Makeup is one of those categories when we tend to think “most” when we mean “best.” I don’t even excuse myself from that; in most years, my preference for the Oscar goes for a movie featuring elves or aliens or similar; I’ve never forgiven Benjamin Button for beating Hellboy II: The Golden Army for the Oscar, though there are several issues at play there. And frankly, about the only one of Lois Burwell’s movies where you think, “Ah, yes—the makeup!” is Braveheart, and I think painting himself blue was Mel Gibson’s idea, and it’s an anachronism. Still. She made Daniel Day Lewis look like Abraham Lincoln, you know?

I’ll admit she’s served as personal makeup artist on several films for people I find frankly odious, but never mind that. She’s got a heck of a list of credits. I can even almost make a story out of some of them—she was makeup artist for Tom Cruise on War of the Worlds, and since then, she’s done four more Spielberg movies, meaning he saw her quality and kept her on. How she went from working with Michael Caine to Mel Gibson to Tom Cruise, I could not tell you. But she’s been credited as makeup artist for all three. She was second unit makeup head for Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

So okay, when a movie features Toons or Muppets, you don’t think about the makeup. It’s still a vital job. And film makeup is a specialized skill even beyond the prosthetics and so forth of Stan Winston or Rick Baker. Or the Diva in Fifth Element, another of Burwell’s credits. You don’t think much of makeup in The Princess Bride. Painting the Albino white, I suppose, and applying a pencil-thin moustache on Cary Elwes. But making sure Peter Falk looked right on camera was just as important.

Film requires certain lighting considerations. It’s all about the film, which is less adaptable than the people. So to make the people look right on film, you apply makeup. You have to match people’s skin tones in ways that people don’t necessarily think about, because everyone is wearing makeup, and it seems likely that the only reason Mark Rylance knows what kind of lipstick he needs is a long career on stage and screen. It’s not all putting wounds on people in the war movies she’s done.

And the thing is, I don’t even know what work in the movies she’s done is hers, because that’s the point. She is another one of the invisible people we’ve been celebrating this month. You’d know if her work weren’t there, though you might not be sure of what was off. But she’s only even done three making-of specials, and that’s fewer than episodes of Red Dwarf she’s worked on. Though two more than Oscars she’s won.

I don’t even actually wear makeup myself, but I helped bring you information on someone whose job it is; consider supporting my Patreon!