Emmy-Winning 'Euphoria' Makeup Artist Donni Davy Breaks Down Her Favorite Looks
Native Angeleno Doniella "Donni" Davy has worked as a makeup artist and department head on projects including 2017 Academy Award Best Picture winner Moonlight, Under the Silver Lake, If Beale Street Could Talk, Ford v Ferrari and The Underground Railroad miniseries. But she's perhaps best known for her work on HBO drama Euphoria—for which she won Emmy Awards in 2020 and 2022. Davy is also the co-founder and creative director of Half Magic—a bold line of vegan, cruelty-free makeup products and award-winning self-adhesive face gems that make some of her signature Euphoria looks easier to achieve. Here, Davy breaks down some of the favorite looks she's created for the show.
Photo by Eddy Chen/HBO
Season 1
Episode 6 - Kat's Halloween look, and Episode 8 - Cassie's ice skating look
"My favorite looks from Season 1 were Kat’s Halloween makeup with the upside-down sparkly crosses that were painted under her eyes with black lipline and Cassie’s fantasy ice skating look where she had face gems all over her face. I had to go really big with that look because I knew she would be moving around a lot on the ice, and it wouldn’t be featured up close or for very long so I wanted it to be visible while she was twirling in and out of the shadows. This looked added to the fantasy of the scene so it needed to be clearly not of Cassie’s real life."
Photo by Eddy Chen/HBO
Season 2
Episode 3 - Cassie as Maddy
"My favorite look from Season 2 was when Cassie went to school looking like Maddy to try and get Nate’s attention. We did a huge white winged liner on her that was lined with rhinestones. We were on the fence between doing a turquoise liner and white, because the turquoise would have matched her outfit, but we felt like the white was a little more what Cassie would do and matching to the outfit felt like more of something that Maddie would have done. Also, the white had an innocence to it that we felt would be very fitting to the moment.
The reason I liked doing this look on Cassie so much is because it wasn’t a normal Cassie look—it was one character imitating another character, which was such a cool exercise. It just really hit with her makeup, hair and costumes, and it said what it needed to say."
