Vancouver Film School Graduate reflects on Emmy win for ‘Shōgun’

A Vancouver Film School graduate is now an Emmy award winning makeup artist for her work on the historical drama Shōgun.

Suzie Klimack tells CityNews she knew something special was underway, long before her big win.

“As I watched the process happen, I was like ‘This is not just a typical show. This is big,'” she said.

Klimack was a part of the team that won Most Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup, for the series that was largely filmed in Port Moody.

“Sitting there, I was thinking, ‘We’re not going to win. There’s no way were going to win. We’re going against Fallout and Vincent Van Dyke, my hero, like no it’s not going to happen.’ And then when they called it, I was just in complete shock. I just started crying immediately and was just trying to hold it together on stage,” said Klimack.

She says the production involved long days, wild makeup designs, and crazier effects that propelled Shogun to a record-breaking 18 Emmys in its first season.

“It was such a big process. It was [makeup], then [actors] had to get the wig on then they had to get the hair pieces, then the makeup, the grunge, the scars, the dirt. And then they had their full costumes. So we would start at 4:30 a.m. and finish around 5:15 a.m… then it would be another two hours to get [finished]. So, it was a three-hour process every morning just to get them ready.”

Klimack adds that a large part of the makeup design process was trial and error.

“So, we took a plastic bald cap which is like a stretchy — it’s what you would use in a traditional bald cap. And we would put it on — slick the hair back, and put it on and then we would anchor it down with toupée clips. And get that anchored down first, and then we would put the custom-made silicon cap on top of it.”

Elissa Frittaion, Klimack’s instructor during her time at the Vancouver Film School says she wasn’t shocked Klimack walked away with an award.

“As a student, she had an eye that you just can’t teach. You can teach a lot of technique, but people have an eye sometimes and Suzie definitely had that. And she was also very meticulous with her applications as well,” said Frittaion.

The popular period drama has already announced it will return for a second and third season.