By day, Greg Howell is all about youth and beauty. As a makeup artist with Paul Brown Salon & Day Spa in Ward Center, he does his professional best to take years off clients' faces.

By night, however, actor Howell is taking himself in the opposite direction. As a 55-year-old (who looks 40), playing Morrie Schwartz as a 78-year-old in "Tuesdays with Morrie," everything Howell does to his face and hands is the opposite of what he would teach someone who came to him for makeup advice.

"It's like a reverse makeup lesson: what not to do," Howell said with a wide grin and broad Morrie-like gesture. "You have to accentuate everything you think gravity would do to you over time."

Although Howell and his co-star, Scott Robertson (who plays Mitch Albom) are just one year apart in real life (Robertson is 54), the makeup wizard has to create a 50-year spread in their ages with the help of makeup.

Howell began preparing for his role months ago, growing his beard and eyebrows. "I let them get all gnarly. I started feeling like a homeless person," he said, so he began dressing up in a dapper three-piece suit for work every day. He loves the reaction from his clients, so it's a look that may stick.

Howell also took off 10 pounds to get a more gaunt, hollow-cheeked look. How? "No carbs and I cardio'd out."

"I knew I needed to act it and not rely on anything false," he explained, even though it probably would have been easier for Howell to use prosthetics than to go through the painstaking makeup application.

We went backstage with Howell to see how he transforms himself into Morrie Schwartz.