'Brotherly Love' makeup artist on way to NAACP Image Awards

We're keeping our fingers crossed that the film Brotherly Love takes home the NAACP Image Award Friday night for Outstanding Independent Motion Picture.

Not only is Overbrook High School the backdrop, but a makeup artist in the film - executive produced by Queen Latifah and starring Keke Palmer - is Northern Liberties' own Shannon Thompson.

"I'm excited ... I'm super excited," said Thompson Wednesday morning, hours before she planned to hop on a plane to Los Angeles for the 47th celebration of African American superstardom held at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

"My goal in life is to be the first black woman to win an Academy Award in makeup. This will put me on the path to that," Thompson said.

One other local nominee: Bryshere Y. Gray, the Philadelphia-born rapper-turned-actor who stars as Hakeem in Fox's Empire, is up for the NAACP's Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.

Thompson, 36, has been dabbling in makeup most of her life. As a teenager she worked in her family's funeral home, Arturo J. Wilson, where she dressed bodies and learned how to evenly apply foundation. (The funeral home in Northern Liberties closed in 2011.)

"I was learning the basics of special-effects makeup and I didn't even know it," Thompson said.

At Thomas Edison High School, she was the go-to girl for the school's theater productions. Back then she intended to be an actress.

She attended Howard University, where she majored in theater. While there, Thompson took a makeup class with celebrity makeup artist and costume designer Reggie Ray and fell in love with the art of glamour.

Ray, who was the makeup artist for actress Lynn Whitfield, became Thompson's mentor. And through Ray, Thompson got the opportunity to serve as part of the glam squad of major show biz personalities, including Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, Stevie Wonder and Phylicia Rashad.

After graduation, Thompson joined the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, the union that allows her to work on television and movie sets. During the last 15 years, while based in Philadelphia, she's worked on a bunch projects, the biggest including the 2010 films The Best and The Brightest staring Neil Patrick Harris, and M. Night Shyamalan,'s The Last Airbender. She was the principal makeup artist for NBC's short-lived 2013 series, "Do No Harm."

She recently completed "The Miki Howard Story," a biopic of the 1980s R&B singer, set to air in June on TV One.

Thompson's instructional book, Makeup Is Just ... Colored Dirt, is the official textbook for Howard University's theatrical makeup class.

"I love what I do," Thompson said. "I get to work in make-believe for a living."

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