Peter Shokeir | [email protected]
A special effects makeup artist has finished work on a new TV series called “Ezra,” coming out this fall on OUTtv and its distributors.
Dessa Larocque, who has also garnered nearly 100,000 followers on TikTok, is originally from Jasper and later moved to Toronto to achieve her career.
Larocque is self-taught and has been interested in special effects makeup since she was a child.
Back when she was living in Jasper, her mother used to deck out their home in elaborate Halloween decorations.
“My mom would always do makeup on me when I was a kid, and then it kind of just went from there, and I was doing makeup when I was a teenager for haunted house, and then I just decided during the pandemic that I wanted to do it as a career,” Larocque said.
She started taking her passion more seriously once the pandemic hit, as she had plenty of time to practice, getting the more expensive makeup and posting her work on social media.
“It became more serious, because I started getting more followers,” she said.
After moving to Toronto, she was discovered on TikTok and hired for “Ezra.”
Created by Luke Hutchie, who also plays the lead, “Ezra” is a horror-comedy series about a gay vampire who attempts to enter the modern human world.
This is Larocque’s first major project.
She started off with six months of preproduction and was later on set to do the makeup of the lead actors and all the special effects, including prosthetics and fake wounds.
“It was fun for sure. I had an amazing time. I really lucked out with the people who hired me. They were all, honestly, just the best people I ever met.”
Larocque currently has a couple of photography gigs and is waiting on a few other projects to start up.
“Thankfully, because of that show, I met some people, some decently big names that work on some bigger shows, and I just did a few on-calls for a movie that’s coming out, and Luke actually has a bunch of projects coming out from next year,” she said.
“Because of my TikTok and just moving to Toronto, I actually lucked out and got myself a few projects.”
To view Larocque’s work, check out larock.artistry on Instagram and TikTok.
