Ernest Dickerson, a director on “The Wire,” once had a rather specific request. A female character was going to be shot, and he “really wanted to see the guts come out,” makeup artist Debi Young recalled.

“Can you get some chitlins?” he asked.

Young, sitting at the kitchen table in her colorfully decorated Baltimore County home, still laughs with disgust when thinking about those pig intestines, which she soaked in bleach for days. “The poor girl,” she said. “It was horrible!”

To say Young’s dedication to detail has served the Baltimore native well would be a severe understatement, like saying “The Wire” is a pretty good cop show. Over four decades, her resume has ballooned with critically acclaimed projects: TV series like “Watchmen” and “True Detective,” movies such as “Serial Mom,” “Fences” and “Shirley.” Those productions have led to deep working relationships with everyone from Oscar winners Regina King and Mahershala Ali to frequent collaborator David Simon.

Her career was honored in April, when King presented Young with the Hollywood Beauty Awards’ Outstanding Achievement in Makeup.

Young’s craft is also a family affair: The four-time Emmy nominee helped pave the way for her daughter-in-law Ngozi Olandu Young, who is an award-winning makeup artist in her own right. Together, they’ve made an indelible mark on Hollywood while never leaving Baltimore — with no plans to slow down anytime soon.

“I still have a lot of energy. … I love doing the work, love doing the research,” said Young, 71.

It’s no surprise Young has made a career of enhancing others’ looks. Growing up as a barber’s daughter in East Baltimore’s Lafayette Courts housing project, she loved studying fashion magazines such as Glamour and Essence and experimenting with her older cousins’ Maybelline eyeliner pencils. Friends often stopped at her home before a party so they could get their faces done.

“I realized that I made people feel good about themselves,” Young said. “And it was not just the makeup that I was putting on them. I think it’s the words that I spoke to them. I just knew that it was a tool to raise self-esteem.”

Still, she first saw makeup as only a hobby. But after taking one too many distressing emergency calls as a Baltimore Police Department employee, Young obtained her esthetician’s license to pursue her true calling.

It didn’t take her long to graduate from the makeup counter at Saks Fifth Avenue in Owings Mills to booking production gigs — a credit to Young’s skills and also her calming, affable demeanor that colleagues still rave about without prompting.

Dickerson said Young, whom he described as “one of the warmest, most wonderful persons I’ve ever known,” was a huge asset on the sets of Simon’s “The Wire” and “Treme,” which often featured first-time actors.

“I think that she had a great deal to do with psychologically helping a lot of the younger, more inexperienced actors feel more wanted and part of the family,” he said.

Young remembers 22-hour days filled with laughter on “The Wire” set — the kind of memories that form unbreakable bonds.

“It’s such a family. We did all those years together,” she said. “I mean, Sonja [Sohn, who played Kima Greggs] calls me and says ‘Hey, big sis!’ We’re still in touch.”

During her time on the beloved HBO drama, Young met Ngozi Olandu, who was working at the Nordstrom makeup counter in Towson. Young, impressed by the patience and care shown with a particularly indecisive customer, offered to mentor the Morgan State University student.

“I was like, oh my God, this is an answered prayer because I wanted to do something but I didn’t know what,” said Olandu Young, who grew up near Belvedere Square.

The chance encounter changed Olandu Young’s life. She’s been married to Debi Young’s son, Karlo, for 20 years, and the couple has three kids together. Professionally, Debi Young threw her future daughter-in-law into the deep end of “The Wire,” like when she had to help prepare nearly 200 down-and-out extras for a scene in an infamous “Hamsterdam” episode.

Since then, Olandu Young’s career has taken off. She has won two NAACP Image Awards (“We Own This City,” 2024’s “The Color Purple”) and earned two Emmy nominations (“Bessie,” “Mare of Easttown”). Most recently, she headed the makeup department for Spike Lee’s anticipated film, “Highest 2 Lowest,” due out in August.

“I’m just so incredibly proud of her,” Debi Young said. “To see her soaring now — it’s because you can’t buy what she has. It’s inside of her.”

When Olandu Young thinks about what she’s learned from her mother-in-law, makeup doesn’t come to mind first. Instead, it’s how Debi Young treats everyone on set with equal empathy, from the top-billed actors down to equipment technicians.

“I saw how she speaks up for people, how she advocates for PAs [production assistants] and people who don’t really have a voice,” said Olandu Young, 44.

Aside from her technical prowess, Debi Young boils her longevity in the industry down to a simple feat: She knows how to read a room. Her makeup chair doubles as a therapist’s chaise longue, and she helps actors get in the right headspace before the bright lights turn on.

George Pelecanos, a producer on “The Wire” and co-creator of “We Own This City,” called Young “an earth mother” whose impact on sets is invaluable.

“It’s like an aura,” Pelecanos said. “You know, I don’t want to make it too cosmic, but you really can feel it. It calms everybody down.”

Young is unsure what project comes next. She’s taking a breather after losing her 98-year-old mother earlier this year. Meanwhile, her recent work on the coming-of-age musical “Golden” will never be seen after director Michel Gondry and producer Pharrell Williams canceled the film in February over creative differences.

Debi Young said she doesn’t chase jobs, but allows them to be blessings that enter her life, and there’s no shortage of opportunities she can pursue when the time is right. In the meantime, she’ll continue to mentor the next generation of makeup artists, as she as done her entire career.

“I want young people to see that if… [I] can come from Lafayette Courts in East Baltimore housing projects and reach the heights that I reached, then … [they] can do it, too,” she said.

This story has been updated to correct the age of Debi Young’s late mother.