Industry - Hollywood Authentic

May 2, 2025

Words & Interview by ARIANNE PHILLIPS

The trailblazing, award-winning costume designer, who has worked with filmmakers from Spike Lee and John Singleton to Ava DuVernay and Ryan Coogler, tells Arianne Phillips about being a ‘first’ in Oscar history and how community has shaped her career.

Ruth E. Carter is a costume designer extraordinaire and her body of work speaks for itself. She has designed costumes for beloved and game-changing films such as Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, Amistad, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, What’s Love Got to Do with It?, Selma, Dolemite Is My Name, Coming 2 America 2, Black Panther and Wakanda Forever. She’s been nominated four times for an Academy Award, of which she won twice – making history as the first African-American costume designer to win an Oscar, as well as the first African-American woman to win multiple Oscars in any given category. In 2019, she received the Costume Designer Guild’s career achievement award and is the second costume designer to ever have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (after Edith Head). Not only a prolific artist, she’s also a leader in the costume community, serving as a governor of the costume designers’ branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Her book, The Art of Ruth Carter, was published in 2023 and her latest project, Sinners, is currently in cinemas.

AP: Let’s talk a little bit about your origin story. Where did you grow up, and what brought you to costume design?

RC: I grew up in Massachusetts in a little town called Springfield, the home of the Basketball Hall of Fame. My mother was a psychologist for the city – and I say that because my mom was the first person who actually taught me how to see people, and see the stories behind the people. I had two brothers who were visual artists – my brother who’s closest to me in age really loved to sketch. He loved pencil and graphite. We would sketch faces. We had a little mouse that we drew. He wore a tam [hat], and had the Black Power fist up all the time. It was fun! My oldest brother, Robert, did fine painting, oils and portraits. We all looked up to him. So my family was artistic but I tried to divert away from it when I went to college and majored in education. I decided to change my major to theatre arts, and very soon was known on campus as the costume designer. My main focus was to get theatre projects done, whether it was the music department doing a musical, or a fraternity doing some special step show, or Black theatre. They weren’t teaching costume design in the theatre department at the time. I went into a little costume shop that was in the theatre department. It was uninhabited. No one was using it. But when I opened up that door, it became my learning lab.

Black Panther, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Do the Right Thing, Malcolm X, Ruth E. Carter, Selma — Malcom X, 1992. AJ Pics/Alamy

AP: I relate to that as a theatre kid. In your career you’ve really touched on every genre from historical pieces to biopics to comedies. What informs your choices?

RC: I would love to be the person who chooses, who goes out into the backyard to my film tree, and I pick: ‘Oh, I love this one, and then I love that one.’ But I feel like I have a certain reputation, and the films that are being offered to me, they’re in my wheelhouse. It doesn’t mean that you’re typecast, just that people think that this is something that you would be inspired to do. I’m always given the challenge. I’d love to do something one day with one person in it – you know, Krapp’s Last Tape. But I get the ones with the armies and the battles, with a cast of hundreds. I’ve been really fortunate to have offers that are really juicy, that are interesting and challenging. And that’s what I look for. I really love when I admire the filmmaker, but I also love to support young filmmakers that have promise, and I really want a good experience – for them to learn as well. When I first met Ryan [Coogler] at Marvel, I sat across a young filmmaker that admired Spike Lee, and told me that he was happy that I came in to interview. He admired my work as a student of film. So when that happens, it charges you up, and you go, ‘I am going to do the best I can for this young filmmaker, because it’s really about being part of a film family, and really liking the person you’re working for.’

AP: You created a travelling exhibition – Afrofuturism in Costume Design – your book also touched on this. I wondered if you could just illuminate a little for our audience about your relationship to Afrofuturism?

RC: I feel that my whole career has encapsulated Afrofuture. What we know of Afrofuture is taking culture and infusing it with technology, and presenting it in a way that, you know… What would things be like without colonisation? How would this technology have been advanced by these different cultures? I take Afrofuturism a step further. When I’m on the set with Spike Lee and he’s envisioning the story of Do the Right Thing, he is bringing in prose and political statements. He’s creating a protest film. I feel that Spike is embodying his own Afrofuturism, his view of a better tomorrow where we see ourselves on screen in a way that is much more realistic to what we know, and how we see our community, and how we know beauty. It’s retraining the eye, not only to see costumes in a new lens, or through beauty, but also to retrain the eye to see beauty standards differently. I think that those kinds of edicts are the things that I grew in this industry to embody and embrace, because I had a mission. I had a responsibility to that, because I was blazing a trail for the future costume designers who looked like me, and I wanted them to feel not pigeonholed or in a box to do things a certain way. When we crafted Mo’ Better Blues, we showed Denzel Washington and Wesley Snipes on stage in the jazz club. These were the images that we weren’t seeing in cinema. Also, Ava DuVernay on the set of Selma, directing. You know, we’re not only teaching through the medium of film and storytelling – we’re also teaching by example. Now our community could see a woman directing. Or a story being told about your neighbourhood. That, for me, is Afrofuture. That’s how you groom the Afrofuture for yourself and for your community.

AP: You designed films with Spike Lee and John Singleton…

RC: I met John Singleton at a panel where Spike was speaking. It was such a tight, little network in the ’90s that you might be out partying with John Singleton, having never worked with him, but we were a little film tribe.

AP: I think that one of the attractive aspects for me as a young person coming into filmmaking was the collaborative, communal idea. As artists, when we have a director, or even an actor, with the same vision and purpose, we can really be creative.

RC: And sometimes it’s just about helping them find the creativity. A lot of times, our actors will come to us from another set with very little prep, and you’ve been on it for weeks, just delving into research, and you’ve collected all kinds of things that you’re excited to show them and share with them. I’ve had someone like Forest Whitaker ask to see more of my research so that he could spend some time with it in his hotel. When they are like that, you know that they are committed to creating a great character.

AP: I’ve had that happen when they come into the fitting room, and they say, ‘Thank you. I didn’t know who I was.’ A director that I’ve worked with says that the fitting room is the most important because it’s the portal into the film. And oftentimes we’re talking to an actor, or maybe a day player, that hasn’t even got to set to sit down with the director.

RC: I’ve had an actor say his first sitting is his first rehearsal. It’s really beautiful.

AP: Can you talk a little bit about biographies versus dramas? And the challenges of dressing historical figures?

RC: Fortunately, with someone like Malcolm X, there were quite a few photographs of him, but not enough of him as he was a young boy in the dance hall years, and all of the years where he hustled in New York City. It becomes a relationship you have with the character or the person, gathering what you can see of them, and also imagining during the times what they would be challenged with. No one’s life that we portray in biopics is exactly the way that it was in their real life, even though we attempt to get as close as we can, because we only have two hours to tell their whole life. And we have to make it cinematic, and make you feel empathy, and make you cry, and make you laugh. I research a lot and that tells you things that you wouldn’t know. Like they built stoves in Detroit, so that informs ageing of the costumes – that these people who are workers coming down the street to eat, or were coming home, they could have worked at the furnace supply factory.

AP: Do you have any career highlights that stand out for you?

RC: First, I have to say that those years in the ’90s, bouncing back and forth between LA and New York every year, going to New York to work with Spike, and then coming back to California to work with Robert Townsend and Keenen Ivory Wayans – I really got both sides of the coin. I was able to do comedies like I’m Gonna Git You Sucka and B*A*P*S and understand their perspective – and then to go back and work with Spike on something rich like Do the Right Thing and Mo’ Better Blues and Crooklyn and Clockers. Really just the experience of both the East Coast and the West Coast in that way, every year for 14 years, was an incredible experience for me. But I would say that the one experience that stands out the most is being in Egypt, shooting Malcom X’s hajj to Mecca, having built the hajj in the desert, because we couldn’t go into the Holy City and shoot there. We rebuilt it. Our first day of shooting, we were shooting at the pyramids, and we left the hotel – it was still dark out – because we wanted to shoot a priest singing the morning prayer at the pyramids. I’m standing in the desert with Denzel Washington, on a Spike Lee joint, looking at the pyramids with a Muslim priest singing the prayer – it was so spiritual and so meaningful. It was an experience that you seldom see anymore, because movies will put a green screen around the whole set, and be in Egypt. But we were actually there.

AP: In terms of being the first Black woman to win an Oscar, and the second time in the same category – how does that resonate for you, not only in your accomplishment but in general?

RC: In 1993 I was nominated for Malcolm X. I was the first Black woman to be nominated for costume design. I was like, ‘Wow.’ But then I thought, you know, ‘Wow, it’s 1993. In this day and age, we’re still examining firsts.’ So that told me that the film industry was not wide open. I was able to do something that could open a door. And so my accomplishment then formed what this is going to mean for the culture. As time went on, Amistad happened, and meeting Steven Spielberg, and working on set with Steven, was another highlight. And then I was nominated. It was the loneliest nomination ever because the film didn’t get the nomination. But I was reminded that this is not the reason you’re doing this; it isn’t the crux of what makes this experience so impactful and so important for you.

And then Black Panther happened. It was incredibly hard. It was really immersive. I look at pictures of myself, and I’m like, ‘Oof, there’s another bad hair day!’ But you had to give it your all. So to win for Black Panther, it was bigger than anything. To stand on that stage, and look out and see Spike sitting there, to see Chadwick Boseman, just smiling big and bright – it felt like I was still doing this for the culture; still achieving these goals for the community; still being an example for the next young girl coming in behind me, to show that they can, too. And that’s really what I was overwhelmed with joy about. And social media made it undeniable, because now you see the audience. You see what they want, and you’re able to actually give it to them, and talk about it. When the trailer for Black Panther dropped, I’m sitting at home, and I saw something come over my phone on Twitter. It was a question about the Himba tribe. I answered the question, and then it blew up.

AP: Can you tell us about Ryan Coogler’s latest film, Sinners, with Michael B Jordan – a departure for you because it’s a horror film?

RC: I had to get used to putting blood all over the costumes! We had to have things built in multiples because it was the 1920s, Mississippi Delta. And then, all of a sudden, here comes the vampires. It was a lot of fun. It was really wonderful to paint that landscape, to get that richness of time and place and people, and then depart from it, and have the fighting off of vampires, and stakes, and bites, and blood. Yeah, it got pretty messy [laughs].

AP: And now you are producing a film with Serena Williams…

RC: We are telling the story of Ann Lowe, who was a fashion designer. She was the first Black woman to have a shop on Madison Avenue. Her clientele were all of the high upper-class families in New York. She did a lot of debutantes, and Jackie Kennedy’s mom brought Jackie to Ann Lowe to have her wedding dress designed. When it was reported in the New York Times about Jackie Kennedy’s beautiful dress, she was listed as the ‘Negro Seamstress’. This was 1953. The Civil Rights Movement was just coming in. So to navigate these rich families, she had to kind of code switch. She had 35 people working for her. She wasn’t sewing on a sewing machine at home. She had a business. Her work is amazing, and it’s at the African American Museum in DC. It’s at the Met. People have collected her pieces in museums, but nobody knows, still, very much about her. So we are hellbent on giving her her flowers, and also showing how she was navigating the times, and how she was this genius of a woman who was doing all of these beautiful dresses.

AP: What advice would you give to a young person who wants to be a filmmaker?

RC: I think a young person who wants to become a costume designer, really needs to be committed to it. It’s a whole life experience when you’re doing costumes, and it’s not always glamorous. Come into this knowing that this is something that you really want to do, and you’re always going to be a student of it. The minute you think you know, then you’re only scratching the surface.

Words by RUTH E. CARTER/ARIANNE PHILLIPS
Do The Right Thing / Malcom X / Black Panther / Black Panther: Wakanda Forever / School Daze

Phantom Threads

CATHERINE MARTIN

February 10, 2025

Words by CATHERINE MARTIN/ARIANNE PHILLIPS
Introduction by JEREMY LANGMEAD

The highly decorated costume and production designer behind opulent visual feasts such Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge and Elvis talks Arianne Phillips through her career, ChatGPT, parental inspiration and her nemesis on set.

Catherine Martin is a true polymath. She has an extraordinary ability to bring to life, through her award-winning costume, production and set designs, the vision of her partner in life, and in film, the director Baz Luhrmann. Together they had created visually spectacular and compelling storytelling through movies such as Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge, The Great Gatsby and Elvis.

Catherine has had 78 awards nominations and 62 wins, including four Oscars. In fact, she has been nominated for and twice won two Oscars in the same year – costume and production design for Moulin Rouge and The Great Gatsby. The only woman to do so since Edith Head in the 1950s.

Here Catherine, with her trademark modesty and good humour, talks to Arianne about balancing high creativity and daunting logistics, setting boundaries when working with your partner, and raising children to researching Joan of Arc.

AP: Hi Catherine. So great to meet you. We’ve never actually met.

CM: I know. And I’m a huge fan of what you do. I went and saw all the Madonna shows and saw what you did for her, and I just thought, ‘Wow!’

AP: Thank you. Well what I love about you is that you’re a multi-hyphenate – not just a costume designer, production designer, producer, but you’re also an entrepreneur, and you do interiors. I’m so just thrilled to hear about your process and what it’s like having your life partner also be your creative partner. And when do you have time for all this? You also have a family. How did this multi-hyphenate life begin?

CM: Thank you. Well when I was still studying at NIDA (National Institute of Dramatic Arts) in Sydney I worked on set design and costume projects for the theatre. And so when I met Baz, who had graduated from NIDA just before me, I’d already had experience of both when we started working together on Strictly Ballroom (1992).

catherine martin, elvis, moulin rouge, romeo + juliet, the great gatsby — *Strictly Ballroom*, 1992. RANK/Alamy

AP: A lot of people don’t understand the tradition that in the theatre, set designers will often also design the costumes. There’s a real fluid flow in theatre and in opera. What I love about your trajectory is that both you and Baz have this real theatre foundation, and it really makes sense that you’re able to continue this type of fluid work between sets and costumes in the films you create.

CM: Absolutely. Baz always says that in film a lot of the time sets are the costumes because 30% of a film is in close-up. And then if you have a big crowd scene, well, the set is kind of obliterated by the crowd – and it is they who create the atmosphere or the milieu in which the story is told. So he’s very focused on everything visual. You know, every single detail he will have a perspective on. Baz is a visualist, and he will have a strong idea of how he wants something to look. He’ll rip pictures out of magazines; he will draw little scribbly pictures that are very helpful; he is now, very scarily, starting to talk to Chat GPT. And what I think is incredible is that I can’t get good pictures out of Chat GPT, but he talks to it like a director and corrects it and then the images actually make sense. I just go, how can you make such great pictures? I’m meant to be somebody who’s a designer and I can barely get it to give me a cat that doesn’t have 6 legs.

AP: It’s a testament to his verbal acumen that he’s able to express aesthetics, because that is a gift and a skill. In my experience most directors are completely unable to express aesthetics, which is so crazy.

CM: He has a really strong aesthetic, obviously. But at the same time, what makes it great is he’s not like, you know, Charlie Chaplin, the great dictator, with a big ball running around his office. He’s actually engaging with you as a true collaborator: ‘now how do we work this out?’ And he doesn’t do it just with design. He’ll do it with music. He’ll do it with movement. He’ll do it with the actors. So what’s rewarding is you’re not just another cog in the wheel. You feel connected to all the other people in the team.

AP: You both have such a strong aesthetic and visual identity, I wonder what movies you loved or that had inspired you when you first started out creating your own stories?

CM: I think the movie that absolutely struck me the most when I was a kid was The Wizard of Oz. I think I first saw it when I was 10. My dad is a huge movie buff. Even though he’s a professor of French, and a specialist in 18th-century French literature, he’s just loved the movies from when he was a child. He was actually a child actor. And he would tell you all about how they did everything – like when someone’s telling you about the special camera they invented for Snow White, the multi-plane camera so that it felt like you were moving through time and space. When you’re a child, it sometimes takes the magic out of it all, but noone could take the magic out, or the fear I had, from those monkeys. I still find them terrifying. And I really wanted those red shoes with the sparkles on them. And I also liked the pale blue socks she wore with the red shoes. I thought it was so ugly, but so good. And this is now very politically incorrect, but you must remember that I was a child when I first saw it, but I was in awe of Gone With the Wind. It was just so enormous and epic.

AP: The scale, magic and colours of those epic movies are all reflected in your work. As is the transportive nature of those films – whether it’s through Moulin Rouge or The Great Gatsby. I’m just curious about when you are in the early development phase with your films, and you and Baz have privilege of being partners in life, as well as in film, do you discuss your work at the dinner table… how you come together with your early ideas about the films that you’re deciding to make?

CM: It has to be relatively disciplined because, ultimately, Baz is the decision maker. And we’ve had to learn to have a process for him to discover what he wants to actually make the next time – because he commits hook, line and sinker. So every time we go into that moment he needs to go off on a kind of quest to find that idea that he wants to commit to. And then there’s a process of him telling the larger group the story. So I would be one of the first people to hear that story. And then he would tell our other colleagues. And then he might start talking to the casting director about it in order to start fleshing out the story for himself.

Baz is in a writing mode at the moment, and that’s a very specific and singular thing for him. And whilst he’s on that journey I will do external kind of research. His next project is Jeanne D’Arc and I will obviously read the book on which the story is based and generally research around the subject. We’ve already done some field trips to see various people and places and museums. In fact, I’m going to Rouen tomorrow to see where poor Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. But in earnest, I’ll be invited into the design process in a quite formal way

AP: I get it.

CM: So, yes, we talk about everything and anything. But when you work and live together, you kind of have to have systems in order to create the space for the other person to not trample them creatively. So I know if Baz has a really good chance to brief me, he’ll give me the space and time to give it my best shot, then I’ll be ready to present it to a group. And presenting can be really traumatising because when you present something you actually see all the flaws that were not real to you when you were just sitting in your room by yourself, or with your immediate team, or whatever. But what’s great is that it doesn’t matter if you fail. You just have to go back to the drawing board and give it your best.

AP: Catherine, when you speak about presenting to the group, it’s reminiscent of what we do in theatre, right, or in opera when you present. And I love that process, that structure, because it is exactly what you say: when you do present it’s like reading your writing out loud. Then you understand, ‘oh, I need to work on this more, this doesn’t work’, but that is such a gift. Having done a little bit of opera and a little bit of theatre, I found that that process is nerve wracking, but wholly rewarding. And I am jealous that you have this partnership and this structure that you’re able to do that with your film work. That’s fabulous.

CM: The big advantage with theatre is that you effectively have 100 opening nights, instead of one. Whereas someone could be wearing a terrible wig on opening night in the play, for whatever reason, you can fix it in the run. Once you’ve shot something, you can never change it. Perhaps with visual effects, but costume fixes are a lower priority in that budget. Most people would rather fix a stunt or a building than a costume or a wig.

AP: Yeah, that’s right.

CM: I’m always, like, ‘can you close the shirt? And what about the fact that the sock’s not long enough going up into the trunk?’ I can see these are the things that as costume designers drive us crazy, right? And, oh my god, I wish there was a special erase button for bad shoes. Why is that person with the bad shoes right in the front? Can you put good shoes on?

AP: Ha. Always. How do you manage your team when you are designing sets and costumes, and you’re also a producer…how does that work?

CM: Well, it takes me nearly to the brink of a nervous breakdown. And in fact, although it was only partially to do with work, but a combination of COVID, two children in their late teens, my mother breaking a hip, and so much to do that I actually did have a bit of a nervous breakdown…

AP: I’m sorry to hear that.

CM: It was just a lot. So, you know, Elvis wasn’t a perfect journey because I really did become extremely depressed at one point. And you don’t realise that that’s happening to you. It’s just like the oxygen’s being taken out of the room in tiny little gulps. And one of our children was having, you know, suicidal ideation. They’re totally fine now. That’s the thing about children, that one minute it’s like the end of the world for them, and then they turn around and say ‘that’s over now, I’m good’. I wish I was as resilient. So it’s not perfect, you know, all the time. And I think that was just a really tough period. And I underestimated too how much work Elvis would be. Initially I thought the movie might be a bit of a psychological rest because we were not world-building from scratch, we were recreating one. But, of course, it wasn’t like that at all. It was world-building and there were around 9,000 complete outfits. And sometimes I just felt like I was in Indiana Jones and there was a giant ball coming behind me. And I kept thinking ‘how can there be 105 speaking parts?’ And I was a producer. And I would go to my fellow producers and colleague, Schulyer Weiss – because his creative area is casting – can you cut some of these parts because there aren’t enough clothes in the world!

AP: Wow, I can imagine. This Bob Dylan movie I just did, A Complete Unknown, had 120 speaking parts. It’s a lot.

CM: It is. Since Elvis, however, things have changed so much. Both kids are at university; they have their own lives; one is living at home at the moment, and the other one lives three minutes away in an apartment. And it means I’ve just had more creative opportunity this year in a way that I haven’t before because, you know, I’m now less tied to the children. I love my children. Best thing I ever did. But you go through this weird seesaw moment where you go, ‘oh my god, they’re leaving home. The whole meaning of my life has been removed. This is a disaster’. And then you go, ‘oh, freedom, freedom!’

AP: Ha. Because, as you’ve alluded to, there are so many logistics to plan and solve in your work with Baz, how are you able to separate the vision and the practicals when planning a project so that one doesn’t hamper the other?

CM: I think you have to have the idea first. You have to have the concept, the idea, and then you have to work out how to do it. Obviously, when people whose names shall remain nameless – but their name might rhyme with Faz – ask you to build the Eiffel Tower the day before the Eiffel Tower has to be there, maybe you do get a little tight in the chest. But you’ve got to go: ‘Okay. Now you may not be able to build the Eiffel Tower, but what are they actually saying to you? What do they actually want? What does the Eiffel Tower symbolise? What does it mean? Why do we need it? Okay, now what’s the solution?’ It’s the same thing in costumes all the time. Actors might not like something they’re wearing. And, usually, for a very good reason, but it might not be the reason they’re saying. You have to sort of get into the head of the person to understand what they’re really trying to tell you because then you can find a solution that satisfies the problem.

AP: Yes. It’s solving a riddle. And I think that is one of the crazy masochistic reasons why I keep working on another film is that it is that riddle, that creative riddle, between practicality and creativity – and how the two shall meet. It can take a lot out of you and also give you a lot of gifts, too, in the end.

CM: This is true. I have been criticised for saying this in the past, but I believe that what separates a designer from an artist is that a designer is problem solving. A design is about a situation that you’re presented with: whether it’s a script, a person or wet weather. And a director who’s explaining to you how they want the movie to be, and an actor that has certain views on their character, and your job is to thread the needle between all those people.

AP: Good point. What’s been the biggest challenge you’ve faced in all the films that you’ve worked on? Is there a particular scene?

CM: I think I was really nervous before filming the ‘68 special in Elvis because I saw all the clothes and it just really didn’t come together until I saw everyone in hair and makeup. I just thought, ‘what is this?’ It just felt so discombobulated. But then with hair and makeup it all came together. Hair and make-up is a really unsung department. They really can save you. Good hair and makeup is just invaluable for creating character and mood and bringing everything together. You know, that was pretty terrifying. And it’s what we shot first on Elvis.

AP: You pulled it off. So great.

CM: Thank you. And when you think that was entirely shot in Australia. And it’s so under the skin, you can’t see it. So beautifully done. Yes, it was just that first day shooting the ‘68 special that felt like we had so much to lose. Ultimately, with all the more complex scenes we film, I just always feel so grateful when nothing explodes, no one gets hurt, the clothes stay on everyone, the work is good, everyone’s happy, the props worked… props are always my nemesis. Not so much the set dressing props – I love set dressing – it’s just those props that are handled by actors. It’s so interesting because someone like Leonardo DiCaprio or Hugh Jackman can get the worst prop, the prop that doesn’t work, and you’ll say to them, ‘can you just make this work? I’m so sorry this is a disaster. And I’m just terrible’. And they can, you know, they can basically bring an inanimate object to life. And then there are other people who can’t sign a check. And it doesn’t matter how many pens you bring them, just no pen works. You can have 7,000 pens and I can still hear my name being called over the radio to come to set.

AP: The same with a wardrobe malfunction, too. Some people are just able to handle it. When you’re working with a brilliant performer they know instinctively how to create the illusion. We’re all creating illusions. And Catherine, you are a master of this, your work is extraordinary.

Words by CATHERINE MARTIN/ARIANNE PHILLIPS
Introduction by JEREMY LANGMEAD
A Single Man / Once Upon A Time in…Hollywood / Joker: Folie à Deux / A Complete Unknown

Phantom Threads

ARIANNE PHILLIPS

November 15, 2024

Words by JEREMY LANGMEAD

Hollywood Authentic’s correspondent, costumier Arianne Phillips, has the tables turned as she looks back at her own illustrious career crafting clothing for films including A Single Man, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, Joker: Folie à Deux and the upcoming Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown.

Arianne Phillips is one of the most prolific, talented and versatile costume designers working in the industry today. She has won acclaim and award nominations for everything from giant commercial blockbusters to influential art-house movies, iconic music videos to Madonna’s concert tours, and worked with an enviable array of directors and actors. Arianne is also a favourite of the fashion world: her costume designs for Tom Ford’s A Single Man, Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood, and Madonna’s W.E. have inspired designers and led to her working with Prada and designing menswear collections alongside Matthew Vaughn for the retailer Mr Porter. She’s also responsible for the costumes of two of the most anticipated films of the moment: Joker: Folie à Deux by Todd Phillips and A Complete Unknown, James Mangold’s forthcoming Bob Dylan biopic starring Timothée Chalamet. So, it seemed the right time to put Hollywood Authentic’s costume correspondent under the spotlight for a change.

JL: When we worked together on a 2019 documentary that Lenny Kravitz and I executive produced about you – Arianne Phillips: Dressing the Part – we described you as the misfit rebel who became a powerful creative force in both the movie and fashion industries. How did that misfit rebel successfully succeed in two notoriously competitive industries?

AP: Well, let’s see, how did it all begin? It’s not a linear journey. My mom had me when she was 20 and my dad was 24, and my sister and I, we just went on this fabulous adventure with them. In California we were exposed to a lot of art, music, writing and poetry, and I think that was what really stayed with me. I was in an atmosphere of creativity and experimentation. I enjoy taking the path unknown. Because I’ve just worked on the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown, I keep referring to his songs, and the lyrics ‘The times they are a-changin’’ resonate with me. I’ve always just kept taking risks.

JL: Did you study costume at college?

AP: I wanted to go to college to learn art. And then I quickly got distracted and moved to New York. I was obsessed with British street culture and fashion, and the magazines. I got really great advice from a very respected fashion photographer, Arthur Elgort, who I had the pleasure to meet during those early days. He said, ‘You know, I can’t do much for you. I’m established. Come up with your own way, find like-minded people and collaborate with your friends.’ So I really dug into that, and I met so many wonderful people in New York, as you do as a young person, and I think that was the thing that really propelled me into this kind of multi-discipline career. Until then, if you loved fashion you were either a costume designer for a film, or a stylist for musicians, or you were a fashion editor. Those things did not cross over. But I think I was the new kid who never really wanted to belong to one group, never felt quite comfortable in any of those worlds full-time. And then the connecting thread for me, ultimately, was storytelling through costume, through clothing…creating characters. And I was lucky enough to get to do that, quite early on, with so many great artists – Lenny and Madonna and Courtney Love.

A Single Man, Arianne Phillips, Greg Williams, Hollywood Authentic, Jeremy Langmead — *A Single Man*, 2009. The Weinstein Company/Alamy

JL: So it was always creativity, new challenges and inspiring collaborators that drove you forward at this stage?

AP: Yes. The financial aspect of it never really factored in. I knew that if I went down the commercial route – which is easy; I watched a lot of colleagues end up doing commercials for TV and stuff – then I would get addicted to that comfortable lifestyle. I mean, it’s worked out fine for me, but I always chose a project that would be unique. In the last film I worked on, I had 40 people in my department. The new film I’m about to start work on will have just me and two other people, with a budget of only $30,000 for costumes for the whole movie. The average budget for costumes on a big movie is a million plus. And last year I did an off-Broadway play where it was just me and one other person. This approach is crucial to how I try to keep my own self relevant to myself; to keep me a little bit hungry, to keep it real.

JL: I was talking to the actor Dan Levy recently and he was describing how intimidating the first days on set shooting can be when you suddenly have to start working closely with huge teams of people you’ve perhaps never met before. How do you cope with that… especially as you have to have quite an intimate relationship with some of those characters very quickly because you’re dressing them?

AP: It is crazy, at least with actors, because we’re the only department that’s like, ‘Nice to meet you, can you take your clothes off please?’ It is very intimate. But it’s really about building trust, listening to the people you’re working with. It was so hard during Covid when we were masked. And what I ended up doing when filming Don’t Worry Darling was requesting Zoom calls with the actors first so I could get to know them, and read them. Then by the time they came in to the room and we were all masked you already had an understanding.

JL: Do you still get nervous?

AP: I still get butterflies. I can’t sleep the first night before shooting. The night before I was due to work with Madonna for the first time, I was a wreck. I didn’t sleep at all. But at the same time I still get so excited with what I get to do. And still recognise how lucky I am being out there working with such creative people; being in Paris with Madonna and going out to dinner with Jean Paul Gaultier, receiving three Oscar nominations. I mean, there’s just so many ‘pinch me’ moments.

JL: Which was the first mainstream movie you got work on?

AP: My first big break was doing The Crow [Alex Proyas’ 1994 thriller] but I couldn’t embrace that as a success because it was a tragedy. It was Brandon Lee [who was accidentally killed on set] who had invited me to work on it. So the joy of it was completely demolished. Then I did a small film for HBO directed by Christopher Guest called Attack of the 50-Foot Woman and then I worked on Tank Girl. But I would say that The People vs. Larry Flynt was my first legitimate character-driven, non-genre film. I felt like I could earn my parents’ respect because I had seen Milos Forman films with them back in the day. So that was a seminal moment for me.

Kingsman: The Secret Service, Arianne Phillips, Greg Williams, Hollywood Authentic, Jeremy Langmead — *Kingsman: The Secret Service*, 2014. 20th Century Studios/Alamy

JL: When we first met you were working on the Kingsman movies with Matthew Vaughan and I remember coming on set and I was gobsmacked at the number of lead actors you had to work with, extras you had to dress, the multitude of different costume trucks on the lot. The logistics you had to manage were extraordinary.

AP: I dare say Matthew Vaughan is unique in terms of logistics. I mean, he has a nimble quality in the way that he directs. So he directs these large-budget films, but with the attitude and the nimbleness of an independent filmmaker. So nothing’s too challenging, nothing’s not doable. Both of those first two Kingsman movies were really, really logistically challenging, and they took a toll on all of us who were making the films, because the thing about Matthew, and I think the reason why he’s such a brilliant filmmaker, is he takes so many risks and he does kind of the unthinkable.

JL: You not only had to create the costumes for the movie, but you also knew they were going to become the first of a legitimate menswear collection that would be sold in stores. And that Kingsman clothing brand still exists today. Is it easier creating costumes that will end up in a storage depot or ones that you know will live on in the real world?

AP: I was really excited about that challenge. It’s quite sad at the end of a movie when you put the costumes away in a box. I don’t keep the costumes, the film studio does. You put them in a box, they go into storage and you usually never see them again. There are a number of film studios that once you wrap a film, they try to recoup money and so sell off costumes. And it’s so sad. There’s also the horrible situation, which has happened to many of my colleagues, and to me a couple of times, where the film studio’s marketing department makes a separate deal with some mass fast-fashion brand and creates a version of the costumes that has nothing to do with you. And it looks like crap. So I thought Kingsman was like a litmus test for me. I kind of felt, not that it was altruistic, but that if I can make this happen, it could be a little bit of a benchmark for my colleagues.

JL: Are there no proper costume archives?

AP: Well, you know, in different ways. Madonna has a really impressive archive, and I’m sure people have seen the Céline Dion documentary in which she shows the camera crew around her archive. Madonna’s is even bigger. So you have artists who have personal archives. And then you have ones like those at the V&A or the Metropolitan Museum. They have fashion archives where they have certain film pieces that they feel are culturally relevant, but they’re not necessarily pure costume archives. You also have a lot of private collectors. And there’s the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles. They’ve started a really beautiful costume archive. I actually have donated bits and bobs that I have been allowed to keep by producers on certain films.

A Complete Unknown, Arianne Phillips, Greg Williams, Hollywood Authentic, Jeremy Langmead — *A Complete Unknown*, 2024. Searchlight Pictures/Alamy

JL: Well let’s jump to two new movies with extraordinary costumes but in very different ways. A Complete Unknown tells the story leading up to Bob Dylan’s first appearance with electric instruments at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. It’s directed by James Mangold with whom you also worked on Walk the Line nearly 20 years ago. Is it easier or harder creating costumes for a real character who is known and instantly recognisable or a fictional one?

AP: Well, being a massive Bob Dylan fan – he is part of the soundtrack of my childhood – I just felt what was needed in my bones. I started reading biographies about him and those who were in his circle, and I learned a lot. Our film is very specific; set over a period of four years at the beginning of the 1960s, it’s about the making of Bob Dylan, the poet, the icon, the rock star that we know today. It’s like his origin story. Personal research is more challenging. It’s like being a detective. The best thing for me as a designer is what I call the character arc. In this film it’s very succinct. The changes he went through from 1961 to ’63 to ’65, they’re very definitive.

The hardest thing to get right for period films is denim because it changes so much and often doesn’t exist in that form anymore. Bob wore denim throughout his life and to this day. It was clear from early research he wore predominantly Levi’s. Luckily, I have worked with Levi’s previously and know the wonderful people that work there . That was the first call I made a couple years ago when I started researching for the film. I reached out to them asking if they could help me identify what Bob was wearing, denim-wise. So together with the help of the team in the archive and design dept. at Levi’s I was able to create Bob’s denim story. First you see him early on in “worker” style “carpenter” jeans like Woody Guthrie wore, and then in 1962/63 he starts wearing the more recognizable Levi’s. His girlfriend at the time, Suze Rotolo, who’s on the cover of the album The Free Wheelin’ Bob Dylan, make a denim insert for his jeans so that they would fit around his boots because he always wore boots. So, in 1963, Bob Dylan wore the first flares. And then he ended up wearing very skinny jeans in 1965, which Levi’s recreated for us. Bob’s denim jeans and boots visually inform and express his style evolution in ‘becoming’ the Bob Dylan we know today.

Walk the Line, Arianne Phillips, Greg Williams, Hollywood Authentic, Jeremy Langmead — *Walk the Line*, 2005. 20th Century Fox/Alamy

JL: When you’re in the process, do you know that you’ve truly caught the character in the hair, make-up, and costume?

AP: Well, I can’t speak for Timmy [Chalamet, playing Dylan]. But I can say two moments when we first thought it was there. I did many fittings with Timmy – he has almost 70 changes in the film – but I would say the first day he brought a guitar to the fitting was really helpful to see how he would stand with the instrument. And when I put sunglasses on him in a fitting, that was very exciting. And then when we got closer to shooting and Jamie Leigh McIntosh, who’s the hair designer, was working on the wig – he wasn’t always wearing a wig; he also used his own hair – but that was a moment.

Timmy is remarkable. I mean he had to learn the lyrics for 40 or 50 songs for our film. So when he would come to the fittings he was very comfortable. You know, he would sing and play the guitar. And that really helped me a lot. And we played the music and we kind of went into this sacred space. Fittings are when the character comes alive.

JL: You created the costumes for Joker: Folie à Deux, which reunites you with Joaquin Phoenix who you worked with on Walk the Line. How do you bring alive such visually compelling characters as Joker and Harley Quinn?

AP: I was the new kid on the block with that movie. The first Todd Phillips’ Joker was designed by the brilliant Mark Bridges, a friend of mine. So I had the great good fortune to build on what he had created. On the first day when I was working with Joaquin he came in and said, ‘Well, I guess we only work on movies with music in them.’ It’s not a musical, but there are a lot of songs. Music is intrinsic to the way this story moves. It was lovely to be reunited with him in such a different role. I admire him so much and I love him as a person. Just being around Joaquin, it’s like you want some of that to rub off on you. He’s brilliant. He’s very generous and kind. He would hate that I’m saying this. He’s just very respectful, and he’s committed.

JL: And, of course, you also worked with Lady Gaga. Is it easier or harder working with someone who has a strong sense of style, clothes and costume drama herself?

AP: I have to say that working with Stefani – it’s hard for me to call her Lady Gaga because it sounds weird – will be one of my career highlights. She’s so generous, so committed, so willing… and so much fun. And she was a new kid on the block, too, for this movie and so we bonded over that. We did multiple fittings and the journey to finding her character in the costumes was just so rewarding. It helped that she is so used to developing characters on stage, that she’s so smart, and she has such a great level of references that we were able to riff on a higher level than with most people. She was 100 per cent committed. I mean, Lady Gaga was left at the door. This was all about Stefani, the actress. She was everything that I could hope for when I walk into a fitting room with an actor. She was willing to try, and open to, everything. And also had great ideas of her own.

JL: Your final question is a tough one. If you were stranded on a desert island with only one of the films you’ve worked on, which would it be?

AP: Wow. That’s impossible. It depends on what my mood is at the time. But W.E. [the 2011 film about Wallis Simpson and the Duke of Windsor directed by Madonna, for which Arianne was nominated for an Academy Award]. I’m very proud of that movie. Working with Madonna as a director is my favourite way to work with her because she’s just such a great partner and just so engaging. Otherwise probably A Complete Unknown and A Single Man are the follow-ups – A Single Man is a beautiful, beautiful film that I think is also an important one. And also, I hope, a film I’ve yet to make.

W.E., Arianne Phillips, Greg Williams, Hollywood Authentic, Jeremy Langmead — *W.E.*, 2011. StudioCanal UK/Alamy

Words by JEREMY LANGMEAD
A Single Man / Once Upon A Time in…Hollywood / Joker: Folie à Deux / A Complete Unknown

Phantom Threads

ALBERT WOLSKY

August 28, 2024

Words by ARIANNE PHILLIPS
As told to JEREMY LANGMEAD

Esteemed costume designer and Hollywood Authentic correspondent Arianne Phillips sits down with a man she describes as ‘the costume designers’ costume designer’, Albert Wolsky, to discuss swapping travel agenting for tailoring, working with legendary directors, dressing Diane Keaton and the beautiful mistakes of the classic musical Grease.

Albert Wolsky, 93, is a great artist with a prolific and profound career that has continued to influence and inform culture across multiple generations. His work spans every genre of filmmaking: drama, comedy, science fiction, period, contemporary, musicals, thrillers. From Grease to Galaxy Quest, All That Jazz to The Jazz Singer, Down and Out in Beverly Hills to Star 80, Manhattan to Sophie’s Choice, Across the Universe to The Manchurian Candidate, Revolutionary Road to Road to Perdition, and Birdman to Bugsy, Wolsky has worked with the most influential directors of the last century and this. He has close to 100 films to his credit.

Albert Wolsky, Arianne Phillips, Bugsy, Grease, Lenny, Road to Perdition

I have a deep respect, reverence and admiration for Mr Wolsky. I’m in awe of his artistry, his vision, his subtle and bold choices, the worlds he creates, and his layered storytelling. He is truly an icon for me and many of our colleagues.

Albert is also incredibly humble, kind, funny, warm and generous. Preparing for our conversation was nerve-wracking, to say the least – where would I begin? How would I be able to do justice to his more than 50-year career? In the end, our hours-long conversation flew by. Albert shared many wonderful stories and memories. I am thrilled to be able to share a part of that conversation with you here.

AP: Thank you so much for giving us your time.

AW: Not at all. You’ve made me reflect, and think back, which I don’t often do, so it’s been very interesting.

AP: And Albert, as you know, we all like to discuss how we can promote or elevate, even celebrate, the art of costume design and stories such as this help us to do that.

AW: Absolutely. It’s very important. Because otherwise you get totally ignored. Even today it’s always a fight to get your name out there otherwise you get swept under the carpet.

AP: I’m so grateful that I got to talk to you today. You are a costume designer’s costume designer: humble, approachable, warm – and the benchmark that we all aspire to. When I was revisiting your resume I was intimidated because the films you have designed have been probably the most influential ones for me, personally. From Where’s Poppa (Carl Reiner, 1970), Lenny (Bob Fosse, 1974) and Harry And Tonto (Paul Mazurksy, 1974)… all these films my parents dragged me to as a kid. And I was especially inspired by your collaborations with Mazurksy. You made 11 movies together…

AW: Well that was a gift. He is the only director I’ve worked with for that long – between 15 to 20 years. I’ve had influential directors – Bob Fosse, of course, and others – but for me Paul Mazurksy was the benchmark. [During his career, Mazursky, who died in 2014, received five Academy Award nominations and two Golden Globe nominations.]

AP: So Albert, how did you get into a career as a costume designer. You came into it quite late I think?

AW: Yeah, I was 30. I never knew what I wanted to do. And I kept sort of wandering along and got through college and then I was drafted, so I went in the army for two years. When I came out I joined my father who was a travel agent. We worked together in New York City for around five years. We got along really well, but I came to realise that he was doing exactly what he wanted to do. He loved it. And I wasn’t. I was getting more and more miserable to the point where I dreaded weekends because I had to come back to work on Monday. So I thought, well, I’ll have to go in and say, ‘I have to leave,’ and he’s going to say, ‘For what?’ And I would need to say something. And because I liked fashion and loved theatre, I thought why not combine the two? I’ll try to become a costume designer for the theatre. Movies hadn’t crossed my mind at that point.

My father was actually very supportive and so I started asking around to see if anyone would let me study under them. I was persistent and eventually someone suggested I should talk to the renowned Broadway costume designer Helene Pons. She was a designer, but she also ran a costume house, and had executed Cecil Beaton’s costume sketches for My Fair Lady in 1956. [Pons worked with everyone from Tallulah Bankhead to John Gielgud; and as well as My Fair Lady worked on original stage productions such as 1949’s Kiss Me Kate and 1955’s The Diary of Anne Frank.]

We met, I did her a favour with some flights she needed for a trip, and she offered me a job straight away. So I left the travel business on a Friday, and I started on a Monday with Helen Pons working on Camelot starring Richard Burton and Julie Andrews. And that was my beginning. For $100 a week, I helped run her studio and learned on the job. And subsequently got to work for and alongside some of Broadway’s most talented designers, directors and actors.

AP: What was the first production you did on your own?

AW: It was a play called Generation in 1965. It was the first time I got sole credit for costume design. And Henry Fonda was the star. And then sometime later I got a call from the costume designer Theoni V Aldredge [whose work included 1974’s The Great Gatsby, Ghostbusters and Addams Family Values] offering me a film. Assisting on a movie is probably a good idea, I thought, so I said, ‘When do you need me?’ She said, ‘Right away. And I don’t want you to assist. I want you to do it yourself as I can’t.’

It was the film version of one of my favourite books, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. The cast included Alan Arkin, Sondra Locke and Chuck McCann. Alan was a spiritual man; very nice, and he requested me for the next movie that he did. And so we’re off.

AP: How did you find the difference between theatre and movie costume design?

AW: I first noticed it with the fittings. You could always tell in those days whether an actor came from television or from the theatre by the way he looked in the mirror. A theatre actor would immediately start looking for the character. A movie actor would just pick clothes off the rack. The clothes weren’t him, they were just another costume. I try to avoid working that way. And I very rarely had to deal with that in my career.

One of my favourite people to work with in recent years was Jude Law when we were working on Sam Mendes’ film Road To Perdition in 2002. He really invested in time with the costume, hair and make-up teams. We experimented in many different ways for his character to dress and appear. And what we ended up with had nothing to do with what the person he was playing looked like originally. He was so involved with that. It doesn’t happen very often.

AP: So tell me about working on Lenny, the biographical film about the comedian Lenny Bruce, starring Dustin Hoffman and directed by the legendary Bob Fosse.

AW: Fosse had done two movies, Sweet Charity, in Hollywood, and Cabaret, which he made in Europe. Fosse was not what you would call buddy buddy, he was serious. You never laughed a lot on set with Fosse, but he worked hard. He’d be the first one on set, moving things around, setting up all the camera shots. And he remembered everything. He had that kind of mind. But as far as influence with costumes, it was very free.

We decided we wouldn’t dress Hoffman like Lenny Bruce and after that he didn’t get too involved. I would present my ideas to him and he would say, well, maybe this, or he would say no. It went very smoothly. But he was a true perfectionist. I stepped up a level working for Fosse on Lenny and on All That Jazz.

AP: What do you think made you have such a successful career?

AW: You know, I was starting to reflect a little bit and I thought, I don’t consider myself so brilliant. So how did I do that? I don’t know. When you start out, you’re just glad you’re working. You don’t spend too much time contemplating how or why. But I think I always looked out for a good script, as it gives you ideas, and who the director was. I’m very director oriented. And I’d always hope it was a period piece because I found contemporary very difficult to do.

AP: How come?

AW: Difficult because it then becomes a thing of taste. The other person’s taste, a producer’s taste. There’s so much interference. There’s much less interference in period because they don’t quite know as much. And you can really push harder.

AP: Tell me more about working with Mazurksy?

AW: Oh, we knew each other from New York. And we first worked together on Harry and Tonto in 1974. It starred Art Carney, who won an Academy award for best actor. We worked mostly in New York; Paul preferred it there. Obviously for films such as Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986) we were based in California.

Paul was very collaborative and would get me involved very early in the process. By the time we started rehearsal, I had had weeks of preparation. And that was a gift. It makes you a better designer, and it makes you able to give more to help the project. Paul was very open to ideas. And smart. What he didn’t know, he picked up very quickly. Being open is so important.

AP: Which other directors have you found collaborative to work with regarding the costume design?

AW: The last great director I worked with in that way, I would say, was Sam Mendes. Road To Perdition, which I mentioned already, with Tom Hanks, Paul Newman and Daniel Craig, as well as Jude – about a mob enforcer in the Great Depression – was a very rewarding experience. Sam was great, a wonderful director.

On the first day of shooting Road to Perdition, there was a scene with 500 people coming out of a factory. And in the afternoon, a bread line of 300 people. That’s a lot of costumes. And as we were setting those scenes up, Sam’s assistant was watching and she came up to me and said: ‘Sam’s going to be so impressed.’ And I said, ‘Well if he doesn’t like them, fuck him.’ Later in the day I get a tug on the arm. It’s Sam. ‘It’s very nice,’ he says. ‘And I understand I have to like it.’

We worked together again on a big crowd costume scene in Revolutionary Road (2008) with Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. When DiCaprio is heading to his office in Manhattan from the suburbs of New York in the early 1960s, we had dozens of commuters in similar grey or beige suits and fedoras. Really, that scene was all about the hats.

But you see, you can discover my secret of how I handle some period things. It’s not the exactness of the period, but it’s what people did that helps me. The fact that everybody wore hats. Not every person wore hats then, but for that scene to look right and to tell the story, and to capture the mood, we put everyone in hats.

AP: It’s the thinking like that about costume design that’s important to share. It’s important for people to know what a costume designer does and thinks. It is not just pretty clothes. It’s about storytelling, and it’s about helping the story and helping the director to visualise that story. And if you feel you can help that, it’s a gift for you personally.

AW: Oh, yeah. I think it should always be a collaboration. And it doesn’t matter who gets the credit. I’m not worried about the credit. I’m worried about what we have, what do we need, what do we see, how do we help? And it’s such a joy when it works like that.

AP: Hats have played an important role in a few of your movies. Didn’t you work with Warren Beatty on Bugsy (1991)?

AW: Warren is a lovely man, very talented, but he’s not comfortable with anybody the first time. He has to work with them a lot before he trusts them. It was wonderful working with him and the director Barry Levinson. And then Annette Bening, who was just at the start of her career. She was very open and it was a joy to dress her. The only problem I ever had with Annette is that she never reacted when looking at herself in the costume in the mirror for the first time.

AP: Are you looking for some sort of reaction?

AW: She never said yes, or let’s just do it, or that’s okay. So I would think what’s missing; something’s missing. And then one day, while we were shooting, as she was walking towards the set and I was behind her, she stood straight and everything about her changed. She opened the door, was ready to act, and that changed the whole costume. It came alive. That was so moving to me, to watch. That’s what was missing at the fitting.

AP: It must have been interesting working with Diane Keaton, who has an amazing dress sense of her own?

AW: I worked with Diane on Manhattan with Woody Allen in 1979 alongside Meryl Streep and Mariel Hemingway. Diane was very influential on how her character looked; especially after Annie Hall had come out. At that point she was Allen’s girlfriend. I learned that Allen was never going to say no to any actor about how they wanted to dress for the role. If an actor wanted to wear a pajama top, that’s what they wore. Which didn’t always make it easy for me.

Diane always dresses as if she’s playing a role. Her whole personality is how she looks. When we filmed Crimes of the Heart together in 1986 (Bruce Beresford directed) alongside Jessica Lange and Sissy Spacek, we were all staying in a resort out of town. Off-set, everyone was dressed down in the mornings except for Diane who would appear at breakfast in a big cape, hat, big cross, looking like a character from a different movie. The other two were so in awe of her. I liked her a lot. She was always in costume.

AP: And, of course, you did the costumes for Grease. Costumes that are still emulated and worn by generations who weren’t even born when the film was made in 1978.

AW: In the making of Grease (directed by Randal Kleiser), none of us who worked on it ever thought that it was going to become so iconic. We were just trying to do a good movie. As John Travolta said to me at one of these open-air screenings a few years ago, ‘Albert, do you realise we’re still talking about Grease?’ You know, its endurance and fashion influence is a total surprise; the fact that people now dress in character to go to watch the movie is amazing. It wasn’t what we imagined when making it. I don’t remember if I was trying to make a statement or what. I was just going by numbers. It wasn’t a big budget and the shooting was quite hectic. And everything, everything was off the cuff. The last number… well, we didn’t have a last number when we started the film. I think it was two weeks before they started rehearsing that we were given the script for that scene. But there it was and, all of a sudden, you had to get all the costumes done. In retrospect, the mistakes were better than the non-mistakes. The play was a mess on Broadway, and the movie is a slight mess, but it worked out really well. [It was the highest-grossing live-action musical movie until 2012’s Les Misérables.]

AP: There’s so much more we could talk about, Albert! We will have to continue in person over dinner.

AW: Thank you. You made me feel very good revisiting my work today.

AP: You’ve worked with the most incredible talent because you are an incredible talent. Your extraordinary career is a measure of who you are as a person.

AW: It’s been such a pleasure to be a part of so many stories. It always will be.

Words by ARIANNE PHILLIPS
As told to JEREMY LANGMEAD
All images © 2000 Block 2 Pictures Inc. © 2019 Jet Tone Contents Inc.
Reservoir Dogs / Pulp Fiction / Once Upon A Time in…Hollywood

Phantom Threads

COSTUME DRAMA

May 11, 2024

Words by ARIANNE PHILLIPS
As told to JEREMY LANGMEAD

When Pulp Fiction was released 30 years ago, it wasn’t long before the wardrobe worn by Uma Thurman’s gangster wife Mia Wallace influenced a generation of designers: 1995’s catwalks from Miu Miu to Alexander McQueen boasted a multitude of over-sized white shirts fit for a twist-dancing, milkshake-sipping bad girl. The movie even prompted sell-outs of Chanel’s iconic nail colour, Rouge Noir (Vamp in the US). Here, Arianne Phillips sits down with Betsy Heimann to explore the road to creating such an iconic moment on celluloid.

‘On the eve of Pulp Fiction’s 30th anniversary, I had the good fortune to discuss the film’s iconic and culture-shifting costume design with one of our most respected and revered costume designers, Betsy Heimann. Her stellar body of work underscores generational filmmaking at its finest, with her designs featured in Reservoir Dogs, Get Shorty, Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, Vanilla Sky, Lady in the Water, Green Book and many other memorable films. Betsy’s costume design for Pulp Fiction remains as relevant today as when the film premiered in 1994.

pulp fiction, john travolta, samuel l jackson, hollywood authentic

Betsy is an artist; a truly remarkable and talented costume designer whose brilliant work with Quentin Tarantino significantly contributed to the enduring success of his first two films. It also benefitted me 26 years later when I was invited to design Quentin’s Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood. I was so excited to speak to Betsy about the early days with Quentin, their process creating the visual language that we have come to know unmistakably as a “Tarantino film”, and designing and imagining the world of Pulp Fiction.’

AP: Watching Pulp Fiction again this week I thought about you so much, and what we have in common. I worked with Quentin on his last film, Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood, and I really have to hand it to you that you really are a part of the visual language that Quentin is so known for – whether it’s the Hawaiian shirt on Tim Roth in Pulp Fiction (a look that re-surfaces on Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood) or Quentin’s love of a leather jacket and a T-shirt, or a black-and-white motif… this is the Tarantino language that you both created together. I’m curious to learn from you what your process was like with the young Quentin when you worked together on Reservoir Dogs. How did that happen?

BH: I met [producer] Lawrence Bender at a New Year’s Eve party and we just got chatting and he invited me to a screening of a small indie film that he had worked on, and then it evolved into him sending me scripts and asking what did I think it would cost to do the costumes for them. And I would help out with the budgets. And then, one day, he sent me this script for Reservoir Dogs. It was fascinating. I had a costume career before Reservoir Dogs – I worked my way up from seamstress – but I had never read anything like this. I said to myself, you know, they’re gonna get good actors for this because there are pages of dialogue. So when Lawrence called me up and asked, ‘So what do you think?’ I said, ‘Err, who’s doing the costumes for this movie?’ He said, ‘I don’t know yet.’ And I said, ‘I’ll do it. I wanna do it.’ He told me they didn’t have any money. And I told him I didn’t care. That’s how it happened.

AP: And what was your impression of Quentin when you first met him?

BH: Oh, his enthusiasm was so contagious. And he was very organised. I remember being very impressed that he was so prepared. He was very grateful. And I just thought, I like this kid and I like being with him, and I love his enthusiasm. And then I went over to his apartment and we started watching movies together. Quentin was always visual. We’d go through the whole script visually. And our language was the language of film. I remember one conversation most vividly about Pulp Fiction. It was about Butch, about Bruce Willis’ costume. I said I think he should wear a leather jacket. He said, yes, I want a leather jacket like Nick Nolte’s in Who’ll Stop the Rain; so I sourced a similar old brown pigskin suede one, put it in the car, and Quentin and I drove out to Malibu where we had a meeting with Bruce. Demi [Moore] was there and Bruce brought all of these 1980s and 1990s leather jackets he liked – he must have had 10, but they were all oversized – and mine looked quite skimpy in comparison. But Quentin liked it, so Bruce tried it on. He put it on and said to me, ‘Well, are you gonna drag it behind a truck?’ And I said, ‘Oh, you mean age it? Yes, and with you in it.’

AP: I love it. Another of the things that I was really noticing when rewatching it was the day players and all the ancillary characters are wonderful characters whether it’s Christopher Walken, Harvey Keitel, Amanda Plummer, Eric Stoltz or Kathy Griffin. You did such a beautiful job of letting us know who these characters were in such a quick, short time period, the costumes really allowed us to just get there immediately. You infused so much storytelling into your costumes, it’s so impressive.

BH: Well, thank you very much. Yes, it was a big cast. As with Reservoir Dogs. We had a very big warehouse that we prepped and shot in. When I would get the things together for the fitting, I would call Quentin and he’d come in and he’d peek his head in and he would say ‘great’. But we had discussed it all before. One of the things that he and I did is watch anime cartoons. And one of them was Speed Racer. And I remembered that when we were prepping Pulp Fiction.

AP: And you put Eric Stoltz in that T-shirt, right?

BH: Yes. I said to Quentin, I think Speed Racer is the way to go. For me, I always tell a story about the character to get inspiration. And he said that he had one in his closet and so he went and got the T-shirt. There was a lot of spontaneous back and forth.

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AP: These graphic T-shirts are a part of Quentin’s language. In my experience with him, he had a lot of graphic T-shirt ideas for Once Upon a Time in…Hollywood.

BH: He has the same respect for the graphic T-shirt that I do. It’s not just, let’s put this guy in a graphic T-shirt, it has to mean something. It’s the same on all the films I’ve worked on. On Jerry Maguire, for example, when he is writing his mission statement, I figured he went to Notre Dame College. And so I called the Student Union and asked where do you guys all hang out? And I found the Little Bar, and I got hold of a T-shirt from them, and that’s the one Maguire is wearing when he writes his mission statement – his college t-shirt, the one he wore when he was full of ideals and full of how he was going to change the world… So every T-shirt for me has meaning.

AP: That’s so great because it gives us little Easter eggs of reality. For me, watching Pulp Fiction, and seeing the Santa Cruz Banana Slugs college T-shirt that Vincent [John Travolta] wears was, like, nobody knows about that T-shirt unless they’ve been there. But Quentin wanted to get across that Jimmy had some connection with Santa Cruz. And so you see how costume can give a character an instant backstory – it really adds another layer and a texture. It’s the same with other clues you used in Reservoir Dogs. Tell us how the black suits came about in that film?

BH: Well, for Reservoir Dogs, my budget was $10,000. So I said, ‘Guys, I can give you four suits with this budget for the film. And I need to keep one clean’.

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AP: Four suits for all?

BH: Right. But, you know, we were shooting multiple action scenes with them. So the fact of the matter is that only Harvey Keitel and, briefly, Quentin, wore actual suits. We couldn’t afford them. So I found this stash of 10 black Beatle jackets at American Rag – which is now very hip, but it was a thrift store at the time – and I thought these would work on the younger guys, like Tim Roth and Steve Buscemi. They were great jackets. And then I teamed them with Beatle boots and black jeans. And Quentin was, like, ‘What?’ And I said, ‘Trust me, nobody’s gonna know the difference. It’s gonna be fabulous’.

AP: That was amazing foresight to know that it would work so well on screen and not show.

BH: Well, that’s what we do. That’s what we know as costume designers. The other thing I will tell you is that not all of the jackets people were wearing were black. Some of them were navy, some of them were dark grey. I spent a little bit of time with our cinematographer, Andrzej Sekula, and I would say, ‘Okay, look at this grey suit jacket and look at this black suit jacket. How are you lighting this picture? Are they gonna photograph the same?’ And he would say, yes, and I would trust him.

AP: I think that was ingenious. And it actually gave it a modernity that a regular suit might not have. And a black jean was probably great for all those action scenes because they could put pads under them and you wouldn’t see anything. And back to Pulp Fiction, and they’re also wearing black suits, what was your budget like then?

BH: $36,000. I remember sitting with Quentin at Barney’s Beanery, and I said to him, ‘I really think that Vincent and Jules are Reservoir Dogs.’ And he thought about it. He goes, ‘You know, I like that. I like that’. This time I could do actual suits because now these guys have a little more money. I could do a linen suit with Vincent so that he always looked kind of a mess; and with Jules [Samuel L Jackson] I wanted a very slim-fitting narrow lapel, which was not that popular back then. So I went downtown and I found this Perry Ellis suit that I could get at a discount. And the collars of the shirts were very important to me, too. With Reservoir Dogs, each one of those guys had a different shirt with a different collar and a different width of tie in proportion to the width of their chest. This is all very technical, but it gives them a difference. So in Pulp Fiction, I did that again.

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AP: And so Jules had a very narrow collared shirt because he’s the preacher?

BH: Right. And then there’s a bit of a cowboy theme in Pulp Fiction, too. Amanda Plummer has the cowboy boot dialogue, and Jules calls Tim Roth ‘Ringo’ – Gregory Peck played Jimmy Ringo in The Gunfighter. They’re all gunfighters. And so for me there was this kind of a Western influence in the costume. And we all used to shop at King’s Western Wear in the Valley and that’s where I got the idea for the bolo tie. I thought, well, here’s Vincent thinking he’s cool. He’s got his bolo tie on. And Mia [Wallace, played by Uma Thurman] says to him, ‘How are you doing, cowboy?’ And he refers back to her as a cowgirl. So these are all messages to me. So I came up with that idea and Quentin liked it.

AP: A lot of those choices influenced the way people dress then and now. Let’s talk a little bit about Mia. I really was taken by her proportions and how you used them. How did it come to be that her trousers were short, like pedal pushers? The proportions of her outfit work so beautifully, especially in the twist-dancing scene… the way that you tailored that shirt, and it had the French cuff with the cufflink, and the black-and-white motif. I really love the beautiful symmetry of design in that scene. They’re dancing and they look like cake toppers. That scene is burned in our minds forever. It really kicked off a trend.

BH: Well I thought that Mia was really a Reservoir Dog, but she couldn’t express that because she was married to the boss and she had to be chic and glamorous; the eye candy. But on her date with Vincent she wanted to show him that she was one of the guys. And so I said, I wanted her to wear the black and white. But Uma is very tall, and we didn’t have any money, and all the pants weren’t long enough for her, and so I said, ‘What the heck, let’s just cut ‘em off’. I called Chanel and I said the magic words, Uma Thurman – they are magic words, things fall from the heavens – and I told them I needed these gold ballet slippers I had seen in a magazine and they lent us them. And then the shirt had to give her some shape and I wanted it to be oversized because I wanted it to say ‘I’ve got money but I’m also one of you; I’m a bad girl’. And then we added the bandana underneath. So it was another cowboy reference.

AP: And then Mia’s bob. It all works in tandem: the short pants and the oversized shirt, and then that black bob, it’s just so successful.

BH: The bob is all Quentin. It’s based on the old film star Louise Brooks and that’s what he wanted. And so knowing that, you start with that, instead of hoping that it’ll work with what you’re doing, you start with that. That’s the reality. And the reality is the inspiration.

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AP: Something else I love, which you do beautifully, is using a costume piece more than once to tell the story; when it starts on one character, then another character wears it. So, for example, we have Vincent wearing his black suit and that wonderful trench coat. And then we have Mia coming back from dinner with him and she has the trench coat on. That’s just beautiful. It says so much. It still looks so great today.

BH: I love that you noticed the raincoat, because that was something I was really, really adamant about. And Quentin liked the idea. I knew that I wanted her dancing around in that big coat and then she could find the drugs in the pocket. I wanted to make it more of a natural thing and so I had to get that coat on him in order to later get it on her. And so I searched everywhere for one of those old gabardine raincoats from the 1950s and found it at Palace Costume.

AP: It worked so well. And I love the colour… it would be easy for it to be a black raincoat but then we would really not see the detail. Also when she puts it on, it’s clearly not her coat. And what’s amazing, again, is the way these characters dressed in Pulp Fiction still inspires the way people dress today. It’s the marriage of your trueness to the characters, but also the fact that you and Quentin really tapped into a fantasy of larger-than-life characters that a part of us would like to be. And elements of the way they looked are attainable: you both turned regular items into iconic ones by the way you used them on the characters.

BH: Yes, I suppose it is the connection that the public makes with the characters. There’s a poignancy to Mia Wallace. I mean, she has to wear the trench coat as she has to find the drugs in the pocket. So therefore she could just ruffle through his coat that’s left on the couch, or she can have it on and reach in the pocket. And these are motions and actions that the audience can relate to.

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AP: That’s because these are the choices you made in respect to how you saw these characters. The reason for its influence on fashion is that this film is such a great reflection of what was happening in our culture, and it just resonated with people. These characters are unattainable, but people can create their own versions and make it accessible because the design is so uncluttered, it’s so specific.

This film also is indelibly a part of ‘the film language’ with other costume designers and directors. I’m sure you’ve seen that your work is often referenced or recreated. In the 1990s I was doing a lot of music videos, and I know that this was cited as the pinnacle of cool for so many directors; we’ve seen iterations of it in music videos and fashion magazines. Just this last Halloween, I was in New York and I was invited to a party where everyone was supposed to come dressed as a character from Pulp Fiction. There were 500 people dressed as these characters you helped create…

BH: Who knew that 30 years later we would all still want to dress like the baddies in Pulp Fiction [laughs]. But I’m only as good as my director. I’m inspired by my director. I get all my ideas from the energy that’s coming out of my director. And Quentin was on fire. He was on fire with these two movies, and they were original, and they were different from anything I ever read.

Words by ARIANNE PHILLIPS
As told to JEREMY LANGMEAD
All images © 2000 Block 2 Pictures Inc. © 2019 Jet Tone Contents Inc.
Reservoir Dogs / Pulp Fiction / Once Upon A Time in…Hollywood

Gongs/Premieres

OSCARS 2024

March 13, 2024

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Words by Jane Crowther
Photographs by Greg Williams

Awards season closed with an Academy Awards that was a who’s who roster of past recipients and powerhouse Hollywood talent. Twenty previous winners announced the four acting categories – each group leaving the stage as a gang with their latest inductee, a newly-formed club hanging out stage-side after each award. The community at the heart of acting was celebrated in this way, and also in a moment when the backstage team were brought centre-stage to celebrate the solidarity shown across the industry during the strikes earlier this year.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph was welcomed into the Best Supporting Actress community with Lupita Nyong’o, Jamie Leigh Curtis, Regina King, Mary Steenburgen and Rita Moreno championing each nominee in her category. Robert Downey Jr joined the best supporting actor club alongside Ke Huy Quan, Sam Rockwell, Tim Robbins, Christoph Waltz and Mahershala Ali; while his Oppenheimer castmate Cillian Murphy became a Best Actor winner with Forest Whitaker, Matthew McConaughey, Brendan Fraser, Nicolas Cage and Sir Ben Kingsley. Watching the show stage-side, the actors resembled Oscar statuettes as they stood together. The best actress category saw Emma Stone climb the podium to join Sally Field, Jessica Lange, Jennifer Lawrence, Michelle Yeoh and Charlize Theron.

regina king, da'vine joy randolph, lupita nyong'o, oscars 2024, hollywood authentic, greg williams, oscars dispatch — Jamie Lee Curtis, Mary Steenburgen, Regina King, Da’vine Joy Randolph, Lupita Nyong’o and Rita Moreno

robert downey jr, oscars-2024, hollywood authentic, greg williams, oscars dispatch — Robert Downey Jr.

steven spielberg, cillian murphy, oppenheimer, hollywood authentic, greg williams, oscars dispatch — Steven Spielberg and Cillian Murphy

michelle yeoh, charlize theron, emma stone, jennifer lawrence, sally field, oscars 2024, hollywood authentic, greg williams, oscars dispatch — Jessica Lange, Michelle Yeoh, Charlize Theron, Emma Stone, Jennifer Lawrence and Sally Field

It was Stone’s second Best Actress award but the evening was notable for its firsts. Winning was a first for Robert Downey Jr (after three nominations), for Christopher Nolan as director, he and his producer wife Emma Thomas for Best Film, and for a British film to win Best International Film with Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone Of Interest. Matthew McConaughey waiting in the wings after Nolan’s win gave him a heartfelt congratulatory hug.

Family was also a theme of the night, especially as the date was Mothers’ Day in the UK. Bradley Cooper brought his Mom as his plus-one while Martin Scorsese attended with his daughter, Francesca. Best original screenplay winner Justine Triet in a sparkling Louis Vuitton suit noted her and her co-writer partner Arthur Harari juggled diapers and lockdown during their writing of Anatomy Of A Fall, Stone talked of her toddler daughter turning her life ‘technicolour’ and Nolan thanked his wife and producing partner Thomas – ‘producer of all our films and all of our children’.

christopher nolan, oscars 2024, hollywood authentic, greg williams, oscars dispatch — Christopher Nolan and Matthew McConaughey

jonathan glazer, oscars 2024 — Jonathan Glazer

martin scorsese, oscars 2024, hollywood authentic, greg williams, oscars dispatch — Martin and Francesca Scorsese

justine triet, oscars 2024, hollywood authentic, greg williams, oscars dispatch — Justine Triet and Arthur Harari

Meanwhile, Sean Lennon, exec producer of best animated short, War Is Over, asked the audience to wish his mother, Yoko, a happy birthday and Mother’s Day. It was also a family affair for Billie Eilish, in houndstooth Chanel, and her songwriter brother Finneas O’Connell, whose performance of Barbie’s What Was I Made For? electrified the room and won the siblings their second Oscar for best original song.

cynthia erivo, finneas, billie eilish, ariana grande, oscars 2024 — Cynthia Erivo, FINNEAS, Billie Eilish and Ariana Grande

Their competition, Mark Ronson’s ‘I’m Just Ken’, may not have taken gold but Ryan Gosling’s full-throttle rendition of the song while wearing a custom pink Gucci suit involved the entire auditorium and featured many of the movie’s Kens, including Ncuti Gatwa and Kingsley Ben-Adir. It was a measure of the top-drawer nature of the show that Slash showed up to perform the guitar solo. It was one of many moments that demonstrated the star wattage wielded by the event – with iconic filmmakers and performers appearing together to remind movie fans of past classics or tease of future collaborations. Furiosa’s Chris Hemsworth and Anya Taylor Joy (in silver Dior); The Fall Guy’s Emily Blunt, shimmering in cream Schiaparelli, and Ryan Gosling; Beetlejuice 2 stars Michael Keaton and Catherine O’Hara; Twins co-stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito (both jested with Keaton over Batman) and Wicked’s Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo in character–appropriate gowns – Grande in pink Giambattista Valli and Erivo in structural green leather from Louis Vuitton. Zendaya, currently starring in the world’s number one movie, added further star power in Armani Prevé.

mark ronson, oscars 2024, hollywood authentic, greg williams, oscars dispatch — Mark Ronson

Ncuti Gatwa, Kingsley Ben Adir, oscars 2024, hollywood authentic, greg williams, oscars dispatch — Ncuti Gatwa and Kingsley Ben-Adir

anya taylor-joy, chris hemsworth, hollywood authentic, greg williams, oscars dispatch — Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth

slash, oscars 2024, hollywood authentic, greg williams, oscars dispatch — Slash

emily blunt, oscars 2024, hollywood authentic, greg williams, oscars dispatch — Emily Blunt and John Krasinski

danny devito, arnold schwarzenegger — Danny DeVito and Arnold Schwarzenegger

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Nolan’s win felt all the more resonant for being handed out by multi-award nominated Steven Spielberg, who gamely played along with jokes by Kate McKinnon. But when it came to addressing world events, the show did not shy away. Jonathan Glazer made an impassioned speech about the Gaza/Israeli conflict, Cillian Murphy (in Versace) dedicated his award to ‘all the peacekeepers in the world’, Mstyslav Chernov, feature documentary winner for 20 Days In Mariupol, reduced the audience to silence with his speech about Ukraine. Host Jimmy Kimmel addressed US politics when he read out a social media review of the show by Donald Trump. “Isn’t it past your jail time?” he responded.

The night’s big win belonged to Oppenheimer presented by Al Pacino, with Emma Thomas confessing to having ‘dreamt of this moment for so long’ as she accepted Best Picture and praised the team surrounding her, including Florence Pugh in silver bejewelled Del Core. The cast and filmmakers hugged backstage, dazzled by the amount of gongs in hands.

florence pugh, oscars 2024, hollywood authentic, greg williams, oscars dispatch — Florence Pugh

jimmy kimmel, john cena, oscars 2024 — Jimmy Kimmel and John Cena

An impressive, slick show that re-established the Academy’s dominance in awards season, presided over by four-time presenter and ultimate pro Kimmel, the 96th Oscars closed out as a true celebration of cinema and its stars – putting the difficulties of the past year firmly in the rear view window.

ryan gosling, barbie, what was i made for?, oscars 2024, hollywood authentic, greg williams, oscars dispatch — Ryan Gosling

AWARDS

Best Film: Oppenheimer

Best Director: Christopher Nolan

Best Actress: Emma Stone

Best Actor: Cillian Murphy

Best Supporting Actress: Da’Vine Joy Randolph

Best Supporting Actor: Robert Downey Jr

Best International Feature Film: The Zone Of Interest

Best Animated short: War Is Over

Best Animated Film: The Boy And The Heron

Best Original Screenplay: Anatomy Of A Fall

Best adapted Screenplay: American Fiction

Best Makeup and hair styling: Poor Things

Best Production Design: Poor Things

Best Costumes: Poor Things

Best visual effects: Godzilla Minus 1

Best Film editing: Oppenheimer

Best documentary short: The Last Repair Shop

Best documentary film: 20 Days In Mariupol

Best cinematography: Oppenheimer

Best Live Action short: The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar

Best Sound: Zone Of Interest

Best original score: Oppenheimer

Best song: What Was I Made For?

Words by Jane Crowther
Photographs by Greg Williams

Gongs/Premieres

AWARDS JOURNEY – PHOTOGRAPHING EMMA STONE

March 13, 2024

Photographs and words by Greg Williams

Over awards season I’ve been lucky enough to be commissioned by Louis Vuitton to shoot Emma Stone before every major awards event – and then I’ve gone on to photograph her at The Golden Globes, Critics’ Choice, BAFTAs and SAGs while covering the events. That journey culminated in her winning the Oscar for Best Actress at the Academy Awards and I wanted to take a moment to revisit the pictures I’ve taken during that time…

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When you’re commissioned to shoot for a fashion brand the first job is to take pictures where the clothes look their best. But I suppose what I’m additionally looking for is seeing the person behind the personality. So we have this lovely collection of pictures now, fashion photos and then seeing the human too. The Oscars were particularly special. I tend to photograph a number of actors before award shows and the last shoot of the day was Emma, right next to where the actual ceremony takes place. So after our shoot I got to walk to the red carpet as well as being side-of-stage when she came off with her Oscar, which was presented by an incredibly esteemed group of previous Best Actress Oscar winners. Then afterwards, before she went out to the parties, I went and took more photos in the hotel corridor and in the car. It’s nice to now look back on that body of work as a portfolio of pictures.

The first pictures were taken before the Golden Globes at the beginning of January. They’re quite a nice example of the difference between commissioned pictures and the pictures that I take slightly more for myself. The first picture was used by Louis Vuitton – I can make the product look good, but I’m also getting that glint behind the eye, that authenticity is still coming through the pictures. But then there’s another example of a photo that you can look at and completely understand why Louis Vuitton might not choose it to showcase their beautiful clothes. You can barely see the dress, it’s at an odd angle; but it’s a lovely, alive, fun, playful picture of Emma. It’s right up there with my favourites from award season. I love how first person it is and how the audience looking at that picture feels like they’re beaming with the same sunshine. We were in the penthouse of The Sunset Tower Hotel and there was a fire escape ladder going up to the roof. It was a lovely prop for me to encourage Emma onto. Also the net curtains, both backlit and front lit, work really nicely.

emma stone, golden globe awards, 2024, greg williams, hollywood authentic

The next pictures were before the Critics’ Choice Awards. She was shielding her eyes because it was so bright. That wasn’t the picture that I had in mind – you try not to put your subjects in glaring light, but sometimes I quite like it because there’s something in those contrasts, the shapes and shadows. The pictures that the brand used were backlit.

emma stone, critics choice awards, 2024, greg williams, hollywood authentic

These shots before the BAFTAs are tons of fun, she was literally dancing in her room. In those situations, I very much encourage play, I try for it. My favourite quote, and one that we use in Hollywood Authentic Magazine, is Willy Wonka saying ‘A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men’. I try to bring a little nonsense to as many of my shoots as I possibly can.

emma stone, idris elba, ee bafta film awards, greg williams, hollywood authentic

emma stone, ee bafta film awards, greg williams, hollywood authentic

The shots taken for the SAGs show a natural beam, and you just sense Emma’s personality – that she’s a very down to earth, generous person. You just see that in those pictures.

emma stone, sag awards, 2024, greg williams, hollywood authentic

It all stepped up for the Oscars. This was shot for Louis Vuitton again and this is where the two jobs really collide. This shot is a fashion photo, but it’s not the expected one. We were going through these hotel back corridors to head to the red carpet and I happened on this closet where they keep all the towels and dressing gowns, and I loved all these hangers. It felt like a nod to ateliers and fashion.

Awards season is a marathon and it felt like Emma was coming to the end of the journey – regardless of whether she won – after many months running at this thing, it’s done. So there was definitely playfulness going in the lifts. What I was also doing was finding the shapes in the dress in a playful way that feels authentic to Emma. There was also a beautiful shot where Emma turned around, and she hit a piece of light just before she got to the red carpet.

Then I left her to walk the carpet, and I ran inside to shoot the awards. That’s when I’ve got a completely different hat on – a change from capturing portraits to being an event photographer. These photos are taken incredibly quickly – often I get a shot in just one frame. Someone will walk past me and I’ll literally just ‘click’ one frame and it’s just that look back or that reaction that I get. Even though it’s event reportage I’m still trying to deliver the Greg Williams viewpoint; spontaneous, authentic, giving the audience the sense that they’re there.

After Emma had won her award, she left the stage with these incredible past winners: Jennifer Lawrence, Charlize Theron, Sally Field, Jessica Lange and Michelle Yeoh. She’s won an Oscar and she’s surrounded by absolute titans of her field. And it’s just a really special moment. You’re also not in any control of anything at that stage, you really are the observer. I can ask people to look in the camera, but actually the nicest pictures are when they’re all cuddling, crying, emotional and hanging on to each other – not worrying about, or thinking about the photo for a second.

After the awards Emma changed into another Louis Vuitton look. And then I got these really joyful shots of her with her team, holding the Oscar and really having some fun posing with it. There’s a lovely shot of her sitting on the floor of the corridor and a beautiful one of her walking through, which is a perfect balance of what I want to achieve and what Louis Vuitton wanted.

So what you’re seeing here is a number of hats being worn over the season; the fashion photographer, the personality photographer, the portraitist and the reportage photographer. I switch very rapidly between those, sometimes in split seconds. I’ll be hiding behind the camera, getting something quite beautiful, and then I’ll peek over the camera and pull a silly face, and suddenly I’ll get a shot of laughter or a shot of joy. That’s part of the game of being a photographer, being able to wear these different hats. There’s this lovely sentiment; when you take a portrait it’s not a picture of the person, it’s capturing the relationship between the photographer and the subject. That’s what I’m doing a lot of the time, because I have established relationships and I come away with a set of pictures that feel distinctively mine.

Photographs and words by Greg Williams

Gongs/Premieres

SAG AWARDS 2024

February 26, 2024

hollywood authentic, sag dispatch, screen actors guild awards 2024, los angeles

the cast of succession, sag awards, 2024, greg williams, hollywood authentic — The cast of *Succession*

The 30th Screen Actors Guild Awards mark another step towards Oscars in awards season – and Hollywood Authentic was there on the dove grey carpet and inside the ballroom for all the drama… As the actors gathered at LA’s Shrine Auditorium on Saturday afternoon, the mood was more celebratory than usual given the tumultuous year the voting body, SAG-AFTRA, have had since the last awards ceremony. After months of crippling strikes, this event felt like a moment to not only congratulate specific talent in awards categories but the acting community as a whole for being able to return to film and TV sets after fraught negotiations through the end of 2023.

brendan fraser, cillian murphy, sag awards, greg williams, hollywood authentic — Brendan Fraser and Cillian Murphy

It was something a luxuriantly-bearded Kenneth Branagh touched on when he and his castmates got on stage to accept the award for outstanding performance by a film cast for Oppenheimer, recalling how the London premiere for the film in July coincided with the strike beginning. “We all walked off the carpet and stood in solidarity with the union. We didn’t get to see the film.”

Oppenheimer’s awards sweep continued with Best Actor and Supporting Actor gongs going to Cillian Murphy and Robert Downey Jr. While Murphy thanked the names on his call sheet (“you made me brave, guys”), Downey Jr joked that he would “never grow tired of the sound of my own voice”. Though both men were expected winners in their categories (adding to their awards collection that will surely mean triumph at the incoming Oscars), there was history made with Best Actress winner, Killers Of The Flower Moon star, Lily Gladstone. As the first indigenous winner to take home the accolade, Gladstone arrived at the podium in a red, fringed Armani Prive gown and spoke in her Blackfoot language before tearfully expressing her unity with her fellow actors. “This has been a hard year for all of us. Those in this room, those not in this room, I’m so proud that we have gotten here in solidarity with all of our other unions.”

lily gladstone, sag awards, 2024, greg williams, hollywood authentic — Lily Gladstone

The Last Of Us star Pedro Pascal was so unprepared for a win as Best Actor in a drama series that he admitted to having got drunk on the table booze (including Taittinger champagne) when he got on stage. He was seated next to black-lace clad Jessica Chastain (in Armani) during a dinner of salmon, with a pie station available for dessert. Most actors abandoned their plates to mingle before the ceremony began: Anne Hathaway in cobalt Versace chatting to Glen Powell wearing a brown Brioni tux, Margot Robbie maneuvering her statement pink bow dress by Schiaparelli around the gold chairs, Pedro Pascal catching up with Billie Eilish (who autographed Melissa McCarthy’s forehead in an on-stage skit), Brie Larson talking with Jodie Foster and Oprah Winfrey regal in on-theme violet on The Color Purple table. Hannah Waddington showed other guests her cardboard clutch bag, created by her daughter and featuring crayoned ‘Epic’ designs.

pedro pascal, the last of us, sag awards, 2024, greg williams, hollywood authentic — Pedro Pascal

All awards show need a presenter talking point – Michael J Fox’s arrival at last week’s BAFTAs being one – and the SAGs reunited the cast of The Devil Wears Prada 18 years after the film’s release as Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Meryl Streep handed out the Best Actor in a comedy series gong. As Streep opened the winners envelope, Blunt quoted one of her killer lines from the film to the delight of the audience; “by all means, move at a glacial pace – you know how that thrills me.” Social media noted that Hathaway’s dress tone was a nod to Streep’s waspish line about ‘cerulean blue’ from the movie… Also reuniting, 21 years after the release of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, were hobbits Elijah Wood and Sean Astin, as they presented The Holdovers star Da’Vine Joy Randolph, wearing champagne silk, with best supporting actress.

Succession had dominated other awards events this season and they took home the cast top honours in drama, but it was Elizabeth Debicki who won Best Actress in a drama series for her depiction of Princess Diana in The Crown. The Bear nabbed Best Actor and Best Actress in a comedy series for Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri, while Beef co-stars Ali Wong and Steven Yuen cleaned up as Best Actor and Actress in a limited series.

meryl streep, jeremy allen white, emily blunt, anne hathaway, sag awards, 2024, greg williams, hollywood authentic — Meryl Streep, Jeremy Allen White , Emily Blunt, Anne Hathaway

da’vine joy randolph, the holdovers, sag awards, 2024, greg williams, hollywood authentic — Da’vine Joy Randolph

glen powell, ali wong, sag awards, 2024, greg williams, hollywood authentic — Glen Powell and Ali Wong

ayo edebiri, sag awards, 2024, greg williams, hollywood authentic — Ayo Edebiri

The event was closed out by the lifetime achievement award going to Barbra Streisand, dressed in black and gold complete with beret, and greeted with a standing ovation and laughter as she told the ballroom that she was thrilled to have known about the award in advance so she didn’t have to put on a happy face when someone else won. She went to talk about her first crush, Marlon Brando, and thanked the assembled actors for giving her so much joy on-screen.

As the after-party continued before guest headed to other soirees across town, everyone no doubt had their eye on the next awards show in the calendar. Only two weeks to go before Hollywood does it all over again at the 96th Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre…

ryan gosling, sag awards, 2024, greg williams, hollywood authentic — Ryan Gosling

aaron paul, bryan cranston, sag awards, 2024, greg williams, hollywood authentic — Aaron Paul and Bryan Cranston

WINNERS:

FILM

Outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture – Oppenheimer

Outstanding performances by a female actor in a leading role – Lily Gladstone

Outstanding performance by a male actor in a leading role – Cillian Murphy

Outstanding performance by a female actor in a supporting role – Da’Vine Joy Randolph

Outstanding performances by a male actor in a supporting role – Robert Downey Jr

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture – Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part 1

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series – Succession

Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series – The Bear

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series – Elizabeth Debecki

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series – Pedro Pascal

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series – Ayo Edebiri

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series – Jeremy Allen White

Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series – Ali Wong

Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Limited Series – Steven Yuen

Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series – The Last Of Us

Words by Jane Crowther
Photographs by Greg Williams

Gongs/Premieres

BAFTA AWARDS 2024

February 19, 2024

Hollywood Authentic hit the red carpet, ceremony and parties at this year’s EE BAFTA awards – join us for a recap on the fun from the South Bank’s Royal Festival Hall.

The festivities kicked off with a proposal at 2pm as an early-arriving guest popped the question and host David Tennant took to the carpet to greet waiting fans as the cars began arriving. It was a family affair for many of the nominees; Emily Blunt, dressed in gold-beaded Elie Saab, arrived with her parents, as did Paul Mescal (plus his siblings) while Christopher Nolan brought along his teen son, Magnus. The red carpet was soon filled with talent taking the opportunity to greet each other and admire the performances that had impressed voters; and in the case of Mescal (rocking Cartier lapel diamonds), get star struck by David Beckham.

Florence Pugh (in Harris Reed with statement Boucheron jewels) embraced Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Bradley Cooper (long-line Louis Vuitton) and Carey Mulligan high-fived, the Chicken Run 2 team carried maquettes of their characters in fowl evening wear while Emma Stone, wearing custom Louis Vuitton, Margot Robbie and Emily Blunt swapped news. As nominees and guests mingled, Hannah Waddington prepared for her mid-show number by dancing to the DJ with Colman Domingo while they waited to be snapped by press photographers. Plum-coloured fits were a theme with Cate Blanchett arriving in burgundy Louis Vuitton, Daisy Edgar-Jones in wine Gucci hotpants, Lashana Lynch embellished in maroon Prada, Josh Hartnett head-to-toe in claret and Ryan Gosling giving his custom Gucci white suit a raspberry trim.

florence pugh, emily blunt, ee bafta film awards, greg williams, hollywood authentic — Florence Pugh and Emily Blunt

The festive mood continued inside as guests sipped Taittinger over three floors, Gillian Anderson admiring Taylor Russell’s white Loewe gown as attendees found their seats, and Liliput the Maltese terrier getting ready backstage for her show opener with Tennant. He promised the ceremony would be as ‘smooth as Ken’s chest’ and with a back-to-basics plan after last-year’s breakout sofa chats, the gongs were handed out in a brisk running time – including Sophie Ellis Bexter’s barnstorming rendition of ‘Murder On The Dancefloor’ from Saltburn.

Leading the nominations race (with 13), Oppenheimer cleaned up – taking home 7 accolades including best film, director, actor and supporting actor, while Poor Things netted 5 including best actress. Holocaust drama The Zone Of Interest also won big with three category triumphs.

Positioned at the side of stage, Hollywood Authentic founder Greg Williams captured the winners exclusively as they left the spotlight, BAFTA masks in hand. ”The coolest trophy by far!” exclaimed adapted screenplay winner, Cord Jefferson, while EE Rising star winner Mia McKenna-Bruce giddily admitted she was so stunned that had no idea what she’d said in her speech as last year’s recipient Emma McKay fanned her with the award envelope.

cillian murphy, cate blanchett, ee bafta film awards, greg williams, hollywood authentic — Cillian Murphy and Cate Blanchett

Putting himself in good stead to win at Oscar, Robert Downey Jr. took home the supporting actor mask for Oppenheimer (but only after signing for it backstage) 31 years after winning for Chaplin, telling the audience “the entirety of my life story in 30 seconds‘’ and that Christopher Nolan had suggested he “attempt an understated approach as a last ditch effort to perhaps resurrect my dwindling credibility” with the role.

He was followed onstage by The Holdovers star Da’Vine Joy Randolph, winning best supporting actress and continuing to dominate this category during awards season. Tears threatened as she praised her co-star Paul Giamatti and reminded viewers that her character in the film served as “a beautiful reminder of how her story has rippled through the world.”

After Samantha Morton received a fellowship award for her decades-long career (feted via video by Tom Cruise), Cillian Murphy continued the Oppenheimer sweep with a Best Actor win presented by last year’s Best Actress winner, Cate Blanchett. Heralding his “Oppen-homies” and the “most dynamic, decent, kindest producer-director partnership in Hollywood” in Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, he waited in the wings to see the outcome of the Best Film category. Before that Emma Stone bagged Best Actress from Idris Elba, keeping the family theme going in her speech by thanking her mom for making her “believe this crazy idea I could do something like this” and also for giving her life. A joke that played well in the auditorium but also backstage when the Oppenheimer team came off for their Best Film win and Emily Blunt told Stone how much she’d enjoyed her speech.

chiwetel ejiofor, da'vine joy randolph, ee bafta film awards, greg williams, hollywood authentic — Chiwetel Ejiofor and Da’Vine Joy Randolph

Robert downey jr., ee bafta film awards, greg williams, hollywood authentic — Robert Downey Jr.

While the team embraced and handed the award to each other, Blunt’s proud dad held her handbag and congratulated Waddington on her soulful rendition of “Time After Time” during the in memoriam section. The closing category was particularly memorable for the surprise arrival of presenter Michael J Fox, who was touched to receive a standing ovation. His wife Tracy Pollen waited backstage to congratulate the star on his speech, especially courageous as he continues to struggle with Parkinson’s. As he stood at the podium he enthused; “There’s a reason why they say movies are magic – cos movies can change your day, change your outlook, they can sometimes even change your life”.

Racing to the green room for a celebratory photo, the Oppenheimer team then hit the dinner downstairs as guests at tables decorated to represent the Best Film nominees were served a starter of six root bhaji and roast carrot, a chicken caesar main with triple cooked chips and a toffee chocolate dessert with vanilla mascarpone and a tiny chocolate BAFTA mask. As glasses clinked, Ayo Edebiri and Emma Corrin chatted on the stars, Hannah Waddington and Michael Sheen caught up at a table as Daisy Edgar Jones and Paul Mescal had a Normal People reunion. Stone changed into a monochrome dress with candy-stripe shoulders for her dinner and she wasn’t the only one swapping looks as the parties kicked off across town.

Florence Pugh slipped into David Koma white lace to take in the Universal celebration party for Oppenheimer at the Nomad Hotel in Covent Garden before stopping by the British Vogue and Tiffany afterparty at Annabel’s alongside her co-star Robert Downey Jr., who’d changed his formal black shirt for a Sex Pistols t-shirt. Also in attendance were Anna Wintour (in trademark sunglasses), Dua Lipa, Anya Taylor Joy, Emily Blunt, Rosamund Pike, Clare Foy, Sophie Ellis Bexter, Andrew Scott, Idris Elba, Da’vine Joy Randolph and Emerald Fennell.

michael j. fox, ee bafta film awards, greg williams, hollywood authentic — Michael J. Fox

paul mescal, andrew scott, ee bafta film awards, greg williams, hollywood authentic — Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott

emma corrin, holly waddington, ee bafta film awards, greg williams, hollywood authentic — Emma Corrin and Holly Waddington

jack o'connell, mia mckenna-bruce, emma mackey, ee bafta film awards, greg williams, hollywood authentic — Jack O’Connell, Mia Mckenna-Bruce and Emma Mackey

The celebrations continued at the now-legendary Netflix party at The Chiltern Firehouse where Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott (in red Berluti) continued their awards season bromance, Hannah Waddington and Sophie Ellis Bexter swapped performance notes and Emma Stone and Bradley Cooper hung out. They were joined by a who’s who from cinema, including Phoebe Dynevor, J.A. Bayona, Idris Elba, Regé-Jean Page, Teo Yoo, Rosamund Pike, Callum Turner, Archie Madekwe, Lily James and Keegan-Michael Key (still heroically wearing a pristine tux). The merriment went on long into small hours…

WINNERS:

Best Film – Oppenheimer

Outstanding British Film – The Zone Of Interest

Best Director – Christopher Nolan

Outstanding Debut By By British Writer, Director Or Producer – Earth Mama

Film Not In The English Language – The Zone Of Interest

Best Documentary – 20 Days In Mariupol

Best Animated Film – The Boy And The Heron

Best Original Screenplay – Anatomy Of A Fall

Best Adapted Screenplay – American Fiction

Best Leading Actress – Emma Stone

Best Leading Actor – Cillian Murphy

Best Supporting Actress – Da’Vine Joy Randolph

Best Supporting Actor – Robert Downey Jr

Best Casting – The Holdovers

Best Cinematography – Oppenheimer

Best Editing – Oppenheimer

Best Costume – Poor Things

Best Original Score – Oppenheimer

Best Production Design – Poor Things

Best Sound – The Zone Of Interest

Best Visual Effects – Poor Things

Best British Short Film – Jellyfish And Lobster

EE Rising Star – Mia McKenna-Bruce

Words by Jane Crowther
Photographs by Greg Williams

Gongs/Premieres

GOLDEN GLOBES 2024

January 8, 2024

hollywood authentic, golden globes dispatch, golden globe awards 2024, 81st golden globe awards

Hollywood Authentic reports from inside the 81st Golden Globes, Los Angeles, where Greg Williams was given unprecedented access. Here we report on the evening’s highlights.

There was a sense of occasion, drama and buzz inside the Beverly Hilton’s ballroom as the movie industry elite, fuelled by Moët et Chandon and sushi by Nobu Matsuhisa, attended the first big bash of the year: the 81st Golden Globes.

Oppenheimer was the big winner of the evening – Best Motion Picture, Drama, Best Director, Drama (Christopher Nolan), Best Performance by a Male Actor, Drama (Cillian Murphy), and Best Actor in Supporting Role, Drama (Robert Downey Jr). It also had some of the best acceptance speeches. Cillian Murphy summed up the Oppenheimer experience when he said: “I knew the first time I walked on a Christopher Nolan set that it was different. I could tell by the level of rigour, the level of focus, the level of dedication, the complete lack of any seating options for actors…that I was in the hands of the visionary director and master. I want to thank Chris and Emma for having the faith in me for 20 years. Thanks so much. One of the most beautiful and vulnerable things about being an actor is that you can‘t do it on your own, really.”

Downey Jr, meanwhile, had a different approach, for his acceptance speech: “Yeah, yeah. I took a beta blocker, so this is going to be a breeze.”

Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy, went to Emma Stone for her extraordinary performance in Poor Things, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. After accepting her award, Stone said: “I think this is a rom-com. I see this as a rom-com, but in the sense that Bella falls in love with life itself, rather than a person, and she accepts the good and the bad in equal measure, and that really made me look at life differently.”

Stone, who received a standing ovation when she accepted her Golden Globe, offered a close-up of the award backstage. Dressed in Louis Vuitton, Emma celebrated with Yorgos and and co-star Willem Dafoe as the movie also won the award for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy.

lily gladstone, killers of the flower moon, golden globes, golden globe awards 2024, 81st golden globe awards — Lily Gladstone

The evening also saw Lily Gladstone accept the award for Best Performance by a Female Actor, Drama, for her role in Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon. Gladstone (Blackfeet/Nimíipuu) is the first Indigenous person to take home a Golden Globe. “This is a historic one, and it doesn’t belong to just me,” she said, after opening her acceptance speech speaking in the Blackfeet language. “I’m holding it with all of my beautiful sisters in the film and my mother, Tantoo Cardinal.”

Offstage, Timothée Chalamet (nominated for Wonka, and dressed in Celine) was there with his date Kylie Jenner, and Robert Downey Jr. Also a jubilant Margot Robbie (in Armani Privee), America Ferreira (Dolce e Gabbana) and Barbie director Greta Gerwig were photographed fresh from collecting their gong for Cinematic & Box Office Achievement. Robbie, who accepted the award, captured the spirit of the evening when she said: “Thank you so much to the Golden Globes for creating an award that celebrates movie fans. This is a movie about Barbie, but it’s also a movie about humans. We made it – it’s about you. We made it for you, and we made it with love. Thank you for loving it back.”

timothee chalamet, wonka, kylie jenner, robert downey jr, golden globes, golden globe awards 2024, 81st golden globe awards — Timothée Chalamet, Kylie Jenner and Robert Downey Jr.

america ferrera, greta gerwig, margot robbie, barbie, golden globes, golden globe awards 2024, 81st golden globe awards — America Ferreira, Greta Gerwig and Margot Robbie

Equally thrilled were members of the Oppenheimer crew: Florence Pugh (in Valentino), Matt Damon and Christopher Nolan.

Elsewhere Joaquin Phoenix was spotted seated at his table, and earlier with the Beau Is Afraid director/writer Ari Aster; as was Will Ferrell entertaining Dua Lipa and Jodie Foster; Billie Eilish, who won best original song (along with her brother Finneas O’Connell) for Barbie’s What Was I Made For?; nominees Meryl Streep and Ryan Gosling; Florence Pugh with Selena Gomez (in Armani Privee); Dua Lipa at her table wearing a gown by Balenciaga with jewellery by Tiffany & Co; long-time collaborators Ben Affleck and Matt Damon; and Danielle Brooks, nominated for The Color Purple, wearing Moschino.

florence pugh, matt damon, christopher nolan, golden globes, golden globe awards 2024, 81st golden globe awards — Florence Pugh, Matt Damon and Christopher Nolan

ben affleck, matt damon, golden globes, golden globe awards 2024, 81st golden globe awards — Ben Affleck and Matt Damon

danielle brooks, the color purple, golden globes, golden globe awards 2024, 81st golden globe awards — Danielle Brooks

joaquin phoenix, ari aster, beau is afraid, golden globes, golden globe awards 2024, 81st golden globe awards — Joaquin Phoenix and Ari Aster

And, of course, the night didn’t finish at the Beverly Hilton. The celebrations continued at various locations across town.

The winners in the television category were dominated by The Bear and Beef – both shows received three awards – as well as Succession, which won four: Best Television Series, Drama; Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Series, Drama, for Sarah Snook; Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Series, Drama, for Kieran Culkin, and Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role on Television for Matthew Macfadyen.

ayo edebiri, the bear, golden globes, golden globe awards 2024, 81st golden globe awards — Ayo Edebiri

the cast of succession, golden globes, golden globe awards 2024, 81st golden globe awards — The cast of *Succession*

matthew macfadyen, succession, golden globes, golden globe awards 2024, 81st golden globe awards — Matthew Macfadyen

The latter also had one of the our favourite acceptance speech lines: “I just adored every second playing the weird and wonderful human grease stain that is Tom Wambsgans. Tom Wambsgans, CEO, I should say. God help us.”

And god help all those who had to get up early this morning.

WINNERS: MOVIES

Best Motion Picture – Drama: Oppenheimer

Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy: Poor Things

Cinematic and Box Office Achievement: Barbie

Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama: Lily Gladstone – Killers Of The Flower Moon

Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama: Cillian Murphy – Oppenheimer

Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy: Emma Stone – Poor Things

Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy: Paul Giamatti – The Holdovers

Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture: Da’Vine Joy Randolph – The Holdovers

Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role in any Motion Picture: Robert Downey Jr. – Oppenheimer

Best Original Song – Motion Picture: What Was I Made For? – Barbie – Billie Eilish, Finneas O’Connell

WINNERS: TELEVISION

Best Television Series – Drama: Succession

Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy: The Bear

Best Television Limited Series, Anthology Series, or Motion Picture Made for Television: Beef

Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Series – Drama: Sarah Snook – Succession

Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Series – Drama: Kieran Culkin – Succession

Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy: Ayo Edebiri – The Bear

Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy: Jeremy Allen White – The Bear

Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Limited Series, Anthology Series, or a Motion Picture Made for Television: Ali Wong – Beef

Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Limited Series, Anthology Series, or a Motion Picture Made for Television: Steven Yeun – Beef

Best Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role on Television: Elizabeth Debicki – The Crown

Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role on Television: Matthew Macfadyen – Succession

Photographs by Greg Williams

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