Michael K. Johnston Receives the Vanguard Award at the 13th Annual MUAHS Awards

At the 13th annual Make-Up Artists & Hair Stylists Guild Awards held at the Westin Bonaventure in Los Angeles on February 14, Michael K. Johnston received the Vanguard Award for his pioneering work in children’s and teen television. Across a 30-year career, the makeup artist approached each day on the job with earnestness, propelled by a simple “fear of being late,” as he says. That earnest work ethic carried him from behind the counter of a department store to the heart of children’s TV, where he became one of Nickelodeon’s most trusted and influential makeup artists.

Over the last three decades, Johnston has quietly helped shape the visual language of children’s television, defining how young performers looked, felt, and grew up on camera. At Nickelodeon, he became a steady presence across generations of shows, including “All That,” “Zoey 101,” “Henry Danger,” “Danger Force,” “iCarly,” “Victorious,” “Drake & Josh,” and “Sam & Cat.” His résumé spans generations of performers and includes eight years touring with Ariana Grande as she navigated a sudden rise to global superstardom. But, like many Hollywood careers, he began without premeditation.

Early in his career, Johnston was working behind the counter at Neiman Marcus in Beverly Hills, “pimping cream,” as he puts it, and convinced he had already made it. “I was enjoying myself, and I thought I made it already just by working in Beverly Hills,” he recalls. His career path took a turn when he was unexpectedly pulled to assist on a TV Guide magazine photoshoot. The job funneled him directly into entertainment, and soon after into Nickelodeon, where he began working on “Roundhouse” and discovered that makeup—particularly for children—required far more than technical skill.

“Immediately, I knew it wasn’t just makeup,” Johnston says. “It was listening and understanding the person in front of you. They’re going to school on set, learning an entire script, working two full-time jobs. I was there to support—whether creatively or helping with English papers.”

Costume designer Kristin Dangl, who worked closely with Johnston on “Victorious,” as well as other shows, praises Johnston’s tireless work on the show.  “Michael's job, his entire sense of self, was to walk into work each day with the same amount of integrity, motivation, artistry, and fairy dust as he did the day before and that he would the next day,” she says. “Michael is an astounding human being wrapped up in a sparkly bow with a glittery paint brush in his hand.”

Over time, Johnston became a trusted caretaker to many of Nickelodeon’s young stars, advocating for collaboration and autonomy in an environment where children often lack both. “You're dealing with kids at this age. They are basically too old to cry about it and too young to do anything about anything, so you have to look for a collaboration and an empowerment situation.”

That philosophy carried into his work with the now Academy Award-nominated Grande, whom he describes as a creative partner. “We realized we were on a journey—not just separately, but together,” he says, noting the closeness of working alongside her family for so many years, including her older brother Frankie Grande, who returned for his seventh year to host the red carpet at this year’s MUAHS Awards.

One night, during Grande’s time on “Victorious,” where she played the carefree character Cat, Johnston assumed he and Grande would share a quiet evening in New York—Italian takeout, a movie, maybe Monopoly—until she casually announced they were heading out. She goes, ‘Are you ready?’ and I’m like, ‘What do you mean? I can’t take you out of the house and zip around New York City with you.’ And she’s like, ‘Oh, yes, we’re going.’” That night, Grande took Johnston to see his first-ever Broadway show: “Wicked.”

As his career progressed, Johnston became a vocal advocate for recognizing children’s television makeup as legitimate, long-term character work and artistry—efforts that helped lead to the formal creation of two new categories at the 2015 MUAHS Awards: one for best hairstyling and the other for best makeup in Children and Teen Programming. “It wasn’t about winning,” he says. “It was about breaking that ceiling.”

Now, Johnston looks back on his career with a clear message for the next generation of makeup artists. “Pay attention, really pay attention,” he says. “Read your script; read your producer; read your actor. Don't just think that you're putting eyeshadow on anybody because that is not the case; you are putting eyeshadow on somebody who is going to become a character who is going to run for years.”

With thanks to the Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild, Autumn Marsilio at Cloutier Remix, and Dan Evans at IngleDodd Media.