An Okotoks woman known for crafting creatures and faces for film and television is no longer hiding behind the masks she creates.
Yvonne Cox is in the spotlight Wednesday evenings at 7 p.m. as 14 talented men and women compete to be one of Hollywood’s next special effects make-up artists on the television series Face Off.
The 10th season kicked off on the Space Channel on Jan. 13, with one person eliminated each episode.
“To be a fan of it and go on it was amazing,” said Cox, adding she’s been “obsessed” with Face Off since it first aired. “It was a dream come true.”
Third time’s a charm for Cox, who auditioned for the show’s sixth and ninth seasons after her classmate in the Vancouver Film School’s make-up design for film and television program competed in a previous season.
“When one of my former classmates got on I was like, maybe there is a possibility for me too,” she said. “There’s a huge number of people who apply so it’s quite the audition process to get on the show.”
Despite being turned down after submitting a video showing her work in 2012 and 2015, Cox refused to give up.
“It just encouraged me to keep working on my portfolio,” she said. “Auditioning for Face Off kept me in the game and kept me bettering myself. I was very persistent.”
Cox has had a love for make-up effects since her childhood, dressing elaborately for Halloween and she was awarded the cosmetology award in the Foothills Composite High School’s cosmetology program. She worked as a full-time hair dresser at Hair Studio on North Railway Street for four years.
“I grew up on sci-fi and horror films,” she said, adding she loved all things monsters and Halloween.
Cox had been involved with make-up effects since graduating from the design program in 2010. She went on to work in an effects shop in Vancouver for eight months doing work for Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Red Riding Hood and Mr. Popper’s Penguins.
In the latter film, Cox’s team was tasked to construct a penguin for Jim Carrey to hold that was rigged to poop on the Canadian actor’s shoe.
Cox then moved to Calgary in 2011 and worked on local indie films being made in the area. On the side she worked as a Styrofoam sculptor doing props for mall displays and Disneyland.
She credits these experiences to being selected to compete on Face Off.
“It really helped in the audition process to get on the show,” she said. “It made me a better sculptor so I could sculpt really fast.”
The competitive environment was a very different experience for Cox.
In the first two episodes the competitors were paired and given a project to complete in just three days.
Filming took place for two months last summer.
“The first two were quite challenging because you don’t know the lab,” said Cox. “You have to come up with your design and go to the lab and start working on it. It is difficult at the beginning because you don’t know each other well.”
Cox and her partners weren’t on the same page when creating an alien bounty hunter in the first episode and game board character with dice in the second.
Luckily, she escaped elimination both times.
“It’s good to have somebody to bounce ideas off of but if you’re on different wavelengths it can go a different direction,” she said.
Unable to reveal what happens in the third episode, which airs after the Western Wheel hits doorsteps, Cox could only say, “Since I was on the bottom again I was like, I really have to step up my game for the next challenge. I put as much as I could into it because I didn’t want to end up there again.”
With filming complete and a winner established, which will remain a secret until the final episode airs in April, Cox said watching it all unfold on television is “weird.”
“You have no idea what parts they will pick up,” she said. “You forget the cameras are there and are like, I don’t remember saying that.”
Although Cox can’t reveal how far she made it, she did say she looks forward to a bright future.
“The reason why I ended up auditioning for the show in the first place was so I could get my name out there,” she said. “It’s going to open up a lot of doors for me. Now I feel like I can do anything.”
Although Cox loves Okotoks, having moved here from the United States at age eight and again two years ago from Calgary, she doesn’t expect to be in town long.
“When you’re in a smaller town in Canada there is not as much make-up effects out here so I’m going to see where this all takes me,” she said. “Whatever opportunity comes my way I’m going to jump on.”
Tune in to watch Face Off on the Space Channel Wednesdays at 7 p.m. or watch episodes the following day at www.space.ca/show/face-off/
To learn more about Face Off go to syfy.com/faceoff and to learn more about Cox go to yvonnecox.com
