We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Emily Malin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Emily, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I was 15 or so, and House of 1000 Corpses (Rob Zombies directorial debut) had just come out. It was the first “slasher” horror flick Id seen where I was rooting for the killers. It totally flipped the genre on its head for me and sparked a deep love of cinema that I share with so many people. From that moment I wanted to work in movies, initially as a special effects makeup artist.

Emily, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a hair and makeup artist based in Miami since 2011, with a focus on character creation. I began doing hair in 2005 and studied makeup in Toronto at the School of Pro Makeup in 2007. I have designed wigs and makeup for operas and stage productions in Florida, Atlanta, & New York and also work in fashion, commercial jobs, film & television. The biggest production i’ve worked on was Stranger Things season 4, as a main hairstylist.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

Humility will not serve you well as a freelancer. It took me close to 10 years working in the industry before I realized that my midwestern humility was not only useless, but actually holding me back. Especially in a city like Miami, where big talk and personality are the largest contributors to success. I would say its about 90/10% personality to skill in South Florida, and nepotism reigns supreme. Having a finely tuned skills set is meaningless if you aren’t able to articulate it, boldly and often, to the people who should know it.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Something I would like to see normalized is holding under-qualified persons more publicly accountable. If you oversell and under perform, there should be consequences. Every model Ive met has multiple horror stories about dirty, incompetent makeup artists being unable to perform the job they were hired for. In an unregulated industry like this, those persons can have thriving careers for years without ever hearing a negative word. On that note, having some form of universal certification of basic qualifications would be beneficial to everyone. Id even love to see an elite certification level for artists skilled beyond contemporary event makeup.

Contact Info:

• Website: emilymalinhm.com
• Instagram: @emilymalin4
• Other: Tiktok @emilymalin44