This morning, Baltimore native Tené Wilder took one step closer toward realizing her Hollywood dream.

Wilder was a key hairstylist on “Sinners,” which earned an Academy Award nomination on Thursday for best makeup and hairstyling. Winners will be crowned live on March 15 in Los Angeles during the 98th Oscars ceremony.

For Wilder, who first began styling hair at age 12, the recognition is the result of dogged determination — and “long, long, long hours.”

“I’ve always believed in myself,” Wilder said in late December over coffee inside Belvedere Square Market. “I said, ‘It’s either going to work or it’s not.’ But if you keep pushing forward, it will work.”

She’s already living proof: The 49-year-old won a Primetime Emmy Award in 2021 for “Pose,” the FX series about queer ballroom culture. “Sinners” is raising Wilder’s profile once more, with her work contributing to nominations for an NAACP Image Award, a Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild Award and now, an Oscar.

While her busy schedule often keeps Wilder in locations around the country, the Milford Mill Academy alum remains strongly connected to Baltimore. Wilder, who moved to Atlanta three years ago to “try something different,” still returns to her hometown monthly to service long-time clients who miss her.

Afrika Saunders, a client of 12 years, isn’t surprised by Wilder’s Hollywood success. She has a gift of uplifting others, said the Columbia-based attorney.

“We’ve become somewhat of a family because when you’re in her presence, you’re raised to a higher vibration,” Saunders said. “She brings the best out of you.”

That was her goal on “Sinners,” the Ryan Coogler-directed musical drama that has become both a critical darling and a box-office smash, with nearly $369 million worldwide sales, per Box Office Mojo.

Wilder landed the gig, she said, thanks to a strong working relationship with Shunika Terry, a key figure in “Sinners’” hair department. She and Wilder first met working together on the Baltimore-based “House of Cards” set.

For “Sinners,” Wilder developed character-driven hairstyles for actresses Wunmi Mosaku (Annie), Li Jun Li (Grace Chow), and Lola Kirke (Joan). The style choices had to reflect both the story’s setting — 1930s Mississippi — and the characters’ narrative arcs, Wilder said.

The Grace character, for example, sported an updo with her hair pinned up in the back. “She was a working lady,” Wilder said, “so of course she would have it up.”

The humid air in Louisiana, where the movie was shot, only made the job trickier. But the experience was “amazing,” Wilder said, like when the cast and crew danced “The Electric Slide” together.

“Like everybody,” she said, smiling at the memory. “We had a very, very good time.”

In the trailer, Wilder has a calming influence on actors, said makeup artist Caroline Monge, who worked with Wilder on the new Netflix thriller “His & Hers.” There’s no drama.

“The way she works makes it look very easy,” Monge said. “But when you see the actual work that she does, it’s incredible. I’m like, ‘Wait a minute, you just pulled that out in 10 minutes!’”

Wilder learned at an early age the transformative power of hair, crafting styles for fellow female churchgoers as a preteen. Years later, she opened the Wilder Experience, a spa and salon she ran in Baltimore for more than 15 years. It was there, on North Liberty Street, where Wilder realized her purpose with clients.

“I just want the person to feel as comfortable as they are — in their skin [with] what they have,” she said. “Adore what God gave you.”

But after years of going back and forth between her Baltimore business and Hollywood, a costly repair left Wilder with an ultimatum in her mind: Either fix the salon’s broken elevator or fully pursue TV and film work. She closed the Wilder Experience in 2019.

“It was a hard decision,” she said. “It wasn’t the end of my career. It enhanced my career. It basically prepared me for what was coming.”

Since then, her résumé includes projects that range from superhero blockbuster (“Wonder Woman 1984”) to 19th-century period drama (the Apple TV series “Dickinson”), and plenty in between (“Clifford the Big Red Dog”). Along the way, life happened — Wilder, a mother to a daughter and son, recently became a grandmother.

Looking around Hollywood sets these days, Wilder is heartened to see more people of color and from marginalized groups telling their stories with the help of diverse casts and crews. It’s a far cry from what she saw when she started.

“I tell people all the time: The world is like a crayon box,” she said. “It’s all different colors which makes the world. It’s a beautiful thing.”