Kato DeStefan

His mother always referred to him as "Rosemary's Baby." It would make sense since Robert "Kato" DeStefan's mom is named Rosemary. Kato grew up on Long Island as a "Monster Kid," watching the classic Universal and Hammer monster films, Star Trek on TV, and reading old copies of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. "My interest in makeup goes back as far as I can remember. I carried Richard Corson's Stage Makeup and Al Taylor's Making a Monster with me through part of Junior High and all through High School." After High School, he contacted Dick Smith, a fellow New Yorker, and started visiting him at his home in Larchmont almost weekly. "Dick has been one of the most influential people in my life."

1988 brought him his first makeup job on a short film titled Sleep Tight that was shot for Saturday Night Live. Kato and his boss, Dean Kartalas, created a character that needed to look like he was made of sand. They also worked on the low-budget feature Pledge Night, starring Joey Belladonna from Anthrax.

In 1990, Kato moved to Los Angeles and landed a job at Steve Johnson's XFX. He considers those years among the best of his creative life. During his time at XFX, he worked and learned from Steve, Bill Corso, Dave Dupuis, Joel Harlow, and Mike Smithson. "I learned so much from these incredibly talented guys!" During this time, Kato began working on films such as Suburban Commando, Pet Sematary II, Batman Returns, Innocent Blood, Freaked, and Zoolander.

"I was really ambitious and wanted to learn as much as possible about not only prosthetics but also beauty makeup. It was necessary to learn not only how skin moved but also about all of the subtle colorations to it. I realized that my friends who could do prosthetic and straight makeups stood out. That was the look that I wanted to emulate."

Kato considers himself very fortunate to have been mentored by Michael Westmore. Michael has even had Kato join him on stage at the annual Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas to do makeup demonstrations.

Since then, Kato has worked on the makeup teams for NCIS, Horrible Bosses 2, USA Network's Dig, Con Man, MTV's Teen Wolf, Aquarius, and Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse.

Most recently, Kato has been day-checking on shows such as The Goldbergs and The Last Ship and has served as Department Head on the Netflix Series Medal of Honor.

Kato considers himself lucky to have worked on some of Hollywood's greatest. "I've applied makeup on Larry King, Jerry Weintraub, Elliott Gould, Jon Voight, Charlie Hunnam, and Bruce Davison. The days may be long, sometimes the pay is low, and the conditions may not be ideal, but I feel so lucky to be a makeup artist!"

Kato DeStefan is a Member of Local 706 Makeup Artists and Hair Stylists Guild and The Academy Of Television Arts & Sciences.

Kato's many TV and film credits include: Nope, The Santa Clauses, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, Bullet Train, American Horror Stories, Them, Space Jam: A New Legacy, Captain Marvel, Westworld, Bright, and Guardians of the Galaxy, to name a few.