Mia Neal Celebrity Hairstylist
Mia Neal redefines the idea of celebrity hairstylist. She won the 2020 Oscar as head of the hair and wig department for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom; and made history as one of two black women along with Jamika Wilson (personal hairstylist to Viola Davis) to win the category. And most recently she won an Emmy for outstanding hairstyling for the NBC production of Annie Live.
Ironically, Neal the forty-three-year-old Gary, Indiana native wanted to avoid hairdressing. Neal said, “I had two aunts working as stylists in salons. They didn’t have any benefits and never got to own anything.” But Neal still wanted to make sure she could earn a living so despite her feelings enrolled in Merrillville Beauty College and learned the trade. Still determined to find an alternate career she attended Columbia College in Chicago. She said, “In the past I didn’t do well academically, but there I was a straight A student. It’s a school that specializes in the arts and because of its smaller size I was able to have a dialogue with the professors.”
That dialogue seems to be the start of Neal’s ability to listen and gain the expertise that led her to these celebrated moments.
After being accepted into the nine-month Julliard Professional Apprentice Program in wig and makeup design she conquered any obstacle and pursued every opportunity. Neal said, “We received an $800.00 monthly stipend and had to live on that in Manhattan, so I shared a place with four other Julliard Students. I slept in a closet with my clothes hanging over my head and paid $400.00 in rent.”
During the end of her internship, she was working on the Broadway production of 42nd Street. There she worked under the supervision of Renee Kelly another venerable hairstylist.
Kelly told me, “Mia Neal had a great willingness to learn. In several of the musical numbers each wig needed to be identical on each character, and that required a precise roller set. Mia understood that it mattered.”
Understanding what matters and recognizing experts in the industry is what keeps propelling Neal further. When she left Julliard, she knew how to ventilate a wig, but it takes more than that to make a wig. For that she went to work with the master Tom Watson and worked with his team for seven years. She said, “It takes years to know how to build and blend a wig and if there was a mistake to make; I made it.” It’s probably knowing what to avoid, which kept Neal sprinting along Broadway, from A Raisin in the Sun in 2014, to her Drama Desk Award for wig and hair design for Shuffle Along.
With all her experience and guidance, it wasn’t until she worked with costume designer Ann Roth that in Neal’s words: “Changed me from a hairstylist and wigmaker to a hair designer.” The two first met on the Chris Rock film First Five. Ann Roth has won two Oscars (one for Ma Rainy) a 2013 Tony Award and been nominated for three Emmy Awards for her work which began in the ‘60s. Neal said, “Ann taught me how to breakdown a character. I needed to understand how much time this person had to do their own hair, and what kinds of brushes and combs they used. Often there can be a lot of imperfect hair, grease and even dirt under fingernails.”
Mia Neal has not just learned how to breakdown a character, but all kinds of barriers and it seems this is just the beginning.
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