Bianca Appice A headshot of Bianca Appice.
A child of rock and roll royalty is nominated for an Emmy Award for “Star Trek.” Bianca Appice, the daughter of famed drummer Carmine Appice, earned a 2022 Emmy nomination in the Outstanding Prosthetic Makeup category for her work as a Special Makeup Effects Artist on the “Star Trek: Picard” episode, “Hide and Seek,” according to the official Emmys.com site. She is nominated along with several “Picard” colleagues for their work on the episode, including James Mackinnon, Special Makeup Effects Department Head; Hugo Villasenor, Special Makeup Effects Artist; Toryn Reed, Special Makeup Effects Artist; Vincent Van Dyke, Prosthetic Designer; Ralis Kahn, Special Makeup Effects Artist; Kevin Kirkpatrick, Special Makeup Effects Assistant Department Head; and Neville Page, Prosthetic Designer.
On July 12, 2022, Bianca Appice shared news about the nomination on Instagram. She wrote, “The coolest thing about this is getting to share this with so many people I look up to! Thank you @jrmackinnon @silviknight!!” @silviknight is the social media handle for Silvina Knight, Assistant Department Head Makeup Artist on “Picard,” who, according to the Emmys site, has been nominated for 14 Emmys and won two. She is also up for a 2022 Emmy, along with several colleagues, in the Outstanding Period And/Or Character Makeup (Non-Prosthetic) category, for their work on “Hide and Seek.”
Appice Received Her First Emmy Award Nomination for Her Makeup Work on ‘Picard’
Carmine Appice, according to his official website, was the drummer for such bands as Vanilla Fudge, Cactus, the supergroup Beck, Bogert & Appice, and Rod Stewart‘s touring band. He also co-wrote two of Stewart’s biggest hits, “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” and “Young Turks.” Later, according to his bio, he toured with Ozzy Osbourne and Ted Nugent, formed the bands King Cobra and Blue Murder, and played with The Edgar Winter Group. Appice also wrote the book, “The Realistic Rock Drum Method.”
On July 12, 2022, Carmine Appice celebrated his daughter’s achievement with a Facebook post. He wrote, “Congratulations to my Daughter Bianca for her Emmy nomination for season 2 of ‘Star Trek Picard.’ Awesome !!!”
A Photo of Her Dad as a Zombie Inspired Bianca Appice to Watch Horror Movies, Which Led to an Interest in Makeup
Bianca Appice, in a 2018 interview with VoyageLA.com, revealed why and how she entered the makeup field. “Since I can remember, I wanted to be a film and TV makeup artist,” she said. “My father is a musician – Carmine Appice – and I remember seeing this photo of a zombie in our house when I was growing up in a frame. He told me that it was him, and I didn’t really understand how that could be him. It didn’t look like him, obviously, it was a zombie. How was it him?! He then told me that he had his face ‘molded’ and they made it on top of his face, and he wore it, like a mask. It’s probably hard to explain this to an 8-year-old. I started to watch movies with him late at night, like ‘The Little Shop of Horrors’ and ‘The Exorcist.’ Before this happened, it was actually my dream to be a singer, like Christina Aguilera.
“I sang on stage a lot in talent shows and even went as far as making a demo,” she continued. “But then – like every 13-year-old ends up rebelling – I ended up getting into punk rock and watching horror movies and sci-fi movies, and I was hooked. How were these creatures made?! How did Robby the Robot come to be in ‘Forbidden Planet?!’ How was Robin Williams a woman in ‘Mrs. Doubtfire?!’ So I started to research. When I was a teenager, the internet wasn’t nearly as fast as it is now, and I couldn’t order books on Amazon like I can now. So, my dad helped me find books on TV/Film makeup and makeup effects. He was really into horror movies as well, so he was equally fascinated to learn about it all and how everything was made. When I turned 16 – I started to look up schools, because, at that point, I didn’t really care about anything else.”
After graduating high school, Bianca Appice recalled, she attended the Joe Blasco Makeup School in Hollywood, CA, then went to a school in Orange County through an aesthetics program and earned a skin care license. During that same period, she’d drive to downtown L.A. each Monday for an internship with a friend of my uncle’s who was an established makeup effects artist.
Among Appice’s Handiwork on ‘Picard’ Season Two Was the Romulan Character, Laris
“After that, I finally moved back to LA, and started working at various makeup effects studios, and worked on films in between working at the studios,” she said. “A lot of the time, you are only hired on for that one gig, and then when it is over, they lay everyone off, so you have time in between to do other projects. That is when I started to take becoming a union makeup artist seriously. It took about seven years of a lot of low-budget movies and various shop work to collect my days to submit to the union. I finally joined at the beginning of (2018). My dreams finally came true, and I feel so lucky every day to be able to do this as my career. It was a lot of work, and still continues to be, but I wouldn’t change anything about it.”
According to the Internet Movie Database, in addition to “Star Trek: Picard,” Bianca Appice’s makeup credits include “Fallout: Nuka Break,” “The Human Centipede III,” “American Horror Story,” “The Dead Girls Detective Agency,” “Mulan,” “The Craft: Legacy,” and “PEN15.” She also served as the makeup artist for “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” veteran William Sadler, when he reprised his role as Death in “Bill & Ted Face the Music.”