Las Cruces’ Pepper Gallegos turns ‘hobby’ into career in movie industry

By Mike Prepare dinner

With a level in accounting, Pepper J. Gallegos began doing make-up as a interest – engaged on the lately deceased in funeral houses to make them look extra pure.
Within the final 15 years, she has parlayed that “interest” right into a full-time profession, changing into a extremely revered and sought-after skilled make-up artist within the film business.

“I’ve labored with Pepper on a number of movies. She is a pleasure to be round and an absolute skilled,” mentioned New Mexico State College Inventive Media Institute professor Ross Marks. “You’ll be able to rely on Pepper to not solely do a fantastic job when it comes to make-up, however to raise the work of her workforce and your entire crew. Her constructive angle and nice work ethic are contagious. I look ahead to working along with her on many extra initiatives.”

A local of Hobbs who grew up in Silver Metropolis, Gallegos has lived in Las Cruces since 1991.

And, though many of the motion pictures she has labored on have been produced in northern New Mexico, “I’ve lived in Las Cruces the entire time,” Gallegos mentioned. It was a choice she made early on in her profession to offer her three youngsters, now grown, a steady dwelling.

“I needed to make the sacrifice,” Gallegos mentioned. “It has been a problem.”

However there’s “at all times a technique to do one thing in the event you’re decided,” she mentioned.

Gallegos has completed make-up for actors in native productions and for commercials, tv collection and main movement footage.

Among the many most well-known individuals to sit down in her chair are Oscar winners Christian Bale and Tommy Lee Jones. Gallegos described Bale as “a really real individual,” and mentioned Jones was “very severe, form. I used to be amazed by how proficient he was.”

She has additionally completed make-up for Linda Hamilton, whom she met whereas engaged on “Refuge,” a 2010 film written and directed by the late Tony-winning playwright Mark Medoff.

 “I completely love her as a human being,” Gallegos mentioned of Hamilton. “She has a real love of individuals.”

Working backstage on productions like “Transformers II,” “Stargate SGI,” and the pilot for “Breaking Unhealthy,” Gallegos has additionally completed make-up for Christopher McDonald, Thomas Jane, Jon Bernthal, Jason Momoa in “Stargate Atlantis” and lots of different actors.

Gallegos mentioned Ben Browder (“Farscape”) might be her favourite actor amongst all these she has labored on. “He’s a very good ole Texas boy,” she mentioned. And along with her, he was the one American on a film they labored on collectively in Vancouver, Canada.

However huge names and well-known faces don’t impress Gallegos.

“I don’t have a look at actors. I work on them,” she mentioned. “I used to be a sculptor and a painter earlier than. I simply now do it on individuals.”

Gallegos is thought particularly for her tattoo work, and she or he labored on many uncommon make-up initiatives, together with placing hair on a prosthetic machine and creating many “deadly” wounds and “making up the our bodies.”

“I’ve killed individuals left and proper,” Gallegos joked.

For “Breaking Unhealthy,” she needed to make actor Aaron Paul appear to be he had been kicked within the face, she mentioned.

No make-up request shocks Gallegos anymore, she mentioned. “I did put a tampon up somebody’s nostril as soon as. You do what they let you know.”

On the identical time, Gallegos has refused to do something that may put an actor in peril, together with placing contact lenses in a single actor’s eyes.

Make-up artists and different crew members are “the guts and soul of the film business,” she mentioned. Professionals who do hair, make-up and wardrobe “rework individuals into the character. With out us, an actor and digicam could be standing there not realizing what to do.”

“Pepper is a good ambassador for the movie business in New Mexico,” mentioned state Sen. Jeff Steinborn, D-Doña Ana, who’s president of the nonprofit Movie Las Cruces board of administrators. “By way of her work on a number of the greatest movies and TV reveals made within the state, she reveals Las Crucens the potential we’ve to create these jobs right here. Plus as a fellow redhead with a enjoyable character, you’ll be able to’t assist however like her. We’re fortunate to have Pepper’s management in Movie Las Cruces.”

“Pepper is a type of individuals who exudes constructive power regardless of the place she goes as a result of she is really captivated with her craft,” mentioned New Mexico State College movie instructor Rajeev “Raj” Nirmalakhandan. “She will get a thrill out of working with actors and artistic professionals whereas paying meticulous consideration to the art work she creates on their our bodies. Her expertise and enthusiasm make her a perfect individual to collaborate with. Having labored within the business for a few years, she is exceptionally educated concerning the enterprise and craft of filmmaking, far past her area of interest. Final semester, she spoke in my class and she or he was one of many college students’ most favourite audio system!”

Gallegos can also be a author. She has written a comedy collection known as “Flaming Straight Man,” and filmed a teaser. Gallegos is now advertising and marketing the collection.

Her recommendation to others who need to work in make-up or different facets of filmmaking: “Observe your coronary heart; no matter is asking to you – do it,” she mentioned.

“Perceive the work behind your job,” Gallegos mentioned.

If you wish to do make-up professionally, observe as a lot as you’ll be able to, she mentioned. “Do it on all people. That’s the way you study and that’s the way you continue to learn. You simply do it.”