Details About Jeremy Renner's Time As A Makeup Artist

Most actors have had their fair share of odd jobs before breaking big in Hollywood, but Jeremy Renner may have had the most surprising. He worked as a makeup artist for almost a decade while trying to jump start his acting career. "I'd work on the weekends at the department stores, audition all week for film and television, and then go put makeup on women on the weekends. It was awesome," he said in a June 2024 episode of "The Drew Barrymore Show." He notably worked in a Lancôme department store and told them his only experience was "'just kind of clown make-up'" due to his role as the Scarecrow in a production of "The Wizard of Oz."

While he may have known "nothing" at the time about the magic of makeup, his male perspective on cosmetics helped him land the job. "'Wouldn't it be interesting to get a man's opinion on how a woman looks like with makeup on?' So that was my gangster psychological way in," he said on an episode of the "Armchair Expert" podcast in January 2022. 

Jeremy Renner's perspective on a person's beauty is admirable, and certainly helped him as a makeup artist — even if his sales weren't the best. "I couldn't sell sh*t ... but what I could do is witness and understand another human being," Renner said during a November 2021 appearance on "The Jonathan Ross Show." He briefly explained his process of speaking with customers about their makeup goals, and later he added, "I don't make someone feel beautiful, because it starts here," and gestured toward his heart. He also mentioned a few other places he worked, such as MAC Cosmetics and Laura Mercier, catching both his "Hawkeye" co-star Hailee Steinfeld and the host by surprise.

He echoed that sentiment to Barrymore, telling her, "I had a different principle on what beauty is, right? A different connective tissue to red lipstick or color or whatever [makeup] it is. I wanna know what made a woman feel beautiful without it and how do I express her beauty inside with these tools. And then simply just apply it to their face." He made it seem so easy, saying his philosophy was, "Just brows, lashes, lips."