Instructor Profile: Amy Mills

“Each job offers a chance to create something new and different.”

Make-Up Designory instructor Amy Mills loves sharing her expertise in beauty and character make-up with her students. In the more than two years that she has been teaching at MUD’s Burbank campus, she has worked to give students the building blocks to begin thinking for themselves, and delve into their own creativity. With her Beauty 101 course, Ms. Mills strives to provide students with a solid understanding of the fundamental elements needed to create any make-up they choose. In Character 101, she teaches students a variety of techniques – from bald caps and hair laying to injury simulation and full character design.

In her professional career, Ms. Mills creates make-up looks that are inspired by insights she gets from a character’s backstory. She describes her approach: “It is my goal to work with the other creative forces on the crew to render the closest possible physical representation of what the writer or director has imagined,” she says, adding: “Moreover, while remaining as faithful to the idea as possible, I aim to deliver a high-quality product in the most efficient and effective way that I can.” Her credits include creating make-ups for Cirque du Soleil’s Special Events Division, working as Key Make-Up Artist for Spike TV’s popular Deadliest Warrior series, and winning distinctions for Best FX Make-Up Artist on the award-winning feature film The Revenant. She has also spent six months as Head Make-Up Artist for a major medical drama in Egypt. Ms. Mills has worked with actors, musicians and entertainment personalities that include Dennis Hopper, Mickey Rooney, Michael Madsen, Mila Kunis, and Cheryl Ladd, among others.

In addition to drawing inspiration from characters, Ms. Mills gets ideas from movies, magazines, television, nature and the people she encounters in her daily life. She enjoys knitting, reading and hiking in her free time. She advises aspiring make-up artists to use their passion to stay motivated: “Just do it. You would not be given a passion so strong for something if you were not meant to follow your heart. Just remember – you get out of this industry what you put into it; pour as much of that enthusiasm into every aspect as you can.”