Latest / The Art of Costume Podcast / Gladiator II with Costume Designers, Janty Yates & David Crossman

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Gladiator II with Costume Designers, Janty Yates & David Crossman · The Art of Costume Podcast

0:05
Hello and welcome to the Art of Costume podcast.
0:08
I'm with Joy Glass. And I am General Acacius Gluteus
0:12
Maximus Spencer Williams. I I I enjoy the gluteus maximus
0:18
part of your title. Oh my gosh, what's up,
0:22
Elizabeth? It's so good to see you.
0:23
Elizabeth is in my living room right now.
0:26
I am. So this is our first time in a
0:28
living room couch because Elizabeth is officially moved
0:32
into Los Angeles as of. 2. Hours ago.
0:36
Yes, we're. Taking a break from moving right
0:38
now, so if our audio feels a little wonky today, that's
0:41
because it literally is where she just unpacked her
0:44
microphone. So you know, we're going to get
0:47
this situated in a couple weeks here.
0:49
Yeah, yeah, we're working on the whole 2 audios, 1 room, but
0:53
Daniel will let us know what to do.
0:56
But Elizabeth, the movie theaters have been swamped the
0:59
past couple weeks because what? What did we just see?
1:04
Well, I participated in Glickid, but more importantly for today
1:13
we saw Gladiator 2. We did and I've seen it twice
1:17
now. I love this movie.
1:18
I want to see it again. I like, I honestly love how good
1:25
Ridley Scott is at historical fan fiction.
1:31
Like he really excels at it, I feel.
1:34
Historical fan fiction is such a good way to put it.
1:38
Let's get into it because we have a lot to cover.
1:40
This is actually a pretty massive episode, all things
1:43
considering. I'm just gonna get into of a
1:45
summary if you don't mind. Yeah, Gladiator 2 is of course
1:49
directed by one of the greats, Ridley Scott.
1:52
And in Gladiator 2, after his home is conquered by the twin
1:55
tyrannical emperors who now lead Rome, and years after witnessing
2:00
the death of Maximus at the hands of his uncle, Lucius must
2:04
enter the Coliseum. With the rage in his heart and
2:08
the future of the empire at stake, he looks to the past to
2:11
find the strength and honor needed to return the glory of
2:14
Rome to its people. And that is Gladiator 2.
2:18
That is Gladiator 2. If you haven't seen it, get you
2:21
to a movie theater. I'm all about conformity.
2:24
Go to the movie theaters. In the meantime, let's meet our
2:28
costume designers Jante Yates and David Crossman.
2:33
You will know Janti Yates for her Oscar winning film
2:38
Gladiator, Miami Vice, American Gangster, Prometheus, Exodus,
2:46
Gods and Kings, The Martian, for which she received a Costume
2:51
Designer Guild nomination, Alien Covenant, The Last Duel, House
2:57
of Gucci, for which she received a Costume Designer Guild
3:00
nomination, and most recently Napoleon, for which she received
3:06
an Oscar nomination. You will know David's work from
3:11
Rogue One, A Star Wars Story, for which he received a Costume
3:16
Designer Guild nomination. Solo, A Star Wars Story 1917 The
3:25
Batman, for which he created the bat suit, and also Napoleon, for
3:32
which he shared an Oscar nomination with Janti Yates.
3:35
Yeah, and we actually do have an episode with Janti Yates and
3:39
David Crossman talking about the costumes of Napoleon.
3:42
That was late last year, Season 3, so check it out.
3:45
It's yeah, it was a fun one. I was so nervous in that one
3:49
because I mean, Janti Eights has done some of the greatest films,
3:53
Gladiator and you know how I feel about Prometheus and Alien
3:56
Covenant. Oh yeah, she's designed some of
3:58
your favorite films. And David Crossman is such a
4:02
talented Crossman. I mean, I could go on and on
4:06
about David. He's just such a nerd about all
4:09
things military costumes. And I totally respect the hell
4:12
of him for the Oh yeah, Elizabeth, I have a great
4:15
surprise for you. I mean, it's not really a
4:16
surprise for you, but perhaps for the listeners.
4:19
I actually got to spend some time with Jante Yates and David
4:22
Crossman to talk about the costumes of Gladiator 2.
4:26
A lot of fun. Wasn't as nervous this time
4:29
since we literally just interviewed them.
4:31
Literally I almost a year to the day to talk about Napoleon.
4:35
And yeah, I mean, there was so much to talk about, from
4:38
everything from the old Maximus armor reappearing in Gladiator 2
4:43
to, of course, dressing Pedro Pascal, which I tried not to ask
4:48
too many questions about. But, you know, they were all in
4:50
the back of my mind working with Denzel Washington and those
4:55
pesky Emperor twins which look so crazy.
4:58
And of course, both of them, Janti Yates and David Crossman,
5:00
are master researchers. So.
5:03
And without further ado, let's play my interview with the two
5:06
of them. And I believe if you watch on
5:09
YouTube, we actually even have the video of the conversation as
5:11
well. Since the.
5:12
Two of them were on a very fancy junket set and I was in my
5:16
living room and I was not expecting that.
5:18
So you could watch that play out as well.
5:21
Let's hit it. Hi, I'm Dan who does all the
5:28
magic behind the scenes. I wanted to say thank you.
5:31
And if you want to support the show even farther, go to
5:34
tpublic.com/user slash the Art of Costume where you can buy a
5:40
couple variations of our logo on T-shirts, mugs and stickers.
5:46
Also, be sure to leave a like comment and subscribe.
5:49
And if you're an audio listener, leave us a five star review on
5:52
Apple Podcast. Now back to the show.
6:00
I'm so happy to welcome back to the podcast for a second time
6:04
Janti Yates and David Crossman. Hello you 2.
6:07
It's been almost a year to the day where we were talking about
6:10
Napoleon, so you 2 must must be busy it seems.
6:13
Well, I'm very lucky to be working with Dave again, I can
6:16
tell you that. Yeah, very.
6:18
Kind words from Janti. I love it.
6:22
Well, let's get into it. So I have a lot of questions.
6:25
So like this is years in the making.
6:26
So I'll sort of the most obvious one, obviously, Janta, you won
6:29
the CAMI award for Gladiator the first time around.
6:32
So you obviously been working with Ridley Scott for all these
6:35
years. Did you kind of just see this
6:37
coming one day? Just kind of looking at things
6:40
in museums and being like 01 day?
6:42
I might come back to this for Gladiator.
6:44
I had no idea. I thought, well, no way, after
6:48
24 years and we're going to go back to this and I really didn't
6:53
believe, didn't believe it when it started to be rumoured.
6:57
And I thought, oh, that'll that'll never happen.
7:02
Really. And.
7:03
I do look at things in museums and think, well, I wish we were
7:06
going back to that well. To your surprise, here we are.
7:12
So I actually want to read a little quote from you, Janti,
7:14
that made me laugh hysterically. You said I have been in space
7:18
three times since Gladiator and done all sorts of periods, which
7:22
can be more true, especially when you're thinking about films
7:25
like Prometheus. So regarding the research for
7:28
Gladiator and Rome, did you feel like you needed a refresher or
7:32
were you just ready to go right as we get back into it?
7:35
No way was I ready to go. I had to really start from the
7:38
beginning completely again and go to all those museums, get all
7:44
those huge books that Ridley loves, go to Rome, wander
7:49
through the statues again. It's I just had to do a complete
7:54
restart really. And David, I want to bring you
7:57
in here, especially as our expert on military costumes.
8:00
So how did you prepare yourself for this sort of epic, Herculean
8:05
task? It was always a period I thought
8:07
I'd never enjoy it, but I really enjoyed it in the end once I
8:09
started researching and looking into it and then just trying to
8:13
kind of trying to find the sort of coolest looks that I could.
8:17
I was working on another job at the time, so we were kind of
8:19
doing it from London. And then the first worry is
8:22
about making all the art, you know, the amount, the amounts of
8:25
it. That's one of your first
8:26
worries. And I think one of the things
8:27
Janty and I did first was get Jean Paolo Gracie, this leather
8:31
specialist, to get on the job so that he could make us some of
8:35
our principal armour genius, because he's a kind of amazing
8:40
maker. And then just working out how we
8:42
were going to do it and blending sort of modern techniques along
8:45
with Jampe's kind of traditional leather techniques.
8:48
But, but in the end, I loved that.
8:50
I loved the research. It was really good.
8:52
And we were modelling Roman helmets on the computer and it
8:55
was, it was good fun. So before, like you just
8:58
mentioned, you know, there's a lot of pieces that go into this.
9:00
So before we get into the specific characters, I really
9:03
want to give the both of you a chance to talk about your
9:05
collaboration with each other. But then also, you must have had
9:09
an epic crew to pull this off because there is a infinite
9:13
amount of costumes in this film. So how did that look this time
9:16
around? We actually went about it in
9:18
completely separate ways, didn't we?
9:21
Dave had to be very involved in the armour making.
9:26
He'll tell you about that. I was basically we were just
9:30
with the stitchers and the jewellers and the special
9:34
effects costumers who I stole from David occasionally.
9:38
But I do have a wonderful team. I had the cutter of my dreams,
9:43
Dominic Young. I had my ACD who helped so much,
9:48
Melissa Moritz, and basically with a huge slew of brilliant
9:54
semstresses and makers and buyers, I felt very, very
10:01
fortunate. And David, what did your crew
10:03
look like? I just did it completely alone
10:06
and famous Janti, you rely on your kind of main, my main
10:11
assistant with Stella Atkinson. We had a great cutter called
10:15
Jenny Alford and so Genti and I kind of split the cast
10:18
essentially because Paul and Pedro were just basically, you
10:22
know, in in military for most of the films.
10:24
So we just, we just kind of separated at that point.
10:27
And then we had a, a, a great costume team who was trying to,
10:31
who were trying to wrangle everything coming into Morocco
10:34
and trying to pre fit hundreds of crowd for the beginning of
10:37
the shoot. We were making armour kind of
10:39
all over the world really in wetter in New Zealand, in
10:42
Budapest, in London. So it all had to get to Morocco
10:45
for a certain point. Ian Jones, who's one of our
10:47
special effects costume makers, who both me and Jante use, and
10:51
he was making all the special pieces for for gladiators.
10:54
I think I just called him Ian Smith.
10:56
Ian and Smith Jones, but Jen but Jenny and I know each other very
11:02
We've worked together loads of times over the past. 24 years.
11:06
Four years or so, so we know each other very well.
11:09
So we just kind of get on with it.
11:10
It's like it's an easy, it's an easy relationship.
11:14
So let's get into the specifics of of this film.
11:19
So David, a shocking fact I learned leading up to this, I,
11:22
you know, doing some research, I didn't really realize that there
11:25
was over two dozen distinct types of gladiators that existed
11:29
in Rome, and many of them were represented in the film, of
11:31
course. So could you talk about the
11:33
different types of gladiators and how you were able to make
11:36
those distinctions? Yes, you, you get a lot of the
11:40
information from the existing mosaics.
11:43
Actually, that's where a lot, lot of original research for
11:48
gladiators comes from, because there's a lot of depictions,
11:52
there's about 5 or 6 that are the most commonly used.
11:55
And of course, I can't remember the names of many of them.
11:57
They've all got a very particular Latin name, but, but
12:01
they all have they, they all essentially have, they're all
12:04
trained in certain roles and to use certain weapons.
12:07
So you can spot the type of gladiator by the type of weapon
12:11
that that person is holding and the tiny helmet that that person
12:14
is wearing and all of that kind of thing.
12:16
But there was, that's the kind of rules that we that we're
12:20
aware of. I mean, it's because they're,
12:22
they're trained in certain types of fighting so that you can
12:24
arrange fights in the Colosseum just so it's not just a complete
12:27
free for all I suppose. So excited, I'm excited to go
12:30
back and see it again. So I could just kind of pick out
12:32
the different gladiators. Gente, I won't go back to you
12:35
with let's talk about some specific characters, starting
12:39
with Macronus, played by the Denzel Washington.
12:42
I particularly love his costumes because I believe there's a lot
12:46
of context clues in this character.
12:48
If you look at his costumes, he's very sophisticated.
12:51
He's just, he knows how to rise in society without being too
12:55
over the top. So do you.
12:59
Did you feel that same way when you were designing the costumes
13:01
for this character? Was there kind of like some
13:03
subliminal messaging and how we see his rise to the top, which,
13:07
you know, doesn't work out so well?
13:09
Well absolutely, we created an arc for him and he starts off in
13:14
the provinces with the smaller Colosseum there with a baboon
13:18
fight. And yet I had him very much
13:22
downplayed in darker colours with embroidery, but not, you
13:27
know, the embroidery that we used later on.
13:30
And I was watching it at the English premiere and I thought,
13:35
how come you look so bloody gorgeous?
13:39
And he in his close up, he looked magnificent.
13:42
And I thought, you're not doing the costumes any hell, you're
13:45
still looking wonderful and looking very, you know,
13:49
spectacular and full of authority.
13:54
And then we got more and more embroidery and in his raps and
14:00
his throws. And a lot of those are 1900s.
14:04
They're 1920s raps encrusted in jewels.
14:08
Some embroidery with some others that I bought from the Marche au
14:14
Puse in Paris, the flea market there, there are two wonderful
14:18
outlets that have the most beautiful, beautiful, incredibly
14:22
expensive eye washery. But we got them for him.
14:27
And also in Milan, there's a specific supplier of ancient
14:31
Indian embroidery as well. And so we got him more and more
14:36
ornate as he gets more and more ambitious.
14:40
And then at the top he levels out.
14:42
Really, he's just wearing beautiful silks with beautiful
14:45
trim, but not as ornate as he was during his passage through
14:53
Rome. And so the last two outfits were
14:56
simpler, simple elegance. 'Cause he's at the top now.
15:00
But then when we come to the twin Emperors, they're maybe a
15:04
little bit not as simple, elegant, maybe it's over the top
15:07
elegance. So let's talk about these twins.
15:11
You know, they're less than subtle.
15:12
So I would like to hear a little bit about your collaboration
15:15
with these fantastic actors. But also hair and makeup as
15:18
well. This felt like a team effort to
15:20
make these characters feel, for lack of a better word, batshit
15:23
crazy. Batshit crazy.
15:25
That's such a good expression. Well, Ridley's brief.
15:29
It's always Ridley's brief that starts us off, you know, when we
15:32
just facilitate. He wanted Johnny Rotten.
15:36
He wanted Johnny Rotten to be their exact image.
15:40
So the red hair, the white face. I didn't realise Jana was going
15:45
quite so white. But I think it works very well
15:48
with the eye makeup and always a missing tooth or a gold tooth.
15:53
I think one has one and the other hasn't.
15:56
I'm not sure. And then sort of for costume, we
15:59
just, the boys in their first fitting were completely
16:05
gobsmacked. They would just go, Chris,
16:08
another layer what you want, and then you want that and then
16:12
this. And then we were putting huge,
16:14
the biggest fibulae you could find in the world on them and
16:19
earrings, strange earrings. And it was so much fun dressing
16:23
them. They were adorable and divine to
16:26
do. And I think that gave them a bit
16:29
of a hook, the fact that they were so over the top in their
16:32
costume. Yeah, I feel it really played to
16:35
the story. So David, going back to some
16:39
other characters, Paul Maskell plays Lucius, who is kind of our
16:43
guiding light throughout the story.
16:45
And unfortunately for him, he's in a lot of armor.
16:48
He doesn't really get any downtime.
16:50
So compared to the armor of the more established gladiators, I
16:53
feel like his is a little bit more subtle in the sense that
16:56
you could tell maybe it's handed down.
16:58
So I was asking you a little bit about that arc we see in his
17:01
armour before we get to, of course, the big reveal of his
17:05
final armour. I mean, basically virtually all
17:09
gladiators would probably have their armour handed down to it
17:12
would all be kind of used, you know, previously.
17:15
The the thing with Paul is he starts out with his kind of
17:18
woven armour in Humidia and then Ridley wanted him to go into at
17:23
first he wanted him in pale armour at the beginning as a
17:25
kind of a reference that he'd seen in a Pasolini film.
17:30
Then we did him his green set, which is based towards
17:34
Macronus's colours of his livery and his guards.
17:38
So that became Paul's kind of main kind of midsection.
17:42
And the, the gladiators don't really wear curasses like that,
17:46
to be honest. It's like this is it's kind of
17:49
the language of the first film that informs that.
17:52
So you're you're, you're trying to make him look.
17:54
It's a it's an heroic look for him.
17:57
And of course it's a muscle curass.
17:58
It's very flattering. So it's always going to look
18:01
good and you can use it kind of in every stage or fight that
18:05
Paul ends up doing. So it was a, it started off life
18:09
as this brown cheras and then layers of green were put it
18:12
worked into it. And then we put the macronous
18:14
Crest on it. And yes, But yes, it's supposed
18:18
to have been worn by, you know, a dozen other people before him.
18:21
It's an old green, you know, Cheras thrown to him.
18:24
Right. And I feel like you could
18:25
definitely see that in the aging and breakdown of the costume as
18:29
well. You could tell that's gone
18:30
through. It's all made for Paul and it's,
18:33
you know, it's, you know, fitted within an inch of its life.
18:36
But it's but yes, it's also aged to her.
18:38
Which we appreciate that I've been dying to ask this question.
18:42
Actually, it's kind of for both of you.
18:44
At the end we see Lucius take up the famous armor of Maximus,
18:48
which was kind of a big, you know, call back to the first
18:51
film. So Janti for you, what was it
18:53
like saying this armor on a big screen again?
18:55
Well, I was really thrilled that they did use it because I
18:59
couldn't actually think how you could get away with it.
19:03
But it's seamless in the film. I mean Wyatt's hanging there on
19:08
the wall when Macronus name is shut out, but you know, it's
19:12
scratched out. But I guess it was a beautiful
19:15
piece of armour. They wanted to display it.
19:17
So you know, we got away with that.
19:20
And the fact that he wore it is to me it was very heart warming
19:24
because Russell had really worked on that armour.
19:28
He'd said every time I win a a Colosseum battle, I want to add,
19:34
you know, I've got the money to buy a bit of silver and I want
19:37
to add to the Kuras. And actually if you look at the
19:40
first gladiator, you'll see he had his horses, but the tree
19:44
grows, the cedar in the centre grows and then he adds his wife
19:51
and adds his son. So they all added.
19:53
But you wouldn't have been aware of that, I'm sure, in the first
19:56
one. So it was really lovely to see
19:59
it making another appearance, yeah.
20:02
So we're so excited. And then David, bringing out
20:05
this piece, I mean, I'm guessing you didn't just whip this out of
20:07
a, you know, a box or anything. We had to rebuild this I'm
20:11
assuming. Yeah, we try.
20:13
We tracked down an original somewhere near Watford, outside
20:16
London, in Boston. Then it was then we scanned and
20:20
then we remodeled the the horses, the tree, the wife and
20:23
child, the goddess with the laurels.
20:27
And there's a couple of Griffins, I think on the bottom
20:29
with a little bit of scrollwork. And so we made those because we
20:33
had Jampy this time around. He then made a black leather
20:35
kind of base for it. And then we made the pieces as
20:40
kind of individual pieces. And then, yeah, so hence
20:43
recreating it. And then he wore it with his his
20:46
existing skirt. So he was just putting the
20:47
breastplate on in the film. So it's a kind of, you know,
20:50
mixture of the two. The colours just about went
20:52
together. OK, just to say he wasn't
20:55
pulling the whole thing off the wall and putting everything on.
20:58
I have to say, Jean Paulo Grazi was a major star in our
21:03
firmament, wasn't he? He was.
21:06
He is the best. He and his wife are the best.
21:08
Well, it was a big moment for costume nerds like me to see
21:11
that, see that armour come back onto the big screen.
21:14
We're all very excited. Well, I think it really affected
21:16
the look having the real leather in use.
21:19
I think the, the, the leather makes such a big difference
21:21
because you'd 9 films out of 10, you'd make that stuff in
21:25
polyurethane and plastic and fiberglass, you know, so having
21:30
the leather elements, they're, they're more comfortable for the
21:32
actors. They love fighting in it and
21:34
it's, and you can just add the elements to it and it gives you
21:36
a nice time. You know, it gives you, it gives
21:38
all the nice quality, I think. Right, let's take a break from
21:41
some of our main characters for a little bit and talk about
21:43
extras and my notes. I read that there is about 500
21:47
extras that are brought into the crowded Coliseum.
21:51
I mean, I can't even wrap my brain around having that many
21:55
people in that space. And I'm sure you know more were
21:57
added in digitally, but how does your crew handle so many extras?
22:02
Well, that was nothing. I mean gladiator one we had
22:05
3000. Oh, OK, well.
22:08
This is. Just another day.
22:10
We weren't getting up at 2:00 or starting work actually at 2.
22:15
We did in graduation on Gladiator One in Morocco and in
22:22
Malta, but where we shot all of Rome.
22:25
But basically Stefano Dinardis as my assistant costume designer
22:30
in Morocco, he did all these wonderful, wonderful Numidian
22:35
crowds. He made headdresses, glorious
22:38
outfits. And do we see them hardly at
22:44
all? Anyway, that's in the Colosseum.
22:47
You see a lot more. And we were blessed with
22:50
wonderful costumes from Peruzzi, which is Costume de la Arte in
22:56
Rome, and a lot of other costume houses had some very, very good,
23:01
wonderful costumes. We were able to put put them
23:04
together. And Claudia Mance is my wardrobe
23:09
supervisor, if you like, for the crowd.
23:11
And they did it. They did it easily.
23:13
No problems. There, she did it easily.
23:17
So 500 was, it was a lot of course, but you know, nothing
23:23
compared to Dave's big days. They were very big days with the
23:28
Praetorians and gladiators and the Roman army.
23:33
Yeah, which David, that's going to be my next question.
23:36
That army scene at the end, can you talk about the Roman armies
23:39
and how they might compare to the the New Median army as well?
23:45
We, we did a kind of a varied mix of helmets that would have
23:49
existed at the time, things that may have found their way to that
23:53
part of Africa, to the coast of Africa.
23:55
So there's a big mixture of helmets that exist in
23:59
antiquities. So we remade they're called
24:01
Phrygian helmets or those various styles.
24:05
We made about four or five styles and then mixed them all
24:07
together and some of them had horse head plumes.
24:10
And so they're meant to be a lot more ragtag as compared with the
24:14
the invading, the invading Roman army is a lot more together and
24:17
a lot more powerful. And obviously you can see that
24:21
there's money there and you know, they're they're coming,
24:23
this might is coming against these Pawnee and Medians.
24:28
So that yeah. So I mean, the Romans you'll see
24:29
are all kind of one colour really, the armours, all one
24:32
saying it's all very unified and very, you know, so you just feel
24:35
the organization and you'll see this special moulded chainmail
24:39
that Pierre Beau Hannah made for us because most Roman soldiers
24:42
wore chainmail weirdly rather than the plate armour.
24:46
So you'll see a lot of, you'll see as much of that as we could
24:49
produce in time for the film mixed in.
24:52
And then, yeah. So there's sort of two types.
24:55
And then there's scale armour, which we also made for mounted
25:00
for horsemen. So they've got different styles
25:01
of helmets. So the the Romans just have more
25:04
organization in their kind of DNA and the new medians are kind
25:07
of anything, you know, mixture of all sorts.
25:11
David like the rest of the world, I'm a big fan of Pedro
25:14
Pascal who plays Marcus Acacias and Gladio 2, who is highly
25:19
decorated warrior and his armor had a more exquisite feeling I
25:22
would say compared to many of the other people around him.
25:25
Of course they all look great, but you could tell that he's the
25:28
guy in charge. So tell me about working with
25:31
Pedro and these costumes and fittings and how you made him
25:34
feel like this statuesque warrior.
25:37
We had some very nice fittings with Pedro.
25:39
He arrived, we'd we'd done a kind of basic fitting in LA with
25:43
him. Stella had gone out to get some
25:45
basic shapes on him. We we saw him first properly in
25:49
Morocco, where we fitted his battle armor.
25:53
We modelled our digital modeller.
25:56
Sam had made that lovely Medusa head with the kind of
26:00
exaggerated serpents which is very hard to apply to the
26:04
leather kiras. So Gampi had made this
26:06
beautiful, very dark, dark, kind of bronzy, almost black kiras.
26:12
It was supposed to have a kind of metallic quality to it.
26:15
And then in the meantime, we were embroidering capes and
26:19
tunics for Pedro, for his other scenes when he's with Connie and
26:22
when he's with, you know, so we were getting those done at the
26:26
same time. And no, he was great.
26:29
I mean, he's so, I don't know, he's so good looking, isn't he?
26:33
You can't really go wrong. It's all about, you know, what
26:36
they prepared to show leg wise, arm wise, what they're
26:39
particular things that they, they don't mind showing, they
26:42
don't want to see. And so we, you know, we'll try
26:44
and make them happy, happy in the sort of lengths of their
26:47
skirts and how much legs they're showing, all that kind of thing.
26:50
And but no, Pedro is great. He was fantastic.
26:54
He had that Cape on at the beginning of the film when he's
26:56
on the boats having his kind of morning coffee before the battle
26:59
starts. And then the I was worried
27:02
because he he has to lose it. And so it was so thick and
27:05
heavy. The only way we could do it was
27:07
him flipping it off, which I thought was going to look
27:10
terrible, but it actually looked fine in the film.
27:12
It all makes sense. So that was a relief.
27:15
He does that typical actor thing of putting a helmet on for less,
27:19
I think less than a minute, 30 seconds.
27:22
The the problem with actors and helmets in films, you lose the
27:25
identity. You've always got to keep the
27:27
identity of those characters. So it's more important that you
27:29
see who's doing what. So a lot of the time you'll see
27:32
lots of actors with no helmets on.
27:34
And that's the, you know, I'm afraid that's the law sometimes,
27:37
yeah. That's the rule.
27:39
Trying to find the perfect ratio of costume and actor screen
27:43
time. There's no way Paul Mezcal would
27:44
have a helmet. We didn't.
27:45
I don't think we even considered Paul having his helmet in his
27:48
new Midian armor. He just had the woven armor and
27:51
he looked, he looked lovely in that and he looked kind of, you
27:53
know, simple enough and rustic enough, you know, without.
27:56
So we didn't need to put a helmet on.
27:58
Him. It always makes you wonder too,
28:00
when there's arrows flying by like they want to protect your
28:02
face, but their faces are so beautiful, So what can you do
28:05
so. We had the same in.
28:09
So he wears it for 30 seconds in the beginning of the whole film,
28:14
and then it's gone. Gotcha.
28:16
Yeah, it's just it is what it is.
28:17
But I guess we're all appreciative of it.
28:20
Jante Lucilla makes a return to the film, and she looks as
28:23
elegant as ever. And I felt like there was like
28:26
almost like a goddess feeling to her because the way that the
28:29
fabrics and textiles really flow on her.
28:31
She looks elegant, so I was going to ask you, Working with
28:36
her and those creating those fabrics, those textiles and just
28:39
creating that drape on her was just so elegant and beautiful.
28:42
She's just a joy to dress. You could literally hang a piece
28:47
of fabric from each shoulder. And she was doing this herself
28:50
in one of our fittings. And she was going, well, why
28:53
can't I do this? And we went all right.
28:56
Go for it. So she's very participatory and
28:59
we love that. But we did start out thinking
29:04
that she was 24 years older, that we'd basically my cutter
29:08
and I thought we'd make her more classic.
29:11
So we went oat couture very much on her, sort of like thirties,
29:15
40s oat couture, much simpler. And we went over and we did the
29:21
first fitting with her and she didn't say anything.
29:24
But Ridley didn't like it. I didn't like it.
29:28
And it turned out she wasn't that mad about it.
29:30
So we started attaching veils from here, there and everywhere,
29:35
embroidering, adding jewels and, you know, just layering up with
29:40
other fabrics. And so we completely threw that
29:44
concept out of the window and she just, she does look
29:48
wonderful, but she does do it herself.
29:50
She kind of reminds her of like some Halston looks maybe as
29:54
well. Well, that's where we were going
29:56
in the start actually, with a sort of slight Halston, but
30:01
going back to Madame Grey and going, you know, all the way
30:04
back we were taking them from everywhere.
30:07
But that's very good that we still we that survived.
30:13
Yeah, it's there a little bit. We're almost at the end here.
30:18
But before we let you, before I let you both go, I would love to
30:21
talk about the breakdown of these costumes as well.
30:24
You know, of course, David, we see a lot of action, a lot of
30:26
war, a lot of stunts, fires. But then Janti, we also see some
30:30
characters working in fields and, you know, helping keep some
30:34
of these gladdier pits, I don't know, going whatever employees
30:38
were doing back then. So tell me the both of you a
30:41
little bit about the breakdown. Well, you rely on your breakdown
30:46
department more, more than There's nothing worse than bad
30:49
ageing and breakdown. We had Michael who did.
30:54
Michael McMahon. Amazing.
30:57
Who did such a great. Amazing, and he also printed a
31:00
lot of my bejeweled and embroidered stuff because Denzel
31:05
wanted 4. That's thing you you'll get to 1
31:08
and then you'll you'll break one down, then there's another six
31:10
to do, which is one of the kind of most monotonous things about
31:13
breakdown is having to do all the repeats.
31:15
It's really time consuming, but it's all needed and.
31:20
It's essential. Same thing with the crowd.
31:22
You just do it in a different process.
31:24
You know, it's a more of a mass process, but everything, you
31:26
know, every, every Roman was made, all the sandals, all the
31:30
under tunics, everything was made, all of that was made in
31:32
Morocco. So it all went through a, a kind
31:34
of mass process of just quick ageing just so it looks, you
31:39
know, looks roughly the part and the things you're going to see
31:41
more, they all get something. So it's a, it's a huge operation
31:45
in, in Morocco. He had about 20 people working
31:48
with him, didn't he? In, at the, at the Moroccan end
31:50
of things. And then and then we had a
31:52
Maltese crew working with him in Malta, but slightly less by them
31:56
because we'd we just didn't have as many people in Malta but.
32:00
It's so essential breakdown. I can't, we can't work without
32:04
them. We really can't.
32:06
Especially when you're making making always from new.
32:10
You need that ageing, you need those seams worn.
32:14
It's terribly time consuming, but you need, I mean even on
32:18
just garments, you need seams worn in, you need them.
32:22
You need to look as if they're not just popped off the the
32:26
semestresses table. Yeah, I think nothing ruins a
32:30
film or TV show faster than a costume that looks brand new,
32:34
Like it's, you know, a Halloween costume or thing that will Take
32:37
Me Out of it real quickly. So.
32:39
Exactly. And Ridley always, always loves
32:42
to make his pictures, his actual frames, to look like an old
32:48
master of some sort or other. And so you have to have
32:53
breakdown. You can't have bright whites,
32:56
bright pinks, you can't have anything like that.
32:58
You have to have to brown everything.
33:02
Yeah, well, this has been such a joy.
33:06
I'm so glad I got to talk to the two of you again.
33:08
You know The Gladiator 2 is about the hit theaters and
33:10
everyone's I'm sure, going to be stampeding into movie theatres
33:14
across the world. So what do the both of you hope
33:17
that audiences take away from this film?
33:19
Well, for me, I just hope they love it like they loved the
33:22
first one. I think it's a brilliant film, I
33:26
think it's so clever and I hope they just hope they enjoy it.
33:31
Really, that's the main thing. Same here.
33:34
You just want people to enjoy themselves and I hope Ridley
33:37
gets some kind of appreciation for it and I hope it's it's it's
33:41
very well put together. I think.
33:43
So I think they've done a very good job with it.
33:46
So you just want people to like it to be well received?
33:49
Yeah, it is entirely epic and I can't thank the both of you
33:55
enough. It was so much fun and I hope
33:57
everyone runs at these and see it.
33:58
Thank you so much. Costume desire.
34:00
Jante Yates and David Crossman, thank you.
34:02
Thank you so much. Spencer that was incredible.
34:09
I mean, just they're just legends and obviously I think
34:12
they're going to get nominated for another O2 years in a row.
34:16
I'd be shocked if they weren't. I would be shocked almost if
34:18
they didn't win. I mean, they're, they're just so
34:22
the, the scale of this film is really quite incredible.
34:26
And the fact that she even said that the scale almost felt even
34:30
more pared down compared to the first one.
34:32
It's to me, I'm like, well, that didn't show because it felt
34:35
quite epic. I will say because I the first
34:41
with the what were they baboons the 1st?
34:43
I did not appreciate that scene. That was scary.
34:45
I was so uncomfortable. I was like and then he bit it
34:49
and I was like. It's insane.
34:52
It's. Wild.
34:53
It was wild. But the the scale of the armor
34:56
too. I mean, David Crossman, I just
34:58
think. Beautiful.
34:59
Beautiful. And the fact that there were so
35:00
many different types of gladiators, the amount of
35:02
research that most people, normal people who don't listen
35:06
to a costume podcast won't even realize like the amount of
35:09
different gladiators they had in it.
35:11
But it's insane. Elizabeth, let's let's get to
35:15
some serious business. What was your stitch rating for
35:18
Gladiator 2? OK, my stitch rating is a four.
35:23
It's a solid 4 that. Feels right.
35:26
Because I feel like it went a little bit too much along the
35:29
lines of the first film. Story wise, there were a lot of
35:32
similarities. Story wise, it was a little a
35:36
little shaky. I did I did like that Pedro
35:40
Pascal wasn't the ultimate bad guy, wrong side of history, but
35:46
not the ultimate bad guy of the movie.
35:48
And so I liked that they kind of like finished mirroring the
35:52
first movie pretty early on within the first third of the
35:57
film. Yeah, I would say so.
35:58
I mean, can I admit something too?
36:00
I actually watched the first Gladiator film after I saw the
36:05
second one. It was my.
36:06
First time. Which is insane.
36:09
I didn't not, I did not share that with Jandy and David.
36:12
I watched it. I watched it before I
36:14
interviewed them and I don't know, I almost enjoyed the
36:17
second one more. To me, I'm not a big Russell
36:19
Crowe fan, but I get, I mean, the first film is fantastic.
36:23
It is fantastic because the scale of it, the storytelling is
36:27
great. I also just checked my letterbox
36:29
while we were talking and I gave this film a solid 4 stars.
36:33
Four stitches. 4 stitches, Yeah. Because I felt like, yeah, I
36:37
felt like it was kind of lacking on the story in a sense that I
36:40
didn't feel emotionally connected literally to any
36:43
characters. But that's probably my bad for
36:45
not seeing the first film. So if everyone's shaking their
36:47
heads, I'm sorry. But to me, like, I'd love to
36:50
watch just a bunch of grown men with swords fight.
36:53
I love the visual spectacle. Like, I really love the shark
36:56
scene. I know it's over the top and I
36:59
did do some research and they actually did fill the Colosseum
37:02
with water. They just have, you know, great
37:05
white sharks or whatever. But like I just love the visual
37:08
spectacle. Like I just, I was like watching
37:10
it. Cinema is so back, you know, I
37:12
was just in the movies. I was like, this is kick ass.
37:16
Like, let's fight. I have heard some like not so
37:18
great reviews of it and I think a big part of it is if you don't
37:23
know Roman history, like it's very hard to understand a lot of
37:27
this film. And like I said in the
37:30
beginning, Ridley Scott does such a good job at historical
37:35
fan fiction. It was insane.
37:40
But what was not up for debate was that the costumes were top
37:45
tier. So what was?
37:48
Well, let's play our favorite game.
37:49
Let's just jump into it. Daniel hit it.
37:53
The one costume to rule them all.
37:59
What was your one costume to rule them all?
38:02
I have a feeling we're very aligned on this.
38:04
I I think we are my one costume to rule them all is the white
38:09
and gold armor that Pedro Pascal wears the Coliseum on the first
38:14
day of the games. It's like, So what Rome thought
38:19
they were like the pageantry, the like look at this brave
38:25
warrior. But it it's like it's such a
38:28
contrast to who General Acacius is.
38:30
So I like that it just looks awkward on him and just out of
38:35
place for his character. But it is perfect for the
38:39
setting of the Colosseum and like the celebrations and games
38:43
that are going on for him. Yeah, no, this is a good choice.
38:46
This is my second pick, actually, because he just looks
38:51
like a little Angel. Pedro Pascal is all white.
38:53
I mean, might as well be like a little Halo over his head.
38:56
I'm like, this is this is my favorite girl, Pedro Pascal.
39:01
Yeah, but I had the Gulf General Casey's armor he wears to
39:06
Numidia. I thought he looked sick, but I
39:09
love the Medusa engraving on his breastplate.
39:13
That's me. I was like, oh, I want that
39:15
armor. It's cool.
39:16
It's slick, it's black. He looks good.
39:18
He's all dirtied up. The aging and dying of all the
39:21
armor was. Fantastic, yeah.
39:23
It just, it felt like, you know, it looked like he actually went
39:26
to war by the end of it. You see him having coffee on the
39:29
boat and he looks. Oh, his wine and bread.
39:32
Yeah, that's that's, that's our LA breakfast.
39:35
Yes I do love how they like presented him because like he
39:39
looked. So good he looked.
39:41
So good looks. Movie Spencer.
39:45
Elizabeth, this was such a fun episode and we have even more
39:50
fun stuff planned. Shall we let everyone know what
39:53
we have going on? Our yes, our audience request.
39:57
Absolutely. As our gift for the holidays to
40:00
you all, we let you pick out our next episode and by popular
40:06
demand, in two weeks we will be talking about the Eiko Ishioka
40:12
Classic. The Fall.
40:14
I am so excited. Actually.
40:17
The amount of times I've been emailed about us watching the
40:20
fall is actually quite insane. Yeah.
40:23
So of course, when we did this audience request holiday gift, I
40:26
was like, I bet you it's gonna be the fall or the cell.
40:30
Exactly. Sure enough, it's the fall.
40:34
I'm very excited. It's a Ishioka classic.
40:38
I've seen a few pictures. Oh, when I picked up Elizabeth
40:40
today, when I was telling her what our film was going to be,
40:43
literally, we're driving in to talk about Gladiator.
40:47
And I was like, just so you know, the lead actors, Lee Pace
40:49
also, and she was very easily sold.
40:53
There was no debate. No, I already knew that.
40:56
And he's like, he was like one of my crushes growing up from
41:01
Pushing Daisies. I was going.
41:03
To say shout out to Pushing Daisies if you guys haven't
41:06
listened to our Pushing Daisies episode, it's actually one of my
41:09
favourites because. So much fun.
41:10
Elizabeth made me watch way too many episodes of that and I was
41:14
deeply obsessed and they should bring that show back.
41:16
But absolutely, we'll be talking about the fall on our next
41:20
episode. Until then, don't forget to
41:22
e-mail us at theartofcostume@gmail.com and
41:24
let us know what your one costume to rule them all is from
41:27
Gladiator. Check us out on YouTube.
41:30
There's some good stuff that's really happening on YouTube.
41:33
youtube.com slash at the art of costume, Instagram at the art of
41:37
costume pod at TikTok at the art of costume, if that wasn't clear
41:42
already. And until then, Elizabeth, we
41:45
need to keep unpacking and building our eyebrows.
41:49
Wink wink. New studio.
41:51
I know I'm excited. I'm excited.
41:53
Thanks for listening everyone. We'll see you next time.