The Origin Story
From a Dallas Salon
to the Oscars
Shunika Terry-Jennings never planned to work in film. She earned her cosmetology license in high school in Dallas, Texas, built a career in the salon, and had no roadmap for what came next.
Her first film credit came in 2008. Fifteen years later, she stood in the audience at the 98th Academy Awards as an Oscar nominee for her work on Ryan Coogler's Sinners — a film she helped build from a month of historical research into period-accurate hair that transported audiences to 1930s Mississippi.
Nobody taught her how to make that journey. She figured it out one set at a time, one relationship at a time, one department head role at a time. TV & Film Hair Academy exists so the next generation doesn't have to figure it out alone.
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