Costume & wardrobe

James Mangold

And I think what you see here among these men is a tremendous sense of confidence and comfort in this wardrobe and in this world. The other thing that I think is important with actors is that, and this stems from what I was talking about a moment ago, good guys and bad guys, villains and heroes, no one, no person in the world, including Hitler or Osama bin Laden, walks around believing they're a bad guy.

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James Mangold

Who's that? That's him. I think this scene is as good as any to talk about the contributions of our costume designer, Arianne Phillips, who I think has been someone who's worked with Kathy and myself since Girl Interrupted, which is in 1998.

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James Mangold

does amazing work, and I think part of what makes her work so amazing is it's not selfish, meaning it's not show-offy only for herself, but that she has a real partnership with the actors and myself and Kathy, finding answers that work for the actors. I think that very often people don't understand what an incredibly critical role costume design is in the development of character for actors. Part of it has to do with the chronology of how a movie happens.

1:13:51 · jump to transcript →

Ron Howard

When we were first staging these scenes in Whoville, we had 11 sound stages at Universal Studios to produce this movie. It was really like old Hollywood. You know, all the extras wandering around between takes in their Who costumes, you know, eating lunch. I was wandering from one stage to another because we constantly had two or three units in production, and riding around on my bicycle or scooting around on a golf cart.

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Ron Howard

It's important to mention that Jim Carrey was absolutely miserable every moment that he had to be in the Grinch costume. And yet he loved what Rick Baker had designed and loved being the Grinch. But everything about it was literally painful for Jim. The contact lenses that he had to wear, the bodysuit, the hours and hours it took to put on the makeup. And yet he never once said, let's simplify the look.

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Ron Howard

Also have to talk about Rita Ryack and her costuming. She was nominated for an Academy Award. Rita and I have done a number of films together. What I didn't know about Rita is that she had been an animator at one time in her life. Her designs for these costumes are, you know, they're little treasures. They're hilarious, they're ingenious,

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of Gil-galad. In fact, even naming Gil-galad himself, it just was too much information and it wasn't really until Pete got in there in post that you could feel the weight of just excessive information. Nida Dixon, our costume designer, worked very hard. Wherever there were descriptions of clothing,

6:36 · jump to transcript →

Just this moment of Frodo reading a book under a tree would be a really great way to introduce his character. It was funny seeing him standing there after four months or so. And he was standing there with his feet on, in costume, with the hair on, just laughing and laughing that he was back being Frodo again. This was a very important scene because it's the first time we see the size of hobbits compared to a human, or in this case, a wizard, Gandalf. And we used very simple techniques

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Now, the city of Minas Tirith that we're looking at here plays a big role in The Return of the King, another third of the movies. And you'll be seeing a lot more of the city. About half the movie, I guess, probably takes place there. It was interesting for Sir Ian McKellen in this shot when he's walking through the streets of Gondor. He hadn't put that costume on for probably about six months. He'd been Gandalf the White for a very long time. Hopefully they'd washed it.

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Right, okay, let's go. Who do you think the costume is tougher on? Which one, mine or... Yours or Gregor's? -/ see. Yours makes you look as though you don't exist and Gregor's looks as though he's a wrestler. Yeah. Love is all... Fuck, wank, bugger, shitting ass head and hole. I'm sorry about that. You're a Shakespearean actor, basically. Yeah, I know. I never... I know. Shakespeare would have written those words if they'd existed in his day. So this is singing... Love Is All Around was... Everyone in England knows, but it was number one here for 15 weeks after the release of Four Weddings and a Funeral. Bloody hell. And I couldn't think of a funnier way to start the film than actually making them listen to the same song again. Very good. Now, that's kind of good. Take a look, Tom. This must be excruciating for you, isn't it, watching middle-aged men doing hip-grinding.

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Now, for our foreign viewers, Ant and Dec here are the two hugest television stars in the United Kingdom. They are so overwhelmingly popular. They're definitely the most famous people in the film, aren't they? Yeah, absolutely. - Might not realize that if you live abroad. And in England, that line, "Ant or Dec," that's the funniest line in the whole film, and in Los Angeles, it goes by without... With ne'er so much as a crisp packet. And we're very pro-Blue because they let us do this. Yeah. Which shows they must be very confident that what Bill's about to write isn't true. They've now got a new Christmas single with Stevie Wonder. Do they? Oh, my God, which one? - Stevie Wonder's on it. I don't know what the song is. So, you know, God help us. That's my favorite costume. I love that suit. Now, Bill, you're good here. Watch.

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Come on through. I'm sorry your wife couldn't make it, by the way. Billy took the part based on the letter that we sent him. He thought we sounded like a nice bunch of guys. Well... - And he fancied a trip to England. So... And I love him for that. Yeah, well, the difference is you're still sickeningly handsome, Did you feel... - But he does have particular demands. He's a wonderful actor with particular demands. Like the one that he can't be around antique furniture. This scene must have been torture to him. There. - And there on the wall, incredibly, is a picture of Benjamin Disraeli and his biggest phobia of all in life is Benjamin Disraeli, so he's actually being very brave. - It's true. Very sensitive about this. - I know. And I said to him, "You're frightened of Benjamin Disraeli?" He said, "Don't be ridiculous. Who would be frightened of Benjamin Disraeli? "But, on the other hand, his facial hair, terrifying." ls it particularly Benjamin Disraeli? - Yes. Yes, it is. Before he came here to make this film and saw Ben... Absolutely. - He walks around... And in this scene here, just when he's about to do an important close-up, I slipped that picture of Benjamin Disraeli in front of him. And that's why he's looking so distressed. Well, it worked. Wow. Golly. Now he hates you. Yeah. Now he's gonna punish you. There's no point in tiptoeing around today. Glamour. Look at that tie. It's actually made of sheer gold. The costumes were done by Joanna Johnston, and I won't talk about her for 40 minutes, but she was fantastic and did this great thing of always trying to push me a bit further than I wanted to be pushed, particularly with your clothes, Bill. - Well, quite. Yeah. Bit further than I wanted to. -[t made it so much more interesting. She always wanted that third button undone. She also followed the golden rule, which is to spend much more on my suits than Colin Firth. Which is very good. - Yeah.

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Not in the way that the Uruk-hai were. The Uruk-hai, we managed to get a lot of menace out of them in the Helm's Deep scenes and stuff, but we actually set aside some time during pickups, and we had Richard Taylor and his guys redesign the prosthetics of the orcs, redesign the costumes, and what you see in the finished Return of the King now is a combination of some of our old orcs, but a lot of the close-ups and featured characters are the new orcs that we reshot on pickups just to make them look a little bit more scary.

59:43 · jump to transcript →

which I think he did a really good job. I remember we had to reshoot some of this because I wanted the horse charge to be just with the armour plated Gondorians and that word hadn't got through to second unit so they shot, they mixed it up with some rangers like Faramir's rangers in the green and brown costumes and it just didn't look so I actually had them.

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at the time that we shot Elijah on a forest. That's a real forest in the South Island, and we did it as a pickup. So we used one of our focus pullers, Jack Fitzgerald, to put on Galadriel's costume, and it's her that's standing here. And this is obviously a shot of Cate Blanchett we did a long time earlier, but we used Jack for the person who actually reaches down and offers her hand.

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E. Elias Merhige

Now you have to remember also that Willem spent a good three, three and a half hours in getting into makeup every day and all of that makeup is very cumbersome and very, you know, it's not easy to walk around with both a corset on and platform shoes and, you know, the full costume and regalia and then have your head and face completely submerged in all this prosthetics.

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E. Elias Merhige

of days and memories that have been lost in the past. And I just love the looks and glances that she gives everyone. And, you know, the costumes that Caroline de Vivaise's are quite obviously gorgeous, and the colors just really stand out magnificently. When Cary Elwes says, hello, Greta, and she says, where did we meet?

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E. Elias Merhige

new technology, this new form of expression in cinema. Here we use the hat. This is something that I talked to my costume designer about. He's wearing very much the clothing that we would see a young Orson Welles wearing. And I feel that there's this uncanny connection between Orson Welles' work and F.W. Murnau's work. I think that if F.W. Murnau had not made

1:02:05 · jump to transcript →

And I'm Ted Tally, the screenwriter of this motion picture. Thanks for watching our DVD. I got a call from my agent who said Stacey Snider wanted to send me a script. Stacey called me directly. Stacey is the chairman of Universal for those of you who don't know. It said Red Dragon, and I said, "Red Dragon. Is this "the prequel to Silence of the Lambs?" I was familiar with the book but hadn't read it. At first, I was very insecure and said, "Am I like the 'Go-to' guy on sequels? "Why is she sending this to me? 'Cause no one can mess this one up?" And then, I saw Ted's name on it and said, "This is the guy who wrote Silence of the Lambs, "but didn't write Hannibal. "So, this must be special. "Why are they sending this to me? I'm not a dark guy. "I don't make dark movies. I do comedy." -/ think they sent it because you're cheap. - Exactly. So I read it, and I was completely blown away. Not to blow any smoke up anybody's butt in my presence, but the truth is the script was amazing. I called up Stacey and I said, "I want to do this." She said, "Now you get to meet Dino De Laurentiis." And I said, "Dino De Laurentiis "of Fellini fame?" - Scary thought! So I went to his house and first thing he says to me is, "Why do they like you? Who are you? "I never heard of you. What is Family Man, Rush Hour? I don't know these movies." I said, "Dino, I'm a talented guy. Trust me." And thank God, Ted had seen Family Man and Rush Hour, and his kids or someone in his family was a fan. Brett might not have been an obvious choice but Brett is an incredibly talented director and clearly ready to try something new that he'd never done before. He is a great fan of Hitchcock and of thrillers, and brings a tremendous energy and confidence to his work. I was such a big fan of Silence of the Lambs. You know what I was excited about? Most people asked, "Weren't you scared "of following in those footsteps?" First of all, I had three brilliant directors Michael Mann, Jonathan Demme, and Ridley Scott, who made three movies in the exact genre, but completely different. I was excited about it because, by watching those films, I knew what not to do or what I didn't want to do. I was able to decide on the type of movie that I wanted to make. And it helped me choose the tone of the movie. I realized I wanted to make a movie more like Silence of the Lambs. More Hitchcock-inspired. A movie that scared you by what you didn't see more than what you did see. I've read that the most important single decision you make in directing a movie is tone. - Absolutely. Because it's the direction of the film. It helps you with every choice that you make as far as the wardrobe, the production design, the music. The tone, to me, is really everything. Dante calls it, "The language of the film." We have to integrate what we're seeing now, Kristi Zea's set design with its dark, rich color in Dante's cinematography. The choice is even of the props. The integration of all of that, the wardrobe. It's sort of overlooked by people and it should be something that doesn't call attention to itself. But when all of those elements are integrated... Look at this moment here. You get a much more powerful movie if nothing sticks out. If everything is consistent in tone. Special Agent Graham. What an unexpected pleasure. I'm sorry to bother you again... If you see on the left-hand side over there, a little detail, I found this book of Sigmund Freud's office in, was it Vienna? That's where I kind of modeled Hannibal's office. I modeled the tchotchkes, the details.

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But I think the actors and Brett were able to sell that scene. Everyone asks me about this shot, 'cause it's in the credits that we used this shot from Silence. That's literally the shot. - Because when we went back to shoot it, that building wasn't there. Half of it was gone. Torn down? - Yeah, half of it. And people are confused as to why there's a mention. Here is Anthony Heald, everybody's favorite slimeball in this movie. He's a wonderful man. - Wonderful guy. He's a great actor. I wanted to make his hair match like it did in Silence, so I put him in a wig. Writing this stuff was a lot of fun for me, because it was revisiting a character I'd already killed off in the other movie. He's someone the audience loves to hate and an actor who's just funny to me. Kristi kind of duplicated... For example, starting from this cell block. See, I had to duplicate Lecter's asylum and the cell block. She no longer had her original design. She had to get the plans from MGM, which is why MGM's name is on the movie. Not only MGM, she had to go to the American Museum of the Moving Image. To get the plans. Because her plan for Lecter's cell is already part of film history. She had already done what was asked for. And there's Frankie Faison... - Playing Barney again. It was so nice of him to do this for us. The only actor who's been in all of them. - Including Manhunter. He's the only actor to be in all of the Hannibal Lecter movies. I didn't realize Frankie'd be in this movie, or I'd have made Barney a bigger part. Last minute I called up Ted... - We only got him at the last minute. I felt terrible when I knew Frankie was to be in this movie, because I would've given him two or three real scenes if I had known it. This was interesting. This was the thing I was most scared of, because this to me was the most powerful part of Silence. These scenes with Tony Hopkins. Well, and you've got to work on this tiny little set. There's not a lot of options as far as angles go. As far as the body movement of the actors and the angles, it's a very difficult thing to shoot multiple scenes. Pretty straightforward. Behind Edward there's light on the wall, that was Dante. I was very resistant to it because I said, "This is, like, underground." And I do want to make it look just like Silence. But there's a stairwell there or something. - There's a stairwell. There is some daylight coming in, but I said, "You've got to justify it for me." He goes, "Brett, there's these little slits on top of..." The bars, the gratings. And the daylight is kind of seeping in. It looks really beautiful. I like the way you've staged Tony Hopkins' re-entrance into the story here. Of course, in the book, this is the first time we meet the character. There has been no preliminary scene and this is his first meeting. This is the first appearance of Hannibal Lecter in literature or in film. This moment. And we did a Iot of tests with his wardrobe because... This is actually, I think it's a green jumpsuit but it photographs blue. I wanted all the elements to stay true to Silence as far as the set, the art on the wall, which we couldn't get all of it, but we got most of it back. It was also before, so he could have had other drawings up. All the details here are very... You know, that sink. Like I said, the art and the wardrobe. lt was a strange feeling to see this set. - It was like déja vu. It was déja vu for me and I wasn't even there. The last time I saw this set had been 12 years ago in Pittsburgh. And now it's actually in a Hollywood museum. The whole set. What Hollywood museum? - Isn't it in... Mark, isn't it in the Hollywood museum? We can go down and check it out. We should go see it. They have pictures from Silence. This stuff... Tony did a great job here. When I met with him, he said something great to me. He said, "I've done this shock already." I said, "Your relationship with Edward's character "is much different with Will Graham than it is with Clarice Starling "because this is the guy that put you away, that captured you. "And you can't be your old, charming, regular self here." It's strange to play a monster that the world has fallen in love with. And one of the challenges in this movie for Tony and for us was to sort of put the teeth back into this character. It's easy to make this character baroque because this character's so loved. Tony does incredibly well in this scene. If you watch the close-up here, on the big screen, he's literally tearing here, he's so angry. The fire's coming out of his eyes. He's really... There's tears in his eyes, his anger's so intense here. And Edward, I got to be honest, I was a little nervous, I had a lot of discussions with him, I said,

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This is one of my favorites. This was, like you said, is it easier to do the visuals? Not a word in this scene. Originally, there was dialogue. I said, "Let's just try to sell it in their faces." Now she's having to defend herself. He's brought this horror into his family. - And she totally sold it. Atlanta P.D. nailed him. Phil Seymour Hoffman has nothing to do. He's just being slimy. He's just dropping cigarette ashes everywhere and slumped in the chair and... I'd like nothing better than to see the dirt sandwich pulling five at Leavenworth. But maybe there's a better way to handle this. Yeah? What's that? I think we ought to give him a story. The Tooth Fairy's ugly, and he's impotent with members of the opposite sex. This guy on the left is Alex Berliner. He's a real paparazzi from all the premieres, everyone recognizes... This is the one guy that takes everyone in Hollywood out of the movie when they see him. He's a real paparazzi who harasses them at every premiere. That's a tip we got from Dr. Lecter, by the way. So it's true that Lecter's helping with your investigation? Anthony Hopkins actually came down to the set on this day. I'm like, "What are you doing here today?" He's like, "I just wanted to see Philip Seymour Hoffman work." He's such a big fan of Philip Seymour Hoffman's, that Tony came down just to watch him work. Actually, Philip reminds me of a young Tony. Same kind of discipline, same kind of focus, same kind of preparation. I found out later that Tony reads the script like 250 times before he shoots. I feel like Philip does the same thing. I didn't ask him, but it seems that way. He's so prepared. He comes knowing... He comes with his character kind of in his bones. If my story draws the Fairy in an attack on Graham and you nail the scumbag, I get an exclusive. Fuck you, Lounds. I think that's Philip's own wardrobe. It's very distinctive. All right, it was a pleasure doing business with you, chumps.

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that we wanted to re-establish the concept that Saruman's army was growing bigger by the day, therefore the threat was growing bigger. This is a woman, this one, isn't it? Yeah, the orc with the long neck. She's fantastic. The orc with the long neck is a great-looking orc, and it's actually a lady inside there, yeah. Quite a few of the orcs are women, you know, they're not all blokes. What are you saying? I don't know what I'm saying. They didn't bring their own costumes. This scene establishes the whole concept of Fangorn.

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We had all these extras were brought in from the various farming communities within a sort of 50-mile radius of the set. Well, they were amazing. They got up at 2 in the morning to get on a bus in Christchurch to be driven to the set. And that would be two or three hours of travel. And then they would be in wardrobe and makeup at 6 in the morning or something, ready to set by 7.30. So they really didn't sleep, those extras. No, they were fantastic.

1:36:09 · jump to transcript →

to find an opportunity to make sense of that because it's also a beautiful line reprised by Sam in this extender cut. Sean Bean's wearing his costume from the Fellowship of the Ring here which is the linking component that I really like that you know the first time we see him in Fellowship is when he gallops in through the Rivendell gates and he's wearing the same outfit and this is him heading off on what would be a five day journey between Osgiliath and Rivendell. We always wanted to have a scene

2:22:21 · jump to transcript →

You got off lightly with the costumes. - Me? Yeah, you. - I had one. Well, then I got screwed. Why? - With my second costume. I remember some producer trying to get him into a beige cardigan. What was it? - Yeah. Yeah. That was the first time I ever met you. That's right. Horrifying. - Yeah, I think Richard had brought in.... We were talking about how much rain there was going to be... ...and all of that. And so he comes in with a... I think it was a beige sweater from... I think it was, like, a Gap sweater. I wasn't liking it. No offence to Richard. That was quite funny. We used to have meetings about whether we should shave you or not. We still do. - Oh, we did. What, shaving my face, my head? Do you know we had conversations about that? We did the test. We did a test, you still had the scruff... But it looked stupid. With the lighting, it didn't look right. I agree. No, actually, I remember, because we... - You couldn't decide. You were so damned attractive. Because we went up to my room, and we checked oult.... We checked out that tape. And there was some younger pictures of you. Oh, yeah, those horrifying... - No, you looked nice. I think I didn't decide to actually shave your beard until the day... ...of the first-- The first day. - Pretty much. Who's that? What's going... - That's your best friend. Have you seen this movie, Scott? - Who is that guy? What was his name? - Oh, him. Erwin. Erwin. - Erwin Leder. Loved him. - Erwin, the set poet. How do you pronounce his name? - Leder. Yeah, it is, right? - Yeah, I guess. He wrote, like, three poems a day. He did? - Yeah, he did. Did you read them, ever? Well, a lot of them were in German, so I had a good try.

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Oh, and you weren't here for this whole... Were you very glad, because the other babe was there? Yeah. That helped take some of the pressure off... ...but the-- Well, actually, this whole costume, we had a "wardrobe flaw"... Her whole boob escaping. - ...aS Janet Jackson would say. Poor you. Poor baby. - I rushed in as soon as I heard. Yeah, you're really good like that. How have you done that? That's CG, right? That's CG, which I don't think you've even seen yet. We shot that practically, and it just looked horrendous. It looked like three blind mice kind of popping up. And this was all a reshoot that we did. - Oh, really? Yeah, this was all back in L.A. We had a good time. It was just blood and guts. That's me throwing the paint across the window. Oh, is that you? - Yeah. Can you do a bit, like, when my coat flaps around, you're flapping it? That's the prop guy. - Very hands on. Yeah. What were you thinking right here? - "Is it nearly lunchtime? Should I buff my bottom? Am I gonna worry about my camel toe?" Remember how many people were on camel-toe watch because of that suit? No, it became "CT." I would just yell out, "CT," and, "Okay!" There were four people who made it their mission. This is new. This is a new shot here that's just showing Speedman... ...dreaming about the Olsen twins. And so we had some flashes that were supposed to happen right there. This is in the original. Coming up, there's a section where Viktor takes out some of the implants... ...and you see him unhooking himself from that stuff... ... that we had cut out of the original. This isn't it, right? - Yeah, this is. These shots, though.... These, I did all those in post. None of those shots... We didn't take any of the lights down. lt was something we did as an afterthought... ...and just darkened it to make it look like all the lights went down. It actually worked okay. I was worried I wouldn't catch it. I didn't have my glasses on. I couldn't find the takes to put on the outtake reel, but... There weren't that many, because I'd been practising like crazy. Oh, it didn't show. - Oh, really? Look at that. Yeah, look at that. Look at that now. - I was so proud of that. lf someone throws something at me, I tend to duck and wince. The amount of windowpanes we had to replace in the background.

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He'd try that, though. He'd try to get the scarf and maybe a little piece... ...of jewellery or whatever. - He'd come out... ...of the wardrobe trailer, "And what do you think about these bracelets... ...and these earrings?" I was like, "I don't think it fits with your character." He liked that pink spectrum and the fuchsia. Remember when he kept coming out... He wanted to wear the eyeliner... ...and with the eye shadow... - Which would've looked so dumb. No. Like, "Scotty, nobody else is wearing lip gloss." So.... And also, remember, he wanted, like, the really blown-out hair, like...? You know, he wanted his hair longer. Yeah. He had this obsession with the whole Dukes of Hazzard... ...and getting that very.... Maybe we shouldn't out him like that. - Of course I should. His own daughter. He was a chick in the movie, and he didn't get any of the cool chick stuff. I can understand him being upset. - No, I can too. He'll have a pocketbook next time. He'll come into his own in the sequel. He's gonna have Hello Kitty accessories head to toe. Nice pink boots. Great hair, though, right? - Yeah. It was worth fighting with him on that one.

1:36:54 · jump to transcript →

And they also worked very well with Beatrix Aruna Pasztor, our costume designer. And this is the one scene in the film that I think is a nod to the costumes from Peter Chung's animated series. Yeah. Because in the animated series, Æon Flux wears very little and bears quite a lot of skin.

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in the look of her character, in the costumes, in the hair. And I think it's also interesting to be able to see the post-production process of being able to work with digital color timers at E! Film to create this interesting enhancement of the character so that you're always wondering, is she real or is she

13:49 · jump to transcript →

I also just want to kind of just point out the team who came up with, you know, again, like Gale said, in the animated world, it's so different. And Beatrix, you know, did such a great job with the costumes, but also the hair that was created for Æon Flux. Absolutely. You know, the animated series.

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just because when you spend that much time on something, you start to amuse yourself. And that mannequin, that girl that we focused on, became a big thing. I remember in pre-production, our costume designer, you know, we knew we were looking for mannequins, and he was walking by some clothing store on Broadway and saw her and thought, she's the one. We've got to have her as the mannequin. And I remember it became this big ordeal because there was this shop owned by this Italian family, and Akiva, your assistant, spoke Italian, and so she went down there to go speak Italian and say that their mannequin could be in this big movie.

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went out and spent a day. Some very cool stuff. There is some really cool stuff in there. And interesting, good scene work, too. And nobody notices the wardrobe jump. On Elisi, right. Because of time passage. Yes, exactly. Although, God, I seem to remember we were concerned about it. Yeah.

1:13:07 · jump to transcript →

then Akiva, you wrote the speech, which was great, and then we decided to name Willow's character Marley, and we started to use the songs, and I'm just so excited that we got to use, nobody uses Bob Marley songs in movies. And it's unbelievable, and especially Redemption Song, we get Redemption Song in there as... There's a little costume gap there, that's actually the, he's wearing the shirt from the first day, but we decided to... Tweaked it in the DI. Yeah, a little bit.

1:17:22 · jump to transcript →

But Ryan here, I'm almost sorry that I had to cut into what he did for reactions. I also shot from inside the van. Oh, really? And got this great shot of him looking through this murky, milky window talking about his past. Really? Do you have that on tape? I'd like to see that. Oh, sure. I'll send that to you. Okay. I'll call your agent. Okay. Call my peeps. And again, Ryan had a great deal more going on in this scene. It was overwritten. He did all of this straight through. Exactly. Hey, now let's talk about costumes for a second.

1:14:22 · jump to transcript →

Yes. Before we get to the gunfight, talk about costumes a little bit. Because your wife did the costumes. She did. And she did a great job. She did a phenomenal job. How much design, I guess, did you conceive for the costumes, and how much of it was like, let the people do their jobs and just comment on it? The basic order of the day for every single department was, if I see what you're doing, you're not doing a good job. Right. And everything was about extracting...

1:14:50 · jump to transcript →

But as for costumes and cinematography and production design, it was always about minimizing, just being as real as humanly possible. I think I was the only one in the film allowed to break that rule. Yes, and in the beginning you were not. It was only when we realized that something had to break in order to save the film

1:16:10 · jump to transcript →

Jonathan Lynn

so that it would look different from other gangster films. Unfortunately, on the day we came to shoot, it was raining heavily, and we weren't sure that we'd be able to get away with it. But in the way that David Franco exposed the film, he was able to sort of blow out the light outside the windows, and so you can't really tell that it's pouring out there. It did mean we changed a costume. Natasha was going to originally enter

24:44 · jump to transcript →

Jonathan Lynn

Sensuous. I think she managed to do all of those things superbly. And of course, you know, look at her. She won the Jean Poole lottery. The costume designer, Edie Jaeger, helped, of course, by dressing her in a sexy but elegant style throughout the picture. Kevin makes a huge impression in this scene. He's only got a couple of scenes in the film.

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Jonathan Lynn

Otto was sort of a genius with his own costume. And I like the idea that as a Hungarian or Polish gangster, he has a crucifix around his neck. I'll explain everything to you when you get back, okay? In the meantime... He is, after all, a gangster with morals. Although his job is to kill, he certainly doesn't believe in divorce.

29:48 · jump to transcript →

Noah Baumbach

I always feel very uncomfortable talking about people's costumes and wallpaper and things because I feel like the thing I get accused of is putting too much into those things and somehow it distracts and takes away from the rest of the movie. But I think, for me, I mean, obviously I'm an interested party now because I collaborate with you, but before I did that, I always felt that that's an extra-- That is an extra texture. It's about people's, you know, ideas of who they are, and you kind of represent it in very striking ways by, you know, making uniforms a big part of how people do that. And in the case of Cate Blanchett's character, her whole sort of look comes from Jane Goodall in her chimpanzee documentaries, and I think that relates to this thing that doesn't really exist anymore, which is these wildlife documentarian-scientist stars, which are rare now, but there was a time when there were a number of them, Marlin Perkins, and Goodall, and also people like Carl Sagan. That's right. And shows like Nova that were sort of, you know, more commonplace on... It was PBS but still on regular TV. - Right. That was something I think we talked about when we were, well, how are we going to deal with the science and the fish in the movie? I mean, part of it is we don't really know anything about that stuff so we were making it up, you know, because we were working in an Italian restaurant with no research materials. But I think the other part of it is that the Discovery Channel and things like that have made, you know... Seen it all a million times. - It's so amazing, that stuff. Yeah, you can't compete with it. So I think it became, you know, a good reason to fake it. Yes. - And make it deliberately fake. We're better at faking it than we'd have been at reporting the truth. Definitely. I'm intellectualizing it now, but it was more just playing to our strengths. Yeah, hopefully. You know, this-- Zissou's compound, which we call Pesecespada Island, probably inspired by a special the day we were naming his compound. Pescespada, I think, was on the menu. Means swordfish, right? - It's a swordfish. But this was filmed at a place called Torre Astura on a military base between Naples and Rome. And what exists here is a medieval castle that is built on the ruins of a Roman fish farm, essentially. They raised, you know, it was a place they raised fish to eat. And then there's a villa, the house that's painted partly aquamarine, which was built around the turn of the century, I think. And then we built, for instance, the bunkhouse where Owen and Cate are playing this scene.

23:37 · jump to transcript →

Noah Baumbach

Is that him? Maybe we should talk briefly about Milena Canonero, the costume designer, who... I feel like I have-- Tend to have a lot of details and concepts about the costumes because I feel like there are elements of the character in it, and then elements of making a world that the characters live in that's not quite reality. That goes into the design of the movie and the music and the costumes, and... But Milena, what I liked about Milena was Milena brought a kind of-- Brought some reality and some variation to it that I don't think I would have instinctively had. She brought her own set of details to it, and there are many of them, and she also accomplished a lot in getting the things done, because it's a big movie that took a lot of-- It's a big movie, although it's an intimate and strange movie. There's a lot to, you know, making silver wetsuits and all these uniforms, and working with an unbelievably large amount of polyester. She managed to get all this done. She'd also worked with Kubrick. She started with Kubrick in A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon. She'd done Chariots of Fire and all kinds of interesting films.

57:41 · jump to transcript →

Noah Baumbach

Well, I hope we don't sound phony and pretentious on this thing. I hope not. We talk a lot about ourselves. - Yeah. And about work. And some intellectualizing that we never would have... - Done in any other circumstances? Nor stuff did we think about when we were writing it because we tried to write it just more as honestly as we could without really overthinking anything. We're trying to make it something funny and entertaining. But you can't say that for two hours, so you keep trying to say-- And then you talk about wallpaper and costumes. Then you start saying things like, "Well, he's an invention of a child's imagination, trying to connect to..." But I don't know if that's true. We just thought he was a funny character. You know, I'll say one thing here. This thing they're walking on, we were out, and this is in Naples, where they're walking along this and the credits are going. We're driving along and we see this breakwater thing with rats on it. I asked if we could get off there, and the guy didn't want us to. He said the cops were gonna come, and then I said... Anyway, he let us get off. And this is the most strange, bizarre thing. It doesn't connect to any land. It's just a cement thing in the middle of the water. I said we have to shoot something here. This is what I came up with, which is a, you know... It's almost, you know... You would say it's inspired by, if not stolen, from the end of Buckaroo Banzai, which is why I said Jeff Goldblum was in it too because he's in that as well. We probably talked about Buckaroo Banzai, you know, and using this kind of idea before we knew Jeff was gonna play Hennessey. That's true. - So in some ways, Jeff playing it makes it seem less of a steal and more of an homage, but it's pretty much just a steal. I wonder if we'll ever get to see this ship again. Where is the ship now? - It's in Malta, in drydock, and Ian, the marine coordinator, theoretically owns it now. But it was such a beautiful ship. It was such an amazing thing to be able to go on. This must be totally boring for people to hear me say this. And then there's Ned smoking the pipe, up at the top. Yeah. There he is at the top. In whatever dream this is. This is something that Bogdanovich had talked about. He used it in The Last Picture Show, which I feel like you do in a lot of your movies. But it is that idea of a curtain call, of like, you know... Someone might argue that, you know, when you finish a movie, you wanna sort of throw people into the credits and their own lives. And for different movies, then there's this idea of, you know, letting people ease their way out of the movie by giving a kind of, you know, whatever a film version of a curtain call. Yeah, and also, you know, with Ned, because he dies and everything, it's kind of nice to bring him back at the very end. Yeah. And nice to see that Werner joins the team. And the intern becomes official. And he didn't get an incomplete. Who cares what he got because he's dropping out. And going full-time. And this is Seu Jorge playing in the opera house in Naples. We didn't have a real plan for exactly how all these Seu Jorge performances were gonna work in there. I was shooting them wondering, "Am I really gonna make this work?" But somehow, his energy and this thing of it... For some people, it's probably, "Oh, no, we're gonna cut back to the guy playing these songs again? They don't have enough story to tell?" But I think for a lot of people, he works. He weaves something together in the movie, and for me, anyway, he brings something special to it. That makes me wanna go back to him over and over. It's funny, what you were also saying about Roman's second unit stuff, it's funny how when you're filming a movie, sometimes, you know, you shoot some stuff on a whim, and then it ends up becoming a huge part of, you know... A whole other texture to the movie. Yes, it was only because of Roman's second-unit work that made it possible for us to do this thing day one. You know, setting at sea, and day 14, you know, the Belafonte, et cetera. Roman collected a lot of these shots, and the movie needed that sort of simulation of structure that it kind of provides. Instead of it seeming like a basic stream of consciousness, which is closer to what it was. Makes it seem like it's not stream of consciousness. Although we do think structurally, but it's a different structure. Yeah, it's our structure. - Yeah. What we see as structure instead of what Eric Rohmer might refer to as structure.

1:52:47 · jump to transcript →

Rob Cohen

So with the magic of movies, we basically made three locations into one. And again, here's Rick about to get a blast from the past and look at this costume of his from the French Foreign Legion, which is the actual costume he wore in the first Mummy, and to long for the days

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Rob Cohen

give you the feeling of life and people on the streets. But the costumes that Sanja Milkovic Hays did for the whole movie are, I think, rich and textured and befitting and becoming to the actors, as well as descriptive of who the actors are. And the 500 costumes, the nightclubs, the armor, the tunics, the entire

46:27 · jump to transcript →

Rob Cohen

a good example of costume designer working together with director and D.D. Jet's fight choreographer working all of us together to make something balletic and pretty or, you know, beautiful to watch at the same time, hopefully gripping. Michelle Yeoh sacrificing herself to get the dagger, the only weapon.

1:30:08 · jump to transcript →

That point where the soldiers shoot him is actually an end point where a different version of the film, which we hope to be able to show you on the extras, storyboarded, kicks in before the soldiers shoot him. But I won't say any more about that. Hopefully that will appear on the DVD extras. Those costumes that the soldiers were wearing are actually done by...

1:06:25 · jump to transcript →

Rachel Fleming, our costume designer. I remember when she first showed me them, I thought, oh, wow, these are way too extreme and it won't get away with this because they're totally in total bio gear, you know, to protect themselves. But actually, of course, she was right. When you get the energy of the scene up and they actually come into the scene, it's exactly that kind of alien thing that you want. You know, their first sight of other survivors is almost like they come from a different planet, you know, to begin with, before they begin to kind of get to know them as they do here.

1:06:48 · jump to transcript →

Barry Sonnenfeld

Hi. I'm Barry Sonnenfeld, the director of Men in Black II. And I'm gonna talk you through this movie from my perspective. First of all, I thought it would be fun to make the Statue of Liberty's torch... ...because I view her, the Statue of Liberty, to have its own neuralyzer. It's actually the Columbia logo, but you'll see... ...at the end of the movie how that comes back around in a circle for us. This is the second time I've used Peter Graves in a movie... ...to play the same exact role. He was in Addams Family Values... ...and was also the host of a strange reality television show. I love this thing we did here, this Steve Martin bow-and-arrow thing. And I love that the cuts are purposefully missed. They're not really smooth cuts. in order to escape the clutches of the evil Kylothian, Serleena. Mary Vogt, the costume designer, created that really cheesy Serleena... ...out of a bunch of tubes. This was all shot in Van Nuys, and we built this corn... ...not knowing that the corn would rise to 18 feet high... ...SO all that corn is higher than any corn you've seen in your entire life. I love-- We call him Link, and he looks like Gary Martin... ...Who's a head of Sony production. And Gary Martin is one of my many idols at Sony. We left all the strings in on the spaceship, so we... Here's a Jump cut here. We wanted it to look as cheesy as possible... ...so that you would feel you were watching an old TV show.

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Barry Sonnenfeld

Obviously, this is all computer graphics element... ...done by Industrial Light & Magic. Mary Vogt is a wonderful, sweet costume designer... ...who worked with me on Big Trouble and Men in Black I. Elfman did a fantastic score for this movie. VICTORIA'S SECRET This is probably the longest shot in production. This took over eight months of work in the computer. We kept trying to make the heads better and the eels wetter... ...and figuring out the speed that both the foreground guys should move... ...and how quickly the deep background stuff... ... should look like flesh and underwear... ...as this creature is creating... ...What will become Lara Flynn Boyle. Graham Place, the co-producer, has done about 20 things with me. He's my best friend. Just last night, I bought him dinner at Chinois on Main... ...With his wife and daughters. Hey, pretty lady. We're back in Pasadena. This was done with a series of shots which were seamlessly connected. For instance, that thing where his legs went up. Now, this is a separate shot. We've made a perfect dissolve. Rick Baker designed Lara's stomach here. She realises there's a problem between the picture she wants to look like... ...and what she turned herself into. It's all about Lara's stomach. I love the way Lara walks across there, just kind of trampy. Again, this was another dissolve. She walked across... And this is about an hour later... ...because we had to take her stomach off and add makeup to her. Robert Gordon was the first writer hired. Then Robert and Barry Fanaro, who worked on several movies with me... ...and went to film school with me... ...did a lot of work on the movie as we progressed. Now we're at New York City... ...on Sixth Avenue in the upper 40s, lower 50s. Patrick Warburton, who is Agent Tee, was also The Tick... ... which I directed the pilot for and produced... ...and also had a role in Big Trouble, a movie I really am quite proud of.

4:50 · jump to transcript →

I like how she's a little more like of a rock chic now. Melissa told the costume designer has a great way to describe the character without making a statement. She's wearing this kind of velvety jacket with a lace in the back and it's a nice contrast with her at the office.

43:37 · jump to transcript →

It was even longer in reality, wasn't it? Yeah, we cut some of it. He changed his costume more times. Yeah, from here, this is one cut, but from here, it's all done in one shot. So... Here, Jim would go behind the camera, change his clothes and sit there. And it's amazing, it's there already. And then he would come back behind the camera, put his clothes on and be here.

55:53 · jump to transcript →

The character, the idea that I got to work with Keri and have her kick ass and have a gun. Look at how tough she is. She worked for three months. She really did an amazing job. Now, there's Buster. There's Buster. Buster trained me into fighting. Yeah, he trained you and he made a number of appearances in the movie later on, you know, in different costumes. I love this moment.

19:53 · jump to transcript →

The way you see this piece, the UAV coming. Just watch the water in this shot. The way they had the smoke move. I love the music also. Okay, now this shot coming up, I love this shot coming up. And it was this one right here. This was on a separate piece of the bridge. That was the elevated piece, yeah. With these guys the first day. Look at the costumes also. Looking...

1:04:11 · jump to transcript →

was perfect. You're doing an homage there. That was a filmic reference. I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want to make you self-conscious about laying, but it happened anyway. Remember, it just fell out of your panties. Look at how gorgeous Justin looks. This is not a shot of Justin. That's Justin. That's Kurt and Bart. I have to say, yes, thank you, Kurt and Bart. They did a good job on making me these fantastic costumes. I was so jet-lagged and tired and

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We were in rehearsal and you had something sort of like that. I walked down, I walked into one of our early rehearsals. I had gone to Girl Props in Soho. I bought a big freaking flower and then it started to become part of our improvisation and we ended up incorporating it within Sophia's ensemble. Kurt and Bart are costume designers who were known for their rock and roll stylist's work and videos from Britney Spears, etc. This was their first film.

55:22 · jump to transcript →

A lot of these blood hits are CG that are put in just so you don't tear up the suit and go through numerous different costumes just by putting a squib blood hit in them. So that was Scott. Yeah. And through a lot of the sets on the location, you'll notice there's a lot of rocks that we actually brought in. I wanted a bit more of a claustrophobic, narrow, dangerous-looking...

30:50 · jump to transcript →

you know, that I possibly needed, and just a great guy as well. There's Simon, Soft-Hand Simon. Soft-Hand Simon, very good. And who's that guy? Craig Patrick. I'm worried that we can't distinguish my voice from your voice. Who's that guy? I'm worried about that. Wendy, the costume designer. Yes, very good. So we're just going to do this for every single time. Oh, Margo. Oh, Margo. Fantastico. Yes. Margo. Patrick. Hey.

1:39:01 · jump to transcript →

This was part of what we described as our Spartacus sequence... ...where we wanted to have the slaves working on the rocks. Yep. This again, Dan Hennah and his.... It's an astonishing scale that we were able to get for the limited budget. Look at Larry. Larry's got the cruellest villain face. Ever. - Yeah, he was. I mean, Larry Rew's fantastic. He's just great, great expressions. And he was a local New Zealand actor, right? We found good actors in New Zealand. He was from there, and when we started to consider him... ... he actually decided to move to England. He came back from... What's the deal? - Yeah, that was weird. You will not always be his favourite, and when you fall... ...I will be there. I gotta say about Michael, really, because I was talking about Rhona. We just went through this. Michael... The first thing when I did the movie, I thought this is a bit of a fun little ride. He took the character and the part so... You guys saw that. He was so into it. And he was a real, real strong.... He was very big part of actually the way the character developed. He was very professional. Completely professional. And brings so much to the-- Yeah. I think you have to, you know, for these, it's.... You know, It's a different kind of film, but, you know, people that are... You know, If you were really into this kind of genre... ... you'd take it as seriously as anything else. And he is, actually. When you ask him what he likes, he likes Stephen King. He like that kind of stuff. - Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. These two actors are actually very well-known New Zealand actors... ...normally doing theatre and considerably more high-brow stuff. But they had a great time playing these roles. Orsova and Coloman. - Yeah, he's great. I remember seeing him early on... - David Ashton, yeah. David Ashton, yeah. Yeah, when we were going through all the casting and everything. He popped out. He was great. They're very solid actors. They're fantastic people. We're very lucky to have them onboard. And Elizabeth as well. - Yeah. This is so different from the type of roles... ... that she normally gets to play. They had such a good time, though. And who was the--? I Know we had a couple of different... . like, arrangements for their costume design. Who was doing for this stuff here? Who did these--? - Because I know that... Beanie did all the costume except for Rhona. Except for Rhona, right. Wendy Partridge did Rhona. Jane Holland, New Zealand? - Yeah. She did absolutely every costume in the movie. The only thing she didn't touch was basically Rhona's wardrobe. I remember when I showed up on set telling Gary that, you know... ...producing this one rather than, you know, directing... ... that I was jealous of the detail that you guys got out of it. It's like, in the costumes, in the sets, everything. I wanted to make you jealous about some things. I heard that, and you did, and you did. I'm already terribly, over the accent itself.

9:10 · jump to transcript →

That, if anybody is interested... I called that on the day when I saw that bloody scar. That was actually the same one that Guy used for Singe. For Singe. When he gets busted by... - Exactly. When Viktor punches him in the crypt in number one. You see, if you never said that, nobody would have known. Now they... Hey, cost-effective. - That's right. There's a lot of recycling like this in makeup effect. If you're clever, you know... - Of course. I love this scene between them. - Yeah. And just the tension and, you know. And the next time you see them together... ...when they go in that room is one of my favourite moments. That one was like the little homage I wanted to make... ...at Murnau's Nosferatu. You know that creature that comes into that room. It feels like you don't know if he's gonna strike at him or stuff. And then we were really worried about this whole daylight. Forest daylight. Not Knowing what colour to get. We'd never gone outside before in the Underworld series at all. It just popped out and felt kind of, we had our... ...Xena conversations and worries. You know, with the combination of just... The costumes could only be but so different, you know. These guys are supposed to break out of prison and grab what they can... ...from the other soldiers. And then putting them in the forest. You know, Lucy Lawless comes in and it's all over. So we finally got, like a... Went with a bit more of a green stylized than normal daylight. That's the shot. What's funny is that Steven and Bill were actually very, very close friends. And they had dinner every night together... ...and in between takes they'd be sitting there talking to each other. And then get time to get back on the set. And then Bill would be bullying... I need to make a-- Oh, yeah, here. Just to make a little note, we haven't talked about the music here. Paul Haslinger was just... That was a challenging one. You don't wanna be too over-the-top with the music. Yet you wanna create a little suspense. And I think... He did the first Underworld as well. He did the first one as well. - Yeah. I love that. That was a... It's a perfect display of what Viktor is about and what he's like. And then Tannis' reaction to that I really loved. This was another shot that was vastly improved... ... after Clint fattened the visual-effects budget. Before it was like three guys standing around. It was seven guys. Don't be... - There was smoke, no flame. And no fire. It was nothing. The whole mountain behind Michael was CG.

47:34 · jump to transcript →

Ridley Scott

And the odd thing, I said, let's do something odd, peculiar. She liked the idea of just cleaning out her shelves or cleaning out her wardrobe.

1:31:02 · jump to transcript →

that by the footage that he, the music was just so evocative and transcendent. Absolutely. And we were also fortunate enough to have Merritt Allen who designed the costumes authentically and once again, you know, diligent to detail, but

1:18:27 · jump to transcript →