Latest / The Art of Costume Podcast / Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities with Costume Designer, Luis Sequeira

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Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities with Costume Designer, Luis Sequeira · The Art of Costume Podcast

• 0:00
  Hey costume nerds, this is Spencer Williams, cohost and
• 0:03
  producer of the Art of Costume Podcast.
• 0:06
  This episode was recorded prior to the WGA and SAGGAFTA strikes
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  and is being released on part of previous set agreements.
• 0:14
  The Art of Costume and The Art of Costume podcast team,
• 0:17
  including Elizabeth, Daniel and myself, wholeheartedly stand in
• 0:20
  solidarity with the WGA and Sygaftra as they fight for the
• 0:24
  future of Fair labor practices in the entertainment industry
• 0:27
  and work to ensure a sustainable and flourishing entertainment
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  landscape. It is crucial to acknowledge the
• 0:34
  indispensable contributions of the hard working individuals
• 0:38
  both behind and in from the camera whose dedication and
• 0:42
  creativity are the driving force behind the films and shows
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  discussed on this podcast. Without them and their tireless
• 0:49
  efforts, none of these productions would be possible.
• 0:52
  That is why we support the WGA and SAG AFTRA in their fight for
• 0:57
  a fair and equitable deal. For further information and
• 1:00
  resources regarding how you can better support and even
• 1:03
  volunteer, please check to show description for links.
• 1:06
  Also, please consider donating to the Entertainment Community
• 1:10
  Fund, an organization that directly benefits workers
• 1:13
  affected by the strikes, as well as provide a safety net for
• 1:17
  performing arts and entertainment professionals.
• 1:20
  Now please enjoy the show. Like how you just kind of in
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  your head, like what did I sign up for?
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  But it's it's Guillermo del Toro, so I guess you kind of
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  know. But.
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  Well, often you often you know on any project you like.
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  Wait, this was not in the brochure, but uh, you know.
• 2:06
  Hello and welcome to the Arctic Costume Blogcast.
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  I am Spencer Williams. And I'm Elizabeth Joy Glass.
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  Spencer, how are you? I am terrified.
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  And you haven't been sleeping much due to some certain
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  subject. Man, we're getting ready to get
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  into. I know how you feel.
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  I went to bed terror. I went to bed at, like midnight
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  because I needed, like, time to, like, decompress and listen to
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  like. I listen to like what am I like?
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  History podcasts. So just so I could, like, relax
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  and not not be too afraid to sleep.
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  So, Taylor Swift music, perhaps? Yeah, I I was at her last Philly
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  concert. It was so good.
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  Well, I just so everyone knows, we're getting ready to talk
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  about Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosity.
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  Yes. I thought it's all the episodes
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  and I saved the last episode I guess to watch last night.
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  And it was a creepy haunted house story, which I did not
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  enjoy. I mean, I did enjoy, but not at
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  2:00 in the morning. I was.
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  Just spooked. Out when the little kid kept
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  crying into her bird machine like, this is not cool.
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  So, like, I was glad because, like it, it wasn't like it
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  wasn't the scariest of them, but like.
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  I had watched like three in a row, so I'd watched that.
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  I'd watched the The Lotion one and I had watched the portrait.
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  I watched the first one through to which house in one night?
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  I don't know how you did that because so I started watching
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  this when it first came out back in like October, November.
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  And like you, I started to binge it, watch the first three
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  episodes. And I was like, I can't do it.
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  And then like, I was like, I'll just take a couple days.
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  I'll watch some other stuff. Months later, I'm like, oh, let
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  me finish that. It's so spooky.
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  I mean, it even starts with that first episode with the I will
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  never be someone who'll be popping into storage units and
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  looking for fun stuff that like, is officially off my list of
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  possible careers. So.
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  With that, I think we should get right into it because we have a
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  special guest that we are so excited to talk to.
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  Elizabeth, why don't you hit us with a summary?
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  All right everybody, here is the summary summary for Cabinet of
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  Curiosities. Guillerrell del Toro's Cabinet
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  of Curiosity is a horror anthology series that takes you
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  on a horrific adventures designed to frighten.
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  And fascinate while examining modern culture and historic
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  classics. Spooky.
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  So spooky. And with that, that is your
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  SPOILER SPOILER warning, even though we have already spoiled
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  about 3 episodes out of eight for you before spoiler warning.
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  So you know. But you know what?
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  You signed up for it. Look, we did sleep last night.
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  We're scared. We need to talk about it.
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  This series was created by Guillermo del Toro.
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  And we have costume designer Louis Akeda, our buddy, our pal.
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  You will know him for his work on The Thing in 2011, Mama,
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  Carrie, The Strain, The Shape of Water, for which he was
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  nominated for an Oscar, The Christmas Chronicles, IT,
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  Chapter 2, and Nightmare Alley, for which he was also nominated
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  for an Oscar about a few weeks after we did a great podcast
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  episode with him. Yeah, go back and listen to our
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  interview with him for Nightmare Alley.
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  It is a good one. It's a lot of fun.
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  I that was definitely one of my favorite interviews we've ever
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  done. But with that, we're going to
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  take a quick break, and when we come back, we'll be joined by
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  costume designer Louis Akeda himself to talk about the
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  Cabinet of Curiosities. Elizabeth and I are so excited
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  to welcome back to the podcast our friend, costume designer
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  Louis Akeda. Hey, Louis.
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  Hey, good morning. Hey.
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  How are you guys? So glad to have you back.
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  It's been a little while well. Thank you for having me.
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  Well, last time we spoke we were talking about your Oscar
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  nominated work on Nightmare Alley.
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  What I remember between us talking, we were laughing about
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  how crazy it was on that film. That felt like two different
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  films and one. So then I'm preparing for this
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  interview and I'm like this is like 8 different films so.
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  Talk to us a little bit about how you approach this challenge.
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  How did you even prepare for this?
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  I don't. It's crazy to me.
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  Yeah, it was 8 different films. It was, you know, 8 distinct
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  time periods, moods, kind of textures, storytelling.
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  And so it was tricky and luckily luckily we had a lot of the
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  scripts early so we're able to do the research.
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  Because you know the the basis of everything is, is the
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  research and I had a great crew and we just plowed kind of
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  through it cuz we just had to. It was trial by fire.
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  Right. No moments to hesitate, I guess.
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  Yes, decision after decision. Yeah, especially it's it's so
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  dark and it's like so many, like twisted little fantasies and
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  fairy tales with elements of realism.
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  That make them so much more terrifying, especially with the
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  HP Lovecraft face episodes. You seem to stand by historical
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  accuracy though. So how much did your research
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  play a part in the series, and how much of this project
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  included custom builds? Well, most of the leading,
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  almost exclusively the leading actors were built and of course
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  we wanted to to bring the audience, the viewer to that,
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  that time and place. So we were quite attentive to
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  try and and bring that to reality.
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  Of course there were certain liberties taken and and wanting
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  to be a bit more pleasing to the current eye, but we we toiled,
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  we toiled with it. Well, in episode 2, Graveyard
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  Rats, we meet a grave robber who must survive a maze of tunnels
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  defended by an army of rats. Sounds crazy to say.
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  I was obsessed with this episode and we've talked before about in
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  a costume breakdown and seeing this man crawl through the
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  tunnels covered in blood and rats and dirt.
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  I mean, you could almost feel it.
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  You could smell it. So seeing the rest of the
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  series, I have a feeling costume breakdown was a huge part of
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  your process. And I think we have a photo of
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  I'm pretty sure that's you covering this man in blood.
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  It's true. We were down down with our COVID
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  masks setting, setting up the midsection of the film art close
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  to the end. I think that was, yeah, you
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  know, aging and dying. And breakdown is huge on any of
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  my projects. Even if I do a contemporary
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  show. You know the the costumes do get
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  AIDS to a certain extent. But with these stories and
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  especially this, the the character actually wore the same
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  costume for many days and that was the whole premise.
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  He just kind of did not change. So started off already in a bit
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  of a Hopsacky kind of feeling but it all falls apart obviously
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  when he goes down into the tunnels and and we had to not
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  only do the work but but kind of track it as we were shooting out
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  of out of sequence so. We did a lot of preparatory work
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  so that we had the multiples ready to go.
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  Right. It's such a process, Elizabeth.
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  I actually learned that there's someone inside that rat suit
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  too. I think that has animatronic,
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  but there's a person in the suit.
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  It's true. That's horrifying.
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  That made it so much more scary. Sorry if I had to know that.
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  You had to know that. That's fair.
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  Well, I think we should use the rest of our time to talk about
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  some of our favorite stories and costumes.
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  And I would actually like to turn to Elizabeth.
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  Elizabeth, what was your favorite episode?
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  Well, the viewing was one of my favorite ones, cuz it brings
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  together these characters with very distinctive looks.
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  However, together their look is seamless.
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  How did you approach these characters and blend them
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  together, especially with their surroundings?
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  It's so beautiful. Well, it was interesting because
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  we were, we were speaking, you know, this is almost exclusively
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  A1 set episode. There are a few Segway scenes,
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  but we were working with this beautiful set by Tamara Deverel.
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  And so Tamara and I sat and and spoke about the, the color tones
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  and the director really wanted to have a monochromatic look to
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  everybody in the film. And so it really was trying to
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  find. Differences within similarities
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  and that was the the trick here and each character obviously had
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  their back story and and bringing those those elements to
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  their costumes was key. So you know, as always, and I
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  think every, every costume designer will work this way.
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  It's it's bringing all those elements that you need to bring
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  into storytelling. Making all those decisions and
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  and hopefully at the end you you actually have succeeded to have
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  a natural representation of of each of these wonderful
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  characters. Is such a fun, spooky set too.
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  I love the colors and the lighting against the costumes.
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  It just worked beautifully. Yeah, you know, got some
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  interior design inspiration Just without the alien meteorites,
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  perhaps? Yeah, I don't need that.
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  I have to talk about dreams in the which house?
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  The story takes place in the 1930s and has a whole host of
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  great costumes. But I want to talk about the
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  witch. Some people would probably say
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  to witch costume was just CGI, but I have a feeling that's not
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  the case. Yeah, no, I think I told you
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  this story last night, but we were in a meeting and we all
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  thought it was CGI until at the meeting I was.
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  We learned that no, no, no, the witch will be.
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  We were basically going to provide the the bodice.
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  And the apron and everything else was going to be CG.
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  And then we were told no, no, no, you're doing it all.
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  And and so luckily I was wearing a mask because my my mouth
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  dropped to the ground. And.
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  And so, you know, we we had to devise a way to to create this,
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  this costume that came from a wonderful sketch from Guy Davis,
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  who is Guillermo's. Main sketch sketch concept
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  artist. So you know again working with
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  with concept art making that come to reality is often a
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  challenge and so we made some modifications.
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  But yeah, each branch is hand hands sculpted with wire and
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  foam and wrapped in in muslin and then painted and then
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  grouped. And we were it was quite
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  astounding the the workroom. For this I had some wonderful
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  sculptors working with us. It's beautiful.
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  Is that the right word? It like is actually tragically
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  beautiful. I and I love it so much.
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  Very spooky. And I've actually got to see the
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  top part, the mask, and that was super cool in person too.
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  I believe that that it'll be on display this evening, actually.
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  But yeah, I mean, I think what's wonderful about that costume is
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  that it is strangely beautiful. But then.
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  The technicalities behind it are are quite astounding.
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  So for for me I was you know I'm a bit of a geek that way I I
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  love the the storytelling but I the the aspect of how are we
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  going to make something work in the most efficient way and and
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  that was. That was a tricky, tricky thing
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  to do. Right.
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  So are you getting scripts and reading each one being like, OK,
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  this one has a scary witch, this one has a tentacle monster.
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  This one, like how you just kind of in your head, like, what did
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  I sign up for? But it's it's Guillermo del
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  Toro, so I guess you kind of know.
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  But. Well, often you often you know
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  on any project you like, wait, this was not in the brochure.
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  But you know, the challenges are such that I I really.
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  I really enjoy working through those challenges and and
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  bringing each of these stories to life, each of these costumes
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  to life, making everyone, every little decision that that builds
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  onto a final costume. Probably for me, one of the
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  scariest ones was Pickman's model and made the mistake of
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  watching it before bed. But taking place in the early
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  1900s, it really like. It's a beautiful period piece
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  and it spans like 2 very distinctive periods within this
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  whole host of what looks like historical characters at the
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  dinner table. What were your challenges for
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  this episode? Well, you know, we had the
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  painting as it was referred to was the dinner and in that
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  actual scene, which was very small and once again, you know
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  what the plight of a costume designer to.
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  To put immense amount of work on a very short scene.
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  But this was, this was a dinner scene that had many iconic
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  characters of horror mythology and so we had to for instance
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  bring Rasputin to life and and and various other characters.
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  And most of that again was built for that very short sequence.
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  But that was that was fun to do, absolutely.
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  I love it. I totally miss that.
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  Yeah. You missed raspy and how can you
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  miss raspy and? I mean, it was just horrifying.
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  He walked into the room and I was like, Oh my God, what is
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  this? I didn't realize he was in the
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  room. And and love uh, Lovecraft is is
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  dinner, right? That's that's who's lying on the
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  on the table. Oh my gosh.
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  Wow. You have to watch it again,
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  yeah. I was so scared.
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  Louis, don't make me do it. No, I will.
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  Daytime, daytime, daytime, yeah. I also especially love the Witch
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  because like at the dinner table she's like perfect, like put
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  together. And then in the real world it's
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  I like couldn't figure out was that the same costume just like
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  broken down or? Various versions of that and for
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  the for the painting everything was hyper colored so we we made
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  the costume in a brighter color and then much like classic
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  classic Italian paints, paint paintings, we highlighted the
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  shoulders and and gave everything a real kind of.
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  Glowing quality. So we did actually had two
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  different costumes for that, and even some of the characters at
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  the dinner table we had highlighted shoulders and
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  details so that they would glow. I love that.
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  Well, my favorite episode actually doesn't have any
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  witches, aliens or demons. Just a whole lot of lotion.
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  I'm talking about the outside. This is such a fun episode.
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  It was so campy over the top. And I felt like we were kind of
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  seeing a different side of Louis Cicada, actually, when it came
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  to the costumes. It's so funny.
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  We see talking about all this horrific stuff.
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  And I was like, oh, this is fun. You don't really see this side
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  of Louis too often. So can you walk us through the
• 18:07
  world's most fucked up makeover story?
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  Yeah, I mean this, this was so much, this was so much fun to
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  do. Anna Lilly Lepore was was really
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  champing this this kind of. Throwback to the 80s.
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  It is a modern story, but it was obviously a throwback to the 80s
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  and she wanted lots of color. She was like, I do not want a
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  dull story here. So, so yeah, we got to play and
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  play we did building these crazy dresses for those ladies and we
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  coined them the, you know, it was the aquarium.
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  They were, they were the fish in the aquarium.
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  And then of course the the main character and her
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  transformation. Was so much fun and the actors
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  were just amazing to work with. So again this is a story set in
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  modern day almost exclusively built because where are you
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  going to find a dress like that. You know the the one turquoise
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  kind of dynasty esque dress was just we we built that and and
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  put it. I don't know.
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  Four shoulder pads in there it was it was pretty fun.
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  That's crazy. Actually my favorite is the main
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  character is just like House Night gowned up.
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  She's walking around. That's just covered in lotion
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  and blood and all the things. It's disgusting and I just fell
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  in love with it because she just kept wearing it and I just
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  couldn't stop laughing every time I saw her.
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  Yeah, hang in there, baby. You know, I've received so many
• 19:47
  inquiries about. Are you selling those?
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  Really. I really like one for my wife.
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  And it's very funny. You know this I'd hustle.
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  I'm gonna be making Yeah. I don't know how I feel about
• 19:58
  that person, but I guess. She loved the episode.
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  So that was what, you know, he wanted to get her that.
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  For Christmas. Oh, that's so fun.
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  Well, it's a very fun episode. Louis, this is a fantastic show
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  and it was exciting to see yet another example of the brilliant
• 20:16
  collaboration between you and Guillermo del Toro and all of
• 20:20
  the incredible directors throughout the series.
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  Despite how great the series was, we know it was not without
• 20:28
  its challenges. Looking back what does this
• 20:31
  project mean to you. I mean I think for me this what
• 20:35
  was great about this project was was really being able to to
• 20:39
  juggle. I mean I come from working on TV
• 20:42
  series and so I know how to juggle.
• 20:44
  But this was next level and you know, because we're bringing,
• 20:49
  we're bringing that kind of quality of shape of water and
• 20:52
  I'm our alley to to an episodic and and and at times I have to
• 20:57
  say it's, I think it's okay because you know, one could
• 21:01
  drive both myself and my crew to the Looney Bin.
• 21:05
  But it really was trying to trying to bring that quality,
• 21:10
  those textures, that that storytelling to to what is
• 21:14
  essentially, as we said at the beginning, 8 separate movies on
• 21:18
  on an episodic schedule. So I mean, for me that was the
• 21:22
  the challenge. Costume designer Louis the
• 21:24
  Kayla, thank you so much for joining us again.
• 21:27
  It's always a pleasure having you in the studio.
• 21:30
  Thanks guys. Really appreciate it.
• 21:31
  Have a great day. The Art of Costume Blogcast is
• 21:38
  hosted and produced by Elizabeth Joy Glass and Spencer Williams.
• 21:43
  Our audio engineering and editing is done by Dan White.
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  Sign.