Transcript: The Making of Bella Baxter and a Mad Scientist
How do you tell a deliciously demented story with Emma Stone and Mark Ruffalo? First, they should look the part
Mona May (00:48):
Welcome to The Ankler in conversation with Art & Crafts. This is the podcast. I'm your host, costume designer Mona May. Today I'm very pleased to interview costume designer Holly Waddington and hair and makeup designer Nadia Stacey about their imaginative and magnificent film, Poor Things. Welcome, everybody.
Holly Waddington (01:07):
Thank you.
Mona May (01:08):
Hello, Holly. Hello, Nadia.
Nadia Stacey (01:09):
Hi.
Holly Waddington (01:11):
Hello.
Mona May (01:11):
I'm just so happy to have you here as a fellow costume designer artist because this film just blew my mind. It's just incredible. I've seen this movie three times already, twice in the theater. Because when I saw it the first time, I was like, "I cannot take all of this." This was such an overload of incredible detail. And I mean beyond the costumes, I mean the lighting, the production designs, the set, every wall, the colors, the imagination was so incredible. And it's just so rare, I think, that we have this opportunity to work on movies like this, to have directors like this who open us up to this kind of, our own flow as an artist. It's really incredible.
(01:52):
I think you have to have this chief, someone who has this vision to bring it to us. And I would love to hear from you how you met our director and how it began for you, because that's always so interesting is that connection, that first connection you have when you meet. Maybe you have worked with him before. I don't know. How did it begin for you, Holly? Tell me.
Holly Waddington (02:12):
Yes. So, I had worked with Tony McNamara, who wrote Poor Things. He had done a TV series called The Great, and I designed the costumes for the pilot episode of The Great, and we had a very good collaboration. I really enjoyed working with him, and we kept in touch afterwards. I couldn't continue with that job because I just had my second child, and it was too big a job to do alongside that. So he then introduced me to Yorgos, and so that was how I got the introduction. I've always loved Yorgos’ work, had been a big fan, really a fan of both of their work, Yorgos and Tony McNamara. And I got a call to say, would I like to go meet him and could I read this script?
(02:58):
The script came through on the Friday afternoon, and it was in December. So I had this weekend planned of Christmas parties, which I just realized I was going to have to miss. Because I called the local bookshop and got the book. They said they could get the book the next day. So, I spent the weekend reading the script, reading this book, which is really dense actually. I mean, that was really probably a bit too much trying to read that at the same time and preparing imagery, because I knew I would have to come up with something really good to get the job.
(03:28):
So I went sprinting off to this bookshop there. We've got a very cool bookshop at the end of our road. He's fashion, a fashion bookshop, like photography and fashion, and found this book on dolls, this Japanese book, these strange Japanese dolls with these clothes on that were all a bit too... The proportion of the cloth is far too big for the scale of the doll. So I prepared all this stuff and then went to meet him on the Monday morning, but it was a bit of a sort of marathon getting that ready.