Latest / The Art of Costume Podcast / The Last of Us S2 Teaser with Costume Designer, Ann Foley

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The Last of Us S2 Teaser with Costume Designer, Ann Foley · The Art of Costume Podcast

• 0:06
  Hello, welcome to the Art of Costume podcast.
• 0:08
  I am your host Spencer Williams and thank you so much for
• 0:11
  joining me for another special bonus episode.
• 0:15
  The time is here, Costume nerds. The Last of Us Season 2 is
• 0:19
  premiering this weekend on HBO April 13th and I could not be
• 0:24
  more excited. I'm a big fan of the games.
• 0:26
  I think they're terrifying but also incredible.
• 0:30
  The storytelling is beautiful. Have a little bit of an idea
• 0:33
  what's going to happen this season, but who knows for sure.
• 0:37
  But what I do know is that the costumes are going to be amazing
• 0:41
  as they were designed by a costume designer, Ann Foley.
• 0:44
  And just shortly after the Hollywood premiere, I got to
• 0:47
  chat with Ann Foley about what to expect this season.
• 0:51
  Season 2, of course, we can't get into any spoilers, but from
• 0:56
  all of Ann's work on Agents of SHIELD, She Hulk, Altered
• 1:01
  Carbon, and of course one of my favorite comfort films, Godzilla
• 1:04
  versus Kong, I know that the costumes are going to be
• 1:08
  amazing. So we figured we'd do a quick
• 1:11
  little sneak peek chat with Anne, find out what's coming up,
• 1:15
  and then of course, we're very excited to have Anne Foley back
• 1:18
  on once the season has aired. So then we could really do a
• 1:21
  deep dive into all the costumes. So thank you to costume designer
• 1:25
  Anne Foley for being here. And now, without further ado,
• 1:29
  let's get into our interview. Hi, I'm Dan who does all the
• 1:36
  magic behind the scenes. I wanted to say thank you.
• 1:39
  And if you want to support the show even farther, go to
• 1:42
  tpublic.com/user slash the Art of Costume where you can buy a
• 1:48
  couple variations of our logo on T-shirts, mugs and stickers.
• 1:54
  Also, be sure to leave a like comment and subscribe.
• 1:57
  And if you're an audio listener, leave us a five star review, an
• 2:00
  Apple podcast. Now back to the show.
• 2:08
  I'm so excited to chat once again with one of my friends,
• 2:12
  costume designer Anne Foley. Hey, Anne, how's it going?
• 2:16
  Going well, nice to see you again.
• 2:19
  Yeah, lots going on these days, I hear.
• 2:23
  Well, I'm so excited for The Last of Us Season 2.
• 2:27
  I'm a big fan of the series. I've been a big fan of the
• 2:29
  games, though. I just told you behind the
• 2:31
  scenes that they're a little too scary for me to play.
• 2:33
  But I love watching other people play so.
• 2:35
  Yeah, same here by the way. Yeah, when you have the control
• 2:39
  in your hand, there's there's anxiety involved.
• 2:41
  I'm like, well, why am I? Why is my blood pressure high at
• 2:45
  8:00 PM at night for no reason, you know.
• 2:47
  Yeah, but I'm going to be honest, even watching the
• 2:49
  playthrough is anxiety inducing as well and I found myself
• 2:55
  having to take breaks while I was watching it.
• 2:59
  So let's dive into it now. Of course, the series comes out
• 3:02
  on April 13th, so we can't get into too much.
• 3:04
  So you were just at the Hollywood premiere a few days
• 3:07
  ago. I know The Last of Us could
• 3:08
  probably be a challenging project to be on with.
• 3:11
  There's a lot going into it from the video game translation
• 3:15
  aspect to these terrifying monsters and snow and blood.
• 3:19
  I mean, the list goes on and on with The Last of Us.
• 3:21
  So just tell me what you were feeling when you were at that
• 3:24
  Hollywood premiere, finally seeing it on the big screen and
• 3:27
  all the fans just lying. I even saw some infected were in
• 3:30
  there too. Like it was.
• 3:32
  It looked like a night. Yeah, it was, it was an amazing
• 3:36
  night. And to see all of our hard work
• 3:40
  up there on screen was such was so rewarding.
• 3:43
  It was it's I really, I walked out and I was just awe struck
• 3:50
  because it's so beautiful. It's so cinematic this season
• 3:54
  and I'm so proud to be part of it.
• 3:57
  It's like it's a dream come true.
• 4:00
  I was such a fan of the show way before I was even asked to join
• 4:04
  Season 2. So, you know, getting to be part
• 4:08
  of this Tila family is really, it's an amazing experience and I
• 4:13
  feel blessed. Yeah, it's like the perfect
• 4:16
  project, especially for you, honestly.
• 4:18
  Like, this really checks out with you and the projects you've
• 4:21
  worked on on the past. So what we do know about Season
• 4:25
  2 is that it takes place five years after the first season.
• 4:28
  So it's a little bit in the future.
• 4:31
  So I want to know, how did this time jump influence your
• 4:33
  costumes? You know, Ellie is now 19 years
• 4:36
  old, I believe. And Joel's just had, I want to
• 4:39
  say, like a rough go at life at this point.
• 4:44
  That's a fair. Yes.
• 4:47
  So how did that time jump kind of influence your work now,
• 4:49
  especially as you know, coming into Season 2?
• 4:52
  Yeah, I mean, that was one of the things that actually drew me
• 4:56
  to it is that there is this five year, you know, time jump and
• 5:01
  last time we saw Ellie, she was a young teenager and now she's a
• 5:05
  young adult. And being able to show Ellie's
• 5:09
  arc this season was really fun and and even getting even more
• 5:17
  so getting to do it with Bella and helping Bella find who Ellie
• 5:22
  is now and and telling Ellie's emotional journey of season 2
• 5:30
  was really costume wise, quite fun and very intriguing.
• 5:35
  And I can't obviously get into a lot of detail about that yet,
• 5:39
  but I think the fans will be really excited to sort of see
• 5:44
  that evolution. And as far as Joel goes, I mean,
• 5:47
  Joel is Joel, you know, it's like he's just a little more
• 5:50
  worn down this season. And and we're in Jackson, so
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  we're, you know, they're not on the road like they were season
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  1. So they're in this community
• 6:02
  where, you know, everything is lovingly worn and aged down
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  because, you know, in this world, the clothes that you have
• 6:14
  are precious to you. There are no, there's no new
• 6:17
  clothes, there's no stores you can go to.
• 6:19
  So it's everything is really taken care of because once it's
• 6:24
  gone, it's gone. So that's where my breakdown
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  team came in and they really beautifully broke everything
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  down. And and I also used a lot of
• 6:37
  secondhand clothes. You know, we did a lot of
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  thrifting on this to create Jackson, you know, keeping it
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  all to the, you know, late 90s, early 2000s, because it was 2003
• 6:49
  when the Cordyceps epidemic, pandemic, what everyone called,
• 6:55
  yeah, took over the world. And so there's no new clothes
• 7:00
  after 2003. And so, you know, we tried to
• 7:03
  sort of keep it, you know, in that time.
• 7:06
  Yeah, that's very exciting scene.
• 7:07
  I, I love talking about the breakdown, so I'm sure we'll get
• 7:09
  into that, especially if not now, the next time we talk, when
• 7:12
  after we've all seen a series, I have to ask, oh, you know,
• 7:16
  everyone's going to be asking you this question quite a bit.
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  What was it like working with Pedro Pascal on The Last of Us
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  Season 2? Which was amazing and I adore
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  him. Working with him was so much
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  fun. He makes me laugh like crazy and
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  I love his passion for the character.
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  You know, he knows exactly what Joel was supposed to look like
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  and getting to collaborate with him on this was really
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  wonderful. So he's great.
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  He's a really great collaborative partner.
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  Season 2 also introduces several new characters.
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  Some fans were recognized from the game, such as Caitlin Dever,
• 7:57
  who plays Abby, Isabella, Merced as Dina or Dinah, and young
• 8:02
  Mezzino as Jesse. Fans have a deep connection to
• 8:06
  some of these characters, so I want to ask you, how did you
• 8:09
  approach translating these looks from the source material while
• 8:12
  also ensuring that they feel authentic to the world of the
• 8:16
  show 'cause there's really a a fine line, a balance between the
• 8:19
  two happening at times? 100%, but I sort of approach it
• 8:24
  like I have approached all my projects, even when I was at
• 8:27
  Marvel. You know, the source material is
• 8:29
  important. It's important to the fans, it's
• 8:32
  important to the creators of, you know, the game and it's
• 8:36
  important to the actors and it's important to me.
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  So, you know, having that is my base.
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  But also Craig is Mason is a brilliant writer and having his
• 8:48
  scripts as well as a source material, I had such a wealth of
• 8:51
  information to draw upon. But you know, I had done boards
• 8:56
  for each. I do boards for each episode and
• 8:59
  then show them to Craig and to Neil.
• 9:01
  And, you know, we go through everything and I'll start
• 9:03
  illustrating. And, you know, what I loved
• 9:06
  about working with Craig and Neil is that they were always
• 9:11
  like, this is great that this was in the game, but let's see
• 9:14
  how you would do it. What's your twist and what's
• 9:17
  your take? So we would always, you know,
• 9:19
  meet somewhere in the middle. And I got to have a lot of fun
• 9:22
  with some of the characters that you'll see later in the season.
• 9:26
  Right. I really love that.
• 9:27
  I love that they really gave you a some opportunity to really put
• 9:29
  your Ann Foley twist on things a little bit, you know, but like,
• 9:32
  that's why costume designers are hard to.
• 9:34
  Do the job about that. They really encouraged it so and
• 9:38
  I love, I love that. And we kind of got into the
• 9:42
  breakdown a little bit. I'm a big infected of the, I'm a
• 9:46
  big fan of the infected of The Last of Us, the clickers.
• 9:51
  And just seeing that, you know, the decay and a breakdown of the
• 9:54
  costumes that are happening very subtly, especially of course,
• 9:57
  with the collaboration with special effects and prosthetics.
• 10:00
  So I got to ask you, I mean, have you ever worked with
• 10:04
  something quite like the clickers and the infected of The
• 10:07
  Last of Us? No, I don't think many people
• 10:10
  can say that they have. But it was so fun and some
• 10:19
  people would say a little gross, but it was really beautiful work
• 10:24
  that was done by my team and by Barry Gower's team.
• 10:28
  And you know, Barry created all the Cordyceps prosthetic pieces
• 10:35
  that go on to the clickers. And so they would give us some
• 10:40
  of those Cordyceps pieces and then my team would incorporate
• 10:43
  them into the clothing. And So what we did, the season
• 10:49
  is really did a study in how mold and fungus will grow into
• 10:58
  things over a period of time, like growing into the weave of
• 11:04
  the fabric. And as the fabric starts to
• 11:07
  decay and the fungus starts coming out of it and the two
• 11:12
  become one. It was really, really quite an
• 11:17
  interesting process. You know, we had pictures of all
• 11:20
  sorts of different molds on the wall and different funguses and,
• 11:24
  and the color, the color palette of, you know, the fungus as
• 11:29
  well. So you'll see some more and some
• 11:33
  different colors in the infected.
• 11:37
  Oh, I, I'm so excited. That's probably my favorite part
• 11:39
  is just seeing how these costumes interact with these
• 11:42
  horrifying creatures. I'm so excited for that so.
• 11:47
  No, it's really it's great, it's fun, so I can't wait for people
• 11:50
  to see it too. Me too.
• 11:53
  Just to wrap up, there's obviously a lot to look forward
• 11:56
  to with Season 2. So without giving away too much,
• 12:00
  what are you hoping the audience takes away from the season?
• 12:02
  You know what, What do you hope they experienced in all?
• 12:05
  Just seeing the costumes and just a series in general over
• 12:09
  the next couple months starting April.
• 12:12
  That's a great question. And I mean, my mind is racing to
• 12:17
  so many different places that I'm not allowed to talk about
• 12:19
  quite yet. But I think the big thing is
• 12:22
  really, I hope that they notice the progression with Ellie.
• 12:28
  And as I've always done in my previous designs and costumes,
• 12:33
  you'll really see this emotional journey that Ellie is going on
• 12:38
  through her costume and some of the changes that take place.
• 12:42
  And I'm incredibly proud of it, so I can't wait for the fans to
• 12:46
  see that. That's awesome.
• 12:48
  I can't wait and fully. We're going to talk again soon.
• 12:52
  We're going to get on the books after the series has come out.
• 12:54
  I hear that you have a favorite episode.
• 12:56
  We don't know what it is yet, but I can't wait to hear about
• 12:59
  it. So we'll get into it.
• 13:03
  Actually now I'm like, well, yeah, I have several.
• 13:06
  Actually, I it's. Hard.
• 13:08
  We're just going to have to wait till the end.
• 13:11
  Yeah. Costume designer Anne Foley,
• 13:14
  thank you so much for joining. I really can't wait and I hope
• 13:17
  everyone tunes in. Yeah, I hope so too.
• 13:21
  Thanks, Spencer.