Are the Coen brothers’ many legendary films not, at first glance, the stuff of fashion fantasia? Think again. Chock-full though they are with salt-of-the-earth types, for whom style doesn’t come first and foremost, you’d be hard-pressed to find more iconic looks in the past 30-plus years of cinema. Consider Jeff “The Dude” Lebowski’s incessantly imitated Pendleton Westerley cardigan and pajama pants, or the standard-issue police parka worn by Frances McDormand back in Fargo. They’re all the work of Mary Zophres, Oscar-nominated costume designer and a force behind all the Coens’ features dating back to 1996. (Beyond Joel and Ethan’s oeuvre, her credits include Catch Me If You Can and Ghost World.) With the Coens’ mammoth, almost Altman-esque ensemble epic Hail, Caesar!—a tale of a studio exec in the golden age of Hollywood—in theaters now, we caught up with the designer to talk about Scarlett Johansson’s mermaid moments, Josh Brolin’s scene-stealing perm . . . and just what happens when the budget runs out.
You’ve been working with the Coen brothers for years and years—how has your collaborative process evolved over the course of so many films?
The funny thing is that it’s so much exactly like it was the first time I worked with them! We started way back on Fargo. Now I’ve been doing it for 20-some-odd years, so maybe that’s why. Sometimes [the Coens] will call me and give me a few words about the movie coming up—but not on this one. On this one, they just said, “We’re going to send you a script.” They did not have a green light [from the studio], which is unusual; usually by the time they send me a script they’ll have a green light. We read the script, and then we have general conversations. On this film, because there was so much reference to older Hollywood films, we talked about what I would watch and what they thought of when they were writing. Sometimes it’ll be just research. In fact, this is probably the only movie that I can think of where we’ve referenced other films right off the bat. Then I just started researching and just intuiting. I read the script and I called Joel and I said, “This is like a costume designer’s dream—thank you for writing this script!”
I had a lot of research because there are a lot of pockets of the film. It’s about a studio head, two days in his life. He’s in charge of a studio much like MGM, and he drops in on six films that they’re making. One of them—they called it a swimming picture, like the Esther Williams movies; one is a musical, very much in a Gene Kelly fashion; another one is a Western; another one is like a Bible movie, a Ben-Hur type; another one is a parlor drama . . . We had a lot of different categories to look at, so just to be sure that I was on the right track, we started pulling references from a lot of different films. The other treasure trove I found was in the MGM archives and in the Academy. They were kind enough to loan us their entire library. There were photographs of the crews, and that’s not something you often see back in those days, because people wanted to see the movie stars, not those people behind the scenes. Just in general, people dressed up and were more formal, [up until] the ’70s. There are no shorts, no sneakers—people were dressed. Just to see how technicians wore coats of the trade, literally. They had workwear that was related to what they were doing on set, and these old pictures were fantastic. Then there was a great piece in a magazine on Hollywood and the people who were the movers and shakers. It was from 1948, and our movie is 1948-1949. It was producers, a writer, cinematographers, and it was all in color, which is pretty rare.
I had tons and tons of research, and [Joel and Ethan and I] took a couple of hours, and then I had a very clear vision in my head of how to proceed. I did sketches and I put my boards together. There must have been at least 15 or so boards for this movie, if not more. The next time I saw them, it was right before I started the film, and we go over the boards. Sometimes they like them and sometimes they go, “No, that’s not right.” That method is very much like what we did way back on Fargo. I’ve asked them, “Oh, do you want to do it on a computer?” “No, no, just do what you always do.” I never take it for granted that they’re going to hire me, but I’m so grateful. I really feel like I am the luckiest costume designer in Hollywood because they’re so much fun to work for.
It must be such a challenge but—as you alluded to—so much fun to work on a massive ensemble movie like this.
In almost all of the movies within a movie, they have a bigger Hollywood star to act in that part. It’s not Esther Williams, it’s Scarlett Johansson, but it’s a very clever tool, I thought. Scarlett only worked for one week, Ralph Fiennes only worked for one week. It was big, but honestly, it was the best job I ever had. Even though every one of their films has been great, this one was the most fun. It was one of the hardest, but it was just awesome every day. We had very little money. In fact, I ran out of money toward the end of filming, and I was sewing things myself at the very end; we had to pull it out of the costume shop. We had some constraints because the scope of the film was huge and the money we had was not quite enough, but for the autonomy that the Coen brothers have—they explained it very well before we started shooting—they have autonomy because they never go back to the studio and ask for more money; they make it work. There are no scrutinizing visits from the studios. So there were some choices that I had to make, and I had to take the less expensive route. What’s great about Joel and Ethan is they know so well ahead of time what the shot is going to be and the scope of the shot, so you know where to spend your money; you know where you can save on certain things.
It sounds like each of the films-within-the-film were fascinating, but did you have a favorite in terms of designing?
I can’t say that I had a favorite. Tilda [Swinton’s] little section, even though she’s in that quote-unquote “real” part of the movie, she’s very specific and she was meant to pack a punch. The colors that we used on her costumes were more vibrant than the colors that we used in the rest of the “real” part of the movie; when we went to the movies-within-a-movie, we wanted to impress upon the audience that it was the start of Technicolor. But Tilda’s section was super fun. And I loved designing mermaid costumes. Those Esther Williams movies, they’re magical to look at. The MGM studio had a complete staff, working full time; you didn’t have to hire someone. There was never a thought like, “Oh, this costume is going to be too much,” and they had the [swimming] pool going all the time, where they could go and do tests. We did not have that! We did shoot in the same pool that Esther Williams shot in at MGM. I think it’s one of the deepest tanks in the city, but it hadn’t been used in a long time. Like a week before, they were still cleaning it and painting it, and so all of our research and development had to happen kind of in a vacuum. We had to use [archival] research as our R&D because we didn’t have camera tests in the water or any of that stuff. I used to love to jump off this high-dive at the International Swimming Hall of Fame, where I grew up in Florida, and there’s something thrilling about just taking a leap and not knowing if it’s going to work, and then it does! On the ballroom drama we did these sculptural Technicolor gowns that were inspired by Charles James—it was just fun.
In terms of input of the cast, do you have those discussions with actors about their characters?
Some actors do, some actors don’t, [and] some films are more conducive. I think on a Coen brothers film, to be honest, actors are slightly intimidated. They know that I have this history with [Joel and Ethan], and they’re very receptive. They listen and they absorb, and there’s this real respect for the process of the filmmaking on a Coen brothers film. Even Ralph Fiennes—I think he’s probably somebody who [typically] has a lot of input. He had one change in the movie, and he just kind of rode along and was very trusting. Everybody was kind of like that on this film. To me, Josh Brolin’s look in this film, he was transformed completely. I did Gangster Squad with him, and I said to Joel and Ethan, “This is the same time period as Gangster Squad, we have to do everything in our power to make him look completely different.” He was almost like a movie star–slash-cop in that film, so in this one, we encouraged Josh, “Put on a few pounds, let your hair go gray!” He has super-straight hair, and I had this reference image [of a man] with a wave in his hair. They ended up giving him a perm—and he was game! Joel and Ethan became very attached to this suit that he had on in his first fitting, and also this fake mustache. He had to grow a mustache, and then he had to groom it to look like the fake one!
The post Behind the Scenes of Hail, Caesar! Perming Josh Brolin and Making Scarlett Johansson a Modern-Day Esther Williams appeared first on Vogue.