Kazu Hiro

Kazu Hiro (born Kazuhiro Tsuji, ; born May 26, 1969) is a Japanese and American special make-up effects artist and visual artist. He won the Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for the biographical films Darkest Hour and Bombshell (2019) after earning nominations for the comedies Click (2006) and Norbit (2007). He was additionally nominated for Maestro (2023) and The Smashing Machine (2025). Smith invited Kazu Hiro to work on the film with him and this began his film career.

After his work on Looper, Kazu Hiro retired from the film industry making him the first Asian to win that award.

He won the award again in 2020 for his work in the 2019 film Bombshell, where he made prosthetics for Charlize Theron as news anchor Megyn Kelly.

In 2024, Hiro received an Academy Award nomination for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for his work with Maestro. In January 2026, he received his most recent Academy Award nomination for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for his work with The Smashing Machine. His nomination was shared with Glen Griffin and Bjoern Rehbein.

Personal life In March 2019, Tsuji became an American citizen and officially changed his name to Kazu Hiro. At the 2020 Academy Awards, Kazu Hiro said he became an American citizen because he "got tired" of Japanese culture, which he found "too submissive" and a place where it is "hard to make a dream come true".

Filmography

Awards and nominations