. I always did a lot of painting and drawing growing up. I wanted to go to art school, but I knew I needed to make money and have a career so I thought photography was a more viable option. After I graduated from Pratt, I was living in Brooklyn and literally everybody was trying to be a photographer. I thought, “I need to take myself out of the game, because this is not true to my heart!” I missed painting and drawing, but I didn’t want to paint on a canvas. It was my friend’s mum who said, “Why don’t you be a makeup artist?”
I didn’t want to just make people hotter; I wanted something deeper and more artistic. I wasn’t morally aligned with the idea of perpetuating society’s detrimental beauty ideals, which I very much felt growing up. My friend suggested movies: “You can read the script and be part of the storytelling.” That’s how the gears shifted from photography to makeup. I ended up taking a two-week crash course in special effects makeup, and learnt all the things I needed to work in film and television.
I built my portfolio by answering Craigslist ads and doing any makeup gig I could find. After moving back to California, I was working in a wine bar washing dishes, and I’d drive two hours across town from Venice Beach to The Valley for an actor who needed a headshot in their garage. Student films were fun because they really do it all; western, blood, beauty. I would handle makeup for 20 people by myself. The payment for the jobs was not very financially motivated, but I’d take really clean, clear photos of my work on my digital camera and was able to put together a great online portfolio. That’s 100 per cent how I got jobs. I was obsessed with the portfolio.
When Moonlight won the Oscar for Best Picture, I knew I was in the right career. It was an indie A24 film, it was low budget and it was just me in the makeup department. We didn’t have a makeup trailer; we were all in one motor home and it felt very much like a family. I loved making the film, the way it was received by people and then getting the notoriety it did. At that point, people were word-of-mouth recommending me, my portfolio was strong and my résumé was starting to beef up a bit. Moonlight confirmed that the hustle is not in the networking, so I just focused on the work and that is what got me hired.
On Euphoria, I approach makeup and character development by gathering a contextual blueprint. Makeup gives the audience extra information, just like the score. It’s its own layer of storytelling. I read the scripts and marinate on the characters’ personalities: where did we leave off in the last scene? What has changed? Are they in a really bad place? Did they just cry? Or have they gotten their shit back together? I go to the costume designer and ask to see the boards, the clothes, co – lour palettes and styles. I look at the sets: how big is their beauty vanity? Would they be the type to watch a YouTube tutorial to learn how to do their makeup or are they just copying their friends?
I pulled my early Euphoria references from looks by alt-girls on Instagram and Pinterest. They were wearing big, chunky winged eyeliner, shimmery pink on the nose and lots of piercings. The gen Z mainstream was leaning more towards a clean-girl aesthetic but these girls were the original outliers. I am endlessly inspired by film; Todd Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine is my heart and soul. John Waters’ films really stuck with me as a teen, and the glam-rock period of music, like David Bowie.
I like to make it clear that I didn’t invent this type of makeup; I was the messenger to bring it to a mainstream platform. The glitter tears had been done. Nina Simone used to put rhinestones on her eyebrows. I love glitter and colour; it’s a passion explosion for me. The Euphoria characters are not the perfect models walking down a runway; they are breaking down all the time, and that makes the makeup feel like anyone can wear it.
I love working with musicians, too, because you get immediate results. You do their makeup, they have a huge show and immediately you get to see how it looks. I did Chappell Roan’s looks for Coachella, where she soft-launched, or rather hard-launched, her career. I had my little part in that. I’m dying to work with Julia Fox, Zara Larsson and Doja Cat. I want to work with anyone who wants to do something creative and expressive with their makeup, like a ‘capital C’ creative look.
Half Magic is the dream I never had. A24 came to me and said, “We think you should do a makeup brand, do you want to do one? We’ll support!” It was an opportunity put in front of me that I immediately said yes to. I co-founded Half Magic with A24, but we didn’t launch a Euphoria makeup line – we intentionally didn’t license the IP. We wanted to create a brand that was its own thing, rooted in its own DNA and with a direct line to pop culture. I wanted the brand to feel accessible, where making cool looks is easy and the formulas are super luxe. We’re vegan and cruelty free, and some of our packaging is compostable. It’s not something we talk about all the time – we should, but we just have a lot of things to talk about.
We have the spirit of the indie, colourful, sparkly brands, but we show up in major retailers. We’re on the journey of a start-up; scaling, branding and building our community, always thinking outside the box. I was super intimidated in the beginning; now I’m harnessing main-character energy. I want to continue to be true to myself and my vision for this brand – I don’t want to stutter. I don’t want to do anything because another brand did it successfully 15 years ago.
I don’t want to be everything for everyone. I want to be everything for the person who wants to wear Half Magic. This year my goal is to focus on honouring the Half Magic community, con – necting with them more, and building a brand for them and not for anyone else. I want to focus on sharing more of my story and sharing tonnes of behind the scenes from Euphoria season three [premiering in April]. I’m coming to Australia in March, and I have a big collaboration releasing in April that I can’t talk about yet; it is the biggest yet, the biggest ever.
