Interview with Ana Araújo - Hair and Makeup Director

With a degree in Arts, Nuxa, as she is known by everyone in the audiovisual media, fills a vast experience in characterization, completing several fiction projects in television and cinema.

1 - Tell us about your career path.

I have a degree in Arts, I’ve studied Graphic Design and Painting at Ar.Co (Centro de Arte & Comunicação Visual), and then I started working at a graphic design company. At that time, I did a body painting job, photographed it, and then sent the pictures to my aunt, who showed them to a makeup artist, her friend Catherine Palmeiro. She was the one who encouraged me to take a makeup course, and I ended up taking her advice, and I did it, and I loved it!

I finished the course in 1992 at the Nova Estética school with Guilhermina Seabra and began working with Catherine Palmeiro for a few years in advertising with her team at L'Agence.

In 1996, I was invited to be part of the RTP series RISCOS, and that’s when I started my career in television, where I worked for Endemol on the series Médico de Família, Querido Professor, and Maiores de 20. Then, in 2000, I was invited to go to NBP, where I was responsible for makeup in several telenovelas until 2007, when I came to SP Televisão, where I’m still at today.

In 2022, I won the Sophia Award for Best Makeup and Hair in the film BEM BOM, which was the culmination of 31 years as a makeup artist. I am very grateful and proud of my professional path, during which I did wonderful jobs, met many people, and took me to many countries!

2 - What are the biggest difficulties in the characterization of the characters?

There aren't really many difficulties, I would say some obstacles that lead us to be more creatives. Unfortunately, we usually don't have enough time as pre-production to build the characters, especially in telenovelas. Time, and other constraints, sometimes lead us to have other ways more creative to do beautiful and different things in less time.

3 - How do you prepare for each job?

First of all it's traveling, reading, going to the movies, watching fashion and trendy stuff, and observing the world in general for inspiration. Then I read the scripts for each project have several meetings, many of them, with the coordinator, to find out what he wants. After that comes the creation of a look book, where I design hair, make-up and styles for each character. Only after these processes I’m able to move forward to the next step, the implementation, which I confess is what gives me the most pleasure, where there is always a prior conversation with the actors and we discuss ideas, because it is important that they feel good and comfortable in the skin of their new characters.

4 - What challenges has the telenovela TIMELESS LOVE brought you?

This has been a very quiet project to work on, since not all of them are like this. I think the biggest challenge of this telenovela is to keep a simple, fresh and natural look in all the characters, without great exuberance in the hair and makeup. I think this was achieved.