There was a kind of madness in the country. Eamon De Valera, the prime minister, had this vision of an Ireland where we’d all be in some kind of native costume – which doesn’t exist – and we’d be dancing at the crossroads, babbling away in Gaelic, going to Mass, everyone virginal and pure.
I played Simone, the French tutor for the daughter of a rich Manhattan couple, who goes to a costume ball as Marie Antoinette. While everyone else in ‘CSI’ races around in police gear, I had to wear a ballgown and bustle and two wigs. It was very heavy on the make-up side.
Now that I’m on Broadway, it’s like NASA engineering with the costumes. I was very grateful for the slightly more high-tech ones in my show, ‘Venus in Fur’; our costume designer Anita Yavich is kind of a genius.
I was in fittings for the first costume even before I knew I was even going to be ‘Deathlok.’
I had a Spider-man costume when I was about three, and I lost the mask. So I went to the underwear drawer and put a pair of red pants on my head. My dad came home and just laughed, and I ran into my room and burst into tears.
I hear from many a man around Halloween that’s dressed up as Mama for Halloween. It’s a great costume.
Costume is a massive thing. I think costume makes you stand differently.
I turned my hand to costume design a few years ago when I created the outfits for ‘This Is the Sea,’ with Richard Harris and Samantha Morton. It’s a very different discipline to being a fashion designer, though – you have to rein in your own vision and work to a tight brief.
Singing is the rawest thing. Having been naked in films or naked in photo shoots, it’s nothing compared to singing. It’s absolute nakedness. You are stripped bare! It’s very strange. Acting seems much easier, in fact, because you are putting on a costume – whereas here, you are taking everything off.
At all times, there’s discussion about the percentage of body fat I have, how I look on the ice and about how much skin a certain costume is showing.
Costume really helps you feel in character.
People always seem to assume that we have a full, back-up support team – make-up, costume and a driver – but usually, in a war zone, there’s only me and the cameraman.
It was amazing that during rehearsals, without any of the costume on, the character was there complete. It just happened. Half the time, I didn’t know I was doing it.
There is the danger of over preparation, of loss of spontaneity; over rehearsal is the most terrible thing you can imagine. We do have a very close association between costume and set designer, though. And the cameraman is very important, of course.
In the beginning, when you’re acting in amateur theater and off-Broadway, it was unheard of that anyone else would get your costume. And it was important to get a good costume. You put time into that.
I mean, I’m a drag queen, any excuse to wear a costume means it’s going to be a good time.
If I’m going to rehearse, I don’t necessarily rehearse in costume.
I recently did a play, Athol Fugard’s ‘Coming Home’ at Long Wharf Theatre, where I played one character throughout – I sat at a table and didn’t have any costume changes. Following one character’s arc from beginning to end is a whole different mindset.
I like that totally mixed up kind of eclectic group of personal props and bits of costume and I think the fun of doing that is where I was very lucky with Doctor Who.
‘Agnivarsha’ is not a costume drama like Shashi Kapoor’s ‘Utsav’ or Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s ‘Devdas.’ This one has no elaborate jewellery and clothes. It is sparse and stark.
It is only in the case of the Priestly Code that opinions differ widely; for it tries hard to imitate the costume of the Mosaic period, and, with whatever success, to disguise its own.
There is a scene in one comic from the ’60s-’70s where Batman finds a film, a newsreel film, of his father. This newsreel film is from the ’50s, and his father has come to this costume ball in a Zorro costume, which strangely enough looks a lot like a Batman suit in the footage.
For millennia, human beings have been finding new ways to look at the world through each others’ eyes: from projecting ourselves onto the characters in novels or movies to dressing up in costume to devouring the details of some celebrity’s life in ‘Hello’ or ‘OK.’
People know me because I play the monsters, but I’m most recognized from the small roles in which they see my face. None of that stuff really bothers me. Whether I’m recognized in or out of a costume isn’t a kind of pressure I put myself through anymore.
Most superheroes, when you look at origin stories – before they invent their costume, they just go with what’s around.
It’s often said that costume designers are a faceless group of people. But we can contribute to fashion in a way that might be new and different.
I remember, as a kid, wearing the Batman costume for Halloween and feeling empowered by that as a kid.
It’s interesting the whole Kardashian thing with ‘Offspring’ because really my choices – with my costume designer – for every single episode are based on the emotional journey of that episode for the character.
Burlesque girls were alchemists. They were steel-tough performers who were willing to use kitchens as dressing rooms, haul their costume bags through the snow, and go into debt over fake diamonds, all for the five minutes onstage when they were goddesses.
Somewhere along the line, a concert became a variety show. It was no longer enough for four dudes to play together in front of some guitar amps. Costume changes, an army of dancers, and Broadway theatrics suddenly became standard for a ‘concert.’
With the rabbit as our emblem, when we got to the point in 1960 of opening the first Playboy Club… one of our executives suggested the possibility of a bunny costume. We tried it out, and I made some modifications – added the cuffs and the bow tie and collar – and the bunny was born.
I think that sometimes people don’t understand that a costume that has to be worn every day and doesn’t change the whole movie becomes iconic. It’s very important because it requires a different design process, since you have to make something that people aren’t going to get tired of looking at.
I just love doing costume dramas; I am very lucky, as I see myself as a part-time time traveller.
I enjoyed studying costume, learning about the corsetry and the historical context of fashion. I never had any real intention of being a costume designer.
I love doing costumes. The costume is an actor’s first line, so it’s gotta be right!
And costume is so important for an actor. It absolutely helps to get into character; it’s the closest thing to you, it touches you. Some actors like to go into make-up and then put their clothes on, but I like to dress first; that’s my routine.
You’ve got to leave the reader with more than just a name and a costume – they need to know who the character is, what they’re like, what kind of attitude they have, what sort of role they play.
Suffice it to say, every actor works differently. Laurence Olivier would put on his costume and when the wardrobe was right, he was in character. That sounds superficial, but it’s true, and look at the results.
Period costume films are fun to discover, but they’re not relatable. It’s more, ‘Wow, that’s cool – did it really look like that back then?’ Whereas with a comedy, you’re like, ‘Yeah, that’s me, that’s my friends.’ No matter what, I want people to relate.
I work for ABC. If the thing that ABC is paying me for is storytelling – not to make sure that a costume is exactly right or all those other things – then it is up to me to find the most creative space possible so that that function of my job can happen.
Whenever there was a show like ‘Calamity Jane,’ me and my siblings would be plonked on stage in a costume because it was easier to have us in it rather than sort out babysitters.
I have a message for any young woman who is thinking about running for office and has ever attended a costume party… or done anything stupid on camera. Run for office. Fight for this country.
I love mixing prints. The costume designer for ‘Pair of Kings’ and I have actually incorporated the trend for my character ‘Mikayla.’
The costume designer Ellen Mirojnick is a genius.
I enjoy clothes. My mother tells me how, even as a kid, I used to choose my own clothes. I have a feel for it, and I do the costume coordination for my photo shoots as well. Many a time, even my characters wear the clothes I choose.
I am interested in costume. Clothes in your daily life are important: your choices say something about you, even if what they’re saying is about non-choice. And what you wear in a film is crucial.
For all of my class projects, I somehow turned it into a commercial parody or put on plays. My whole thing was seeing things from a big picture, from beginning to middle to end: making a costume, doing voices, writing a script, making it all happen.
I have a huge costume section in my closet – wigs, mustaches, the whole thing. Halloween’s my favorite holiday, so I have a lot of weird stuff.
I’ve always been misrepresented. You know, I could dress in a clown costume and laugh with the happy people but they’d still say I’m a dark personality.
I used the same designer and costume designer on ‘The Eagle’ and ‘The Last King of Scotland.’
