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The Witcher with Costume Designer, Lucinda Wright - The Costume House with Spencer Williams · The Art of Costume Podcast

• 0:13
  I am so excited to be here with one of my friends with whom I
• 0:17
  have not seen in quite a while now, costume designer for The
• 0:22
  Witcher, costume designer Lucinda Wright.
• 0:25
  I'm so happy to see you. How have you been?
• 0:28
  I've been all right and very pleased to see you.
• 0:30
  It's been a long time, but I'm thrilled to be doing this, so
• 0:34
  thank you for asking me. It's been a minute.
• 0:36
  I'm actually I was looking back at our records.
• 0:39
  We haven't talked about The Witcher since 2022, and lots of
• 0:43
  things have changed in the world of the Witcher since.
• 0:46
  It's it certainly has. It's progressed at a fair old
• 0:51
  gallop, I think. It sure has.
• 0:54
  So let's just dive right into it.
• 0:56
  So I think we have to start with the topic.
• 0:59
  I think on everyone's mind, we we had a new lead at this season
• 1:03
  in Season 4. So Liam Hemsworth playing Geralt
• 1:08
  of Rivia, who was absolutely fantastic, I must say.
• 1:11
  So tell me about those first conversations, fittings and
• 1:15
  refining that character with Liam.
• 1:18
  You know, how did you involve that costume to match what he
• 1:21
  wanted to bring to this role? Yeah, it's it's always very
• 1:27
  until I actually meet the actor who's playing a part, you always
• 1:31
  wait. But because Geralt is Geralt,
• 1:35
  there are certain things I wanted to carry on and certain
• 1:38
  looks like the self studded and black.
• 1:41
  And so I met Liam the first time.
• 1:48
  He was just walking down the corridor.
• 1:50
  He came over to see us during just before the strikes.
• 1:54
  And I kept having conversations with showrunners and people
• 1:59
  about what I was going to do. And I said, oh, it's fine, It's
• 2:01
  fine. I'll be honest with you.
• 2:03
  I didn't know what I was doing and until I meet him.
• 2:07
  And then I saw him walking towards me and I thought, yeah,
• 2:11
  I know exactly what I'm doing. He's got this kind of slow kind
• 2:16
  of walk, but at least long legs and, and he's kind of silent and
• 2:22
  he's kind of, I just thought he reminded me and I hope he
• 2:26
  doesn't find this offence like a Street Fighter, a kind of
• 2:30
  younger fighter still got that Geralt poise where they can
• 2:37
  spring into action. But I wanted to give him like a
• 2:40
  jacket and make the belt that I had up high with Henry, like
• 2:45
  like a kind of holster, like a kind of cowboy.
• 2:49
  I wanted him to be like he could just spring into action, but
• 2:53
  still keeping the traits of the medallion, the shirt and the
• 2:57
  trousers. But so I tried some shapes on
• 3:02
  him and he he kind of, he was kind of quiet about it all
• 3:09
  really. I think he had a lot on his
• 3:11
  mind. He had a lot to carry.
• 3:13
  But when we did the final look he was very pleased and it was
• 3:17
  really great to see him morph into Geral.
• 3:20
  Yeah, it brought it all together.
• 3:21
  I really loved that, like motorcycle jacket silhouette
• 3:25
  that you gave him it. It really kind of all brought it
• 3:28
  all together. And Liam was quoted as saying to
• 3:32
  Netflix any day. I put on the actual body armor
• 3:35
  and I'm in proper Witcher mode. I feel like it forces you to
• 3:37
  walk a little differently and hold your head a little higher.
• 3:42
  Can you talk to the importance costume has in helping actors
• 3:45
  find their character on The Witcher?
• 3:49
  Well, with Liam, because he is tall, he's a good 6/4.
• 3:53
  He the first thing he said was don't make me taller.
• 3:57
  And I said I'm going to somebody did that gave him the heel in
• 4:02
  the boot because if you're that tall, you're just going to carry
• 4:06
  even more. And so his look was kind of
• 4:11
  done. And then with the other
• 4:12
  characters, it's a process of meeting them and doing fittings.
• 4:18
  And a lot comes from, for me, a lot how they move and how they
• 4:25
  talk about the characters like Freya talks about Siri.
• 4:28
  And I get a lot from the actor about how they want to evolve
• 4:33
  into it and which they do in Season 4.
• 4:35
  They all the characters are going further further in depth.
• 4:41
  Right. So you've, you've gotten to work
• 4:43
  with some of these actors for quite a while.
• 4:45
  Have you found it to be quite a collaborative process over now,
• 4:48
  over these few seasons you've been working?
• 4:51
  On Oh yeah, yeah. And it definitely with Freya
• 4:54
  because Siri, because she is beginning to morph into the
• 5:00
  Witcher look. And I always kind of had a
• 5:02
  parallel with between Siri and Gerald, like he's got this on
• 5:09
  this season. He's got the biker jacket.
• 5:11
  She goes into her kind of line, yellowy green leather jacket, so
• 5:16
  she's kind of echoing and her trousers are like his style of
• 5:19
  trouser and she has her brown belt.
• 5:22
  So I'm trying to do a kind of image.
• 5:27
  She's like a mini him, if you see what I mean, in her own way.
• 5:32
  But yeah, it's after all these years and Jennifer Anya and a
• 5:39
  few of the others, you kind of get a kind of, you kind of know
• 5:43
  where you're going to go with themselves.
• 5:45
  Sometimes they just suddenly go, oh, but I want to do this in
• 5:48
  this part or this shows a different part.
• 5:51
  And you kind of you just have to listen, really listen to what
• 5:55
  they're saying and just decipher what's the actor talking about
• 6:00
  themselves or the character. That can be a fine line
• 6:04
  sometimes. Right.
• 6:06
  So one thing I've always loved about your costumes, and I know
• 6:09
  we've talked about this before, but it's your key attention to
• 6:14
  fabrics and textiles and how fabrics and textiles have played
• 6:19
  such a role in your process. I was hoping you could highlight
• 6:23
  that now that we're actually talking in a real podcast
• 6:26
  setting, how how have fabrics and textiles played a role in
• 6:30
  your process on The Witcher? Because I mean, just watching
• 6:33
  every single scene, I just feel like sometimes I'm distracted.
• 6:36
  Just wine deposit sometimes to just key in on some of the
• 6:40
  costumes because they're just, there's just so much detail.
• 6:44
  Sometimes they're beautiful. Oh, it's very kind of you.
• 6:48
  I think the character Regis with Lawrence being the vampire
• 6:54
  stroke Barber surgeon, that was something that I really wanted
• 6:58
  to bring different layers to give him a silhouette as a bat.
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  So with a Cape for when he flies.
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  But his Cape was, I had it made in Italy.
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  It was a brown, brown and greens and purples leather with
• 7:14
  embroidery on it. And when I saw the sample, I had
• 7:19
  it made-up when it, when I took the sample back with me and it
• 7:23
  had like a glitter on it in pinks and purples.
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  And when the actual fabric turned up, it didn't have any
• 7:32
  glitter. And I phoned him up and I said
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  what's going on? I said no, no, no, that was
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  rubbing against another fabric. So then we bought all this
• 7:39
  glitter and we used to just throw it on all the time and
• 7:43
  just whack it on because the thing about the witches can be
• 7:48
  very dark. It's lit very dark, especially
• 7:52
  when we first meet him in the graveyard.
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  So I always like to get a bit of sparkling.
• 7:59
  And his was an interesting character because I wanted it to
• 8:03
  be like a Barber surgeon who had very expensive clothes anyway,
• 8:07
  and that historical thing, so he had gold buttons.
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  And it's also like the character of the Wraith in the graveyard,
• 8:17
  even though, you know, she's really ugly and awful and bones
• 8:21
  and everything. I did her in this sparkle, this
• 8:24
  green, and we had six different types of fabrics which we dyed
• 8:30
  to all tones of greens and put glitter in.
• 8:33
  And so that when she flies, she still still twinkles when he
• 8:37
  rips her heart out. So I do like to use fabrics that
• 8:41
  are sometimes very luxurious and knowing that character is going
• 8:49
  to be killed or covered in blood because you don't expect it.
• 8:53
  And I like that. I like, I think the fabric
• 8:57
  should really tell you more about the character and the
• 8:59
  silhouette and the colour without them even opening their
• 9:03
  mouths. You know, you should look at
• 9:04
  them on the screen because there's a lot of people going
• 9:06
  through that screen and you should be able to almost tell
• 9:10
  what they're like, I think. Yeah.
• 9:13
  And I think another way for the audience to connect with these
• 9:17
  characters through their costume is the way their costumes are
• 9:21
  aged and broken down when you see them on screen.
• 9:24
  And I think what you all have accomplished on The Witcher
• 9:28
  through the breakdown of the costumes is just so fantastic.
• 9:31
  I was hoping we could dive into that because there is lots of
• 9:34
  battle in The Witcher. I mean, there's lots of sweat,
• 9:38
  dirt, blood, guts, fire, I mean, you name it in the show.
• 9:43
  So can we dive into the aging and dying and breakdown in this?
• 9:48
  Season. Four it's lots of fun, but lots
• 9:51
  of battle that's. Very generous of you.
• 9:54
  I'm very lucky I'm, I have a great breakdown team and we talk
• 9:59
  about breakdown all the time. I have a rule that on my dramas,
• 10:03
  I don't like anything washed. I can smell washing powder at 60
• 10:07
  paces. I walk on a truck and if
• 10:09
  someone's got it out, I'm like, what's happened?
• 10:12
  It's it's a gone. It's a known rule that I will
• 10:15
  never have anything washed. You know, they can have their
• 10:18
  thermals washed, but no. And all the shoes have got to be
• 10:22
  filthy. And with the army introducing
• 10:25
  the white armour, it was really important to still see that they
• 10:31
  were different from the Nails guard by their colour.
• 10:33
  But we were chucking God dirt, everything on it so much.
• 10:40
  And what we would do is work out because quite often you film the
• 10:43
  end of the battle before the beginning.
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  So there will be stages of the breakdown and we all sit and
• 10:49
  talk about it. And we'd have on a stand I'd
• 10:52
  have an example of this is how far I want this one to go for
• 10:55
  this scene. And so it was actually worked
• 10:58
  out because sometimes it too much can almost be comical.
• 11:04
  You've got to work at it to make it look realistically
• 11:09
  believable. And they were harsh times and
• 11:13
  people, you know, were hanging in rags and things.
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  And so when it's when it's people like the witch trial, you
• 11:21
  know, they were just literally in rags.
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  And I really like getting that dirty, dirty look.
• 11:29
  And it's quite a skill. But like, I'm very lucky.
• 11:32
  I have a good team. We all work together.
• 11:34
  So it's very good that they achieve that.
• 11:38
  I hope definitely. Did in this season Siri is
• 11:43
  travelling with a band of outlaws known as the Rats and I
• 11:47
  noticed a lot more brighter neutral tones and there's
• 11:52
  they're on the run. There's a bit more of a street
• 11:54
  wear look to a series costume. So it's more if you could speak
• 11:58
  to Siri's costume journey this season as she's a bit more on
• 12:02
  the go. So it's a little bit more of a
• 12:03
  low key look I would say this season.
• 12:07
  Yeah, she is. She's, like I said, she's she's
• 12:09
  gradually morphing into her Witcher look.
• 12:12
  So it was like a simple blouse and a neat leather jacket and
• 12:19
  the trousers and the brown buckle boots with the belt.
• 12:23
  And so she's with people of her own age for the first time in
• 12:28
  the Witcher. She's usually either been at
• 12:30
  court or kicking around with Garrett.
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  Or so it was. It was important to use colour
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  to show that she was with the youthful rats.
• 12:43
  God bless them and and they were all individual and and I must
• 12:52
  admit I did enjoy that fight with Leo when he just, I think
• 12:56
  that is one of the best fights. I'm sorry I've gone off at a
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  tangent there. But I do love that fight at the
• 13:00
  end with Leo B. Just he's such a killer.
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  It was, it was rough. It was rough.
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  I mean, there ain't coming back from that, but it was it was
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  hard. It was hardly to show the colour
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  and it was in the South of the land.
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  So it was warmer and so it was important, like with Missile,
• 13:20
  who had all that jewellery and it was meant to bring a kind of
• 13:24
  lighter, a lighter contrast to the Witcher.
• 13:28
  Knowing that you've got Leo B, as they call him in.
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  He's dark. He almost looked like he was in
• 13:33
  black, but that she was dark purple and dark green.
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  And he did have black. He's the only other one who
• 13:40
  wears black apart from Geralt. Because they're 2, they're two
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  killers and it was to show that contrast that when he does fight
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  them, you know they're going to that colour is going to just
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  drain out of them. Yeah, that's a, that's a lovely
• 13:57
  way to put it. No.
• 14:00
  I worry sometimes. Lovely.
• 14:05
  Well, we also have to check in on my favorite character,
• 14:08
  Jennifer, who has been gathering a faction of sorceresses in this
• 14:12
  season. So how would you say her look
• 14:15
  has evolved in this season? It's been dark times this
• 14:19
  season. It was dark times and Jennifer
• 14:23
  is really ramped up as as the tiger mum and when she had the
• 14:29
  Battle of Monte Carlo, the battle dress, which was her
• 14:33
  armor, it was it was quite a dress that I mean, we went
• 14:39
  through lots and lots of versions of it because it had to
• 14:43
  look like armour in its silhouette.
• 14:47
  She could still move in it but still look gorgeous.
• 14:51
  I mean, Anya looks gorgeous anyway, but she had to.
• 14:55
  When you've got all the majors together, it's very important.
• 14:59
  They all have their own individual look like Francesca
• 15:02
  and Sabrina. So yeah, it's always keeping it
• 15:08
  very simple with the NFR, but still keeping that dark, dark
• 15:15
  black look as well. And she kind of mirrors Geralt
• 15:20
  as well in many ways as like when you do get couples who wear
• 15:25
  the same colour, like you had John, Ned and Yokono, they were
• 15:28
  always wore white or were black. So like Jennifer and Garrett
• 15:32
  always have like black, that's how.
• 15:35
  Yeah, right. Well, this series just feels so
• 15:40
  massive in scale sometimes, yet it always feels so synchronistic
• 15:44
  at all the time. So can you talk a little bit
• 15:47
  about your collaboration between yourself and other department
• 15:50
  heads, whether it be hair and makeup or production design?
• 15:54
  I mean, is it a very cohesive collaborative collaboration
• 15:58
  between all of you? Oh, yeah.
• 16:00
  I mean, God, I mean, you couldn't do costume without
• 16:03
  working with their makeup and hair and Andrew, set designer.
• 16:08
  I mean, you really do, as I always say.
• 16:13
  And also stunts work really closely with stunts.
• 16:16
  You you've got to understand and listen to people about like the
• 16:20
  set. So I always think the character
• 16:22
  should really know. You should know that they fit in
• 16:25
  there like a mirror in his mouth.
• 16:27
  Guard palace, you know, it's gold and it's black and it's
• 16:31
  reflected in his clothes and always sitting.
• 16:35
  Because I've worked with Dev for so long now, since season 2, we
• 16:38
  have like a shorthand and we kind of know, you kind of know
• 16:42
  where it's going to go once they're cast and it's really
• 16:47
  important. And also the stunts for costume,
• 16:50
  I mean, because we have to do double s and trickles and
• 16:54
  stuntmen and there's a lot, you know, it's like Liam's outfit,
• 17:01
  he would have had 8 to 9 jackets, you know, one for the
• 17:06
  swamp, one for the water, one for the stunts, one for this
• 17:10
  battle, one for that. I mean, they're like little,
• 17:13
  little pods all over the place. But there are terrific amount of
• 17:18
  costumes that worked on to make it look like it just flows
• 17:24
  through it. But you definitely have to work
• 17:26
  with all the other departments and just because things do
• 17:28
  change, you know, and I remember when we were doing the armies
• 17:33
  and no one would really decide on it.
• 17:37
  And then I just said, well, I'm going big, I'm doing this
• 17:39
  amount, I'm doing that amount. And then the armor with the
• 17:42
  weapons, Nick would come in and you just kind of got to.
• 17:47
  I said I was just going to throw everything at it on the season
• 17:50
  because it is so big. It yeah, it's massive.
• 17:54
  And Speaking of that scale, can we just talk about your crew a
• 17:58
  little bit? I mean, no one is.
• 18:00
  No costume design can get done without their crew.
• 18:03
  Oh good. No, just.
• 18:04
  Shout out to your crew, I mean talk about the people that you
• 18:07
  that helped get it done. Well, I'm incredibly lucky that
• 18:11
  I've got a brilliant crew. I've got 1 ACD assistant costume
• 18:16
  designer which is Rosie. It was just her and me.
• 18:20
  That's not many for a crew like this.
• 18:23
  No, that's. Crazy.
• 18:25
  It's one assistant and then we had Millie, the buyer, and we
• 18:29
  had the supervisor Best. And then we had our standby
• 18:35
  crew. Our girls are brilliant with the
• 18:38
  principals. And then I worked very closely
• 18:41
  with Mark, the crowd supervisor, because I would always dress on
• 18:46
  a stand saying this is what I want these owls to look like.
• 18:50
  This is what I'd always give an example of what I wanted them to
• 18:56
  not copy, but that was the look. And then they'd go and do
• 18:59
  fittings and then I'd go in and we'd look at everything like
• 19:02
  that. So I don't think it's a huge
• 19:05
  crew. I think myself.
• 19:08
  And then we have a work room of about 6 makers.
• 19:10
  But I think I like to keep tabs on it all to make sure I know
• 19:15
  where it where it's going. I think if it gets too big, I
• 19:18
  think you lose, you could lose what's going on.
• 19:22
  But I've just got excellent people who work with me.
• 19:24
  They're brilliant. And of course I wouldn't be
• 19:27
  anywhere without them. So they are fantastic and yeah,
• 19:31
  very lucky indeed. Wow, that's incredible.
• 19:34
  And that's that's a smaller crew than I imagine.
• 19:36
  I was thinking you're going to say it was like an army of
• 19:38
  people. So that's incredible.
• 19:41
  Well, we have we, we do have well on days like when we do the
• 19:45
  battles. The good thing about the witch
• 19:47
  is that when you see a suit of armour, that's a real person in
• 19:51
  there. There's there's no CGI around on
• 19:55
  this one. Even Grondo who fought in the
• 20:00
  battle, they asked me to create a costume for Grondo on this.
• 20:05
  Special effects bloke. So if you look at his shoulder,
• 20:08
  he's actually got a crown on there.
• 20:10
  It's a gold piece of jewellery and I just got bits of what I
• 20:15
  had around and he's made-up of jewellery, crown, bits of nails,
• 20:19
  guard. And then they just went away and
• 20:21
  did their special effects on it and created it.
• 20:24
  So it was quite funny really. And yeah, but I have a great
• 20:31
  grace who runs the Armour team as well.
• 20:34
  When we have big days, we obviously have loads of people
• 20:36
  come to help us, right. But can compared to other jobs,
• 20:42
  I do think, yeah, they're just me and Rosie of the design
• 20:46
  element, yeah. That's, that's incredible.
• 20:51
  Well, Lucinda, you've had quite a journey with The Witcher being
• 20:54
  on the series since season 2, with even more coming up.
• 20:58
  So what has the series meant to you as a costume designer?
• 21:03
  Oh, I think I can honestly say, and I've been doing it quite a
• 21:07
  while, The Witcher is, I always say it, and I said to Lauren,
• 21:12
  Lauren everyday, this is the best job.
• 21:14
  It's a fantastic job for a costume designer because you get
• 21:17
  to create new worlds, new characters, and it's just, it's
• 21:24
  challenging. Don't get me wrong.
• 21:26
  It, it, it, you certainly have to go for it, but then what an
• 21:30
  opportunity. And I've absolutely loved it.
• 21:34
  It is just brilliant. And I'm very fortunate.
• 21:37
  They kind of I show them where I'm going and they're very
• 21:42
  generous. I think they kind of let me go
• 21:44
  there. So, so that's good and all the
• 21:50
  actors are great and it's, and I really mean that on some jobs
• 21:54
  you're always like, but but no, they, they just give it all
• 21:58
  they've got. And I think it's a very unique
• 22:01
  program. I love it.
• 22:02
  Well, I love it and the audience loves it.
• 22:05
  Costume designer Lucinda, right? Thank you so much for coming to
• 22:08
  talk with me. And I love this show and I'm so
• 22:10
  excited to see what's next and I hope.
• 22:12
  You'll come back and talk. With me when we have more to
• 22:15
  talk about, more costumes, keep them coming.
• 22:18
  Oh, well, thank you, Spencer. It's really lovely to see you
• 22:20
  again. You look really well.
• 22:21
  I really enjoyed it. Oh, why thank you.
• 22:25
  I can't wait. The Costume House with Spencer
• 22:28
  Williams is a production of The Art of Costume.
• 22:31
  This episode was hosted, produced and edited by Spencer
• 22:33
  Williams. To discover more conversations
• 22:36
  with the designer shaping film, television and theater, visit
• 22:39
  theartofcostume.com or follow us on social media at The Art of
• 22:43
  Costume. And don't forget to connect with
• 22:45
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• 22:47
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