What inspired your career in makeup?
John Perkins: I got involved on the retail and working for Shiseido and then MAC, which offered extraordinary artist training at the time. I then moved to fashion and print and eventually to live television, film and episodic work. Law and Order was my first large show as department head.
Dave Presto: It all started when I was nine years old and I saw Michael Jackson’s Thriller. It was Rick Baker, Rob Bottin, and of course Dick Smith’s amazing makeup and transformations that first inspired me to become a makeup artist. I sought out Dick Smith who was living on the east cost at the time. We would talk for hours over the phone. Dick was always a generous man with his time. He never minded sharing his knowledge and techniques. I would later take his Advanced Professional Makeup Course. I studied painting, drawing, sculpting, art history, etc.., at Hofstra University, graduating with a degree in Fine Arts.

How did you come to work on Gotham?
JP: I had done, Tomorrow People, a pilot with Director/Producer Danny Cannon last year. He offered me the pilot for Gotham about a month before shooting began.
DP: I was working on another project >> Pick up a copy of Fall 2014 issue for John Perkins and Dave Presto’s Inspirations, Influences for Gotham