Margaret Beserra

Margaret Beserra (formerly "Margaret Prentice") grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles, California. After graduating from high school, she attended Pasadena City College in Pasadena, California. There she took photography, art & cosmetology classes. After graduating from college, Margaret began an apprenticeship under special makeup and creature effects designer Rob Bottin. Margaret worked in Rob's early shop, becoming "One of the guys", starting by tying hair onto a body suit on the low-budget movie Tanya's Island.

With Rob Bottin, she worked on every aspect of creating special makeup and creature effects. Margaret learned fabrication, sculpting, casting, seaming, patching, cosmetic painting, hair punching, and also helped Rob on set, setting up makeup effects. Later on in his studio, she became Rob Bottin's head cosmetic painter and, on set, applied prosthetic makeup effects.

Margaret has worked with Rob Bottin on such groundbreaking films as The Howling, The Thing, Legend, and Total Recall, in addition to many of Rob's other well-known films, including Twilight Zone: The Movie, Basic Instinct, Mission: Impossible, Se7en, and Fight Club.

After working on the pilot, special makeup designer Rick Baker gave Margaret the daily task of applying prosthetic makeup as the special makeup artist who turned Ron Perlman into the romantic character Vincent for the full run of the television series Beauty and the Beast. Margaret has also worked with Rick Baker applying special makeup on many of his projects, including Coming to America, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Men in Black II, Click, and Men in Black 3.

Next to Rob Bottin and Rick Baker, Margaret has often collaborated with the film industry's top award-winning special makeup and visual effects artists, including Stan Winston, Greg Cannom, Ve Neil, and Randall William Cook.

Margaret has applied special makeup and cosmetic effects for many Academy Award-nominated and Oscar-winning films, including The Fly, Beetlejuice, Star Trek VI, Bicentennial Man, A Beautiful Mind, and Star Trek (2009).

Margaret has 30 years of experience in film and television, working in pre-production and on set. She is also an active member of Make-Up Artists & Hair Stylists Local 706.