EXCLUSIVE
By: Theresa Shell
Monique Prudhomme - Costume Designers Guild Awards
I cannot thank Monique enough for her kindness, infectious joy in her work, her patience with my questions and for teaching me so very much. And, I’d like to say to her that I can’t wait for that meeting in LA. It will be such fun to finally meet.
I hope you enjoy this conversation between Monique and me as much as I enjoyed the privilege of talking with her.
Theresa Shell: You have been working on another film, “Diary Of A Wimpy Kid”, are you still in the thick of it or are you on a few weeks’ hiatus for the holidays.
Monique Prudhomme: No, I just finished the feature about three weeks ago so, they are in post right now. My job is done as much as I did on it.
TS: I don’t know how you do it. I mean, Dr. Parnassus, wow. Terry gave me this beautiful book of the original artwork and story boards as a gift and last night, preparing for our interview I went through it very slowly and I found myself thinking, if I were in your shoes, where in heavens name would I even start. I think what you do is amazing. What was your favorite scene to costume?
MP: Oh my gosh, you know all the story and all of the costumes was a challenge, you know, to try to make sense and make a difference and to make the show and make the civilian part and the fantasy part. I think that…I would say that they were all good. It is difficult to say which one was my favorite, I would have to say. But, the most challenging, I think, for me was to do the stage productions.
TS: Right, right. Those costumes were amazing. That was another of my questions. One of the things that struck me, personally, when I saw the film were that regardless of whether the clothes were shabby due to their lack of money or for whatever reason, I was so struck by the texture of the costumes. I really don’t know what other word to use, but the depth, the richness…I mean it was almost like you could reach out to the screen and touch these textures, the brocades, the velvets, the layered fabrics. Is this something that you did intentionally? It added so much depth to those scenes. It made the experience even more incredible.
MP: Yes, it was intentional. One of the principles that guided me through this movie to the conception of the costumes, if I may say, is a conversation I had with Terry. Terry told me when we started working together, in a nutshell, you know Doctor Parnassus is immortal. He has been around the world doing this show for centuries. He has gathered stuff in his boxes from everywhere. So, it’s a very eclectic collection of things from a very long time and because he is poor, he lives in this caravan, he is out of the times in modern London. The stage is inspired from 16th and 17th century theater and theater costumes and ideas when you did, you know, beauty and you did justice and you did, you know, wisdom. And, some drawings of that baroque period and at the same time they live in 2009 in London where they gathered stuff that is left over on the street or they go to the poorhouse and stuff like that. And then he said, you take all that, and “bye-bye.” (We both laugh).
TS: I love it.
MP: So, this is the dream task for a costume designer. You have so much freedom, anyway for me who is a bookworm. I look at everything. I love art. I come from an art background, I don’t come from a fashion background. I’ve traveled around the world and I collect things and I love textures. And, it was a place we could mix shamelessly styles; all countries, all periods. To create a look that was kind of a resume of all that.
You know Mercury is the god of speed and the god of communication in ancient Greece and ancient Rome. And, Mercury is also the god of war so how do we do that? We put him in long johns, boots that have been painted and we put plastic wings then we paint it all silver and the kid (Andrew) always has silver makeup. He never takes it all off . If you notice in the movie he always has some silver on his face even if he is off stage and that is created texture, the layering.
Also, I had actors who were totally willing hide their figure. I mean Lily wears so many layers. Sometimes she’s naked and sometimes we see her figure and sometimes her figure disappears because she appears in layers of clothes because it’s outside or it’s raining and she was willing to do it all, you know.
TS: I had the great pleasure of talking with Lily both in an interview and in person and I think she’s amazing. I think she is going to be an acting force to be reckoned with. Her talent, attitude, her honesty, openness, her intelligence and sense of humor. I think she’s fabulous. I had the benefit of knowing little about her when I first talked with her so I had no preconceived ideas when I met her…
MP: Yeah.
TS: And, it was a delight to get the see the kind of person she is, her feelings and understanding of Valentina and, as you said, her willingness to change in whatever way Valentina needed her to change.
How much did Terry have to do with the actual costuming? Did he give you ideas and then just give you freedom?
MP: I felt very, very free and we consulted, we talked about things. He participated at some of the fittings to get all of these ideas together. When I started to get all these collections of clothing and some concepts, you know like we discussed, but because Terry is so eclectic and he loved this shameless mix of fashion and period and he’s really into texture, I felt in really good company, you know. I could go forward in that sense and he got it. I don’t know if I got him or he got me, but it was a very good, comfortable collaborative process.
TS: That makes all the difference in the world. He is very open to have other people expound on ideas and use their imagination and I think that is a gift.
I’m really at a loss for words to convey my thoughts here, but beyond the story and directing which I love, the acting which is fantastic, there is so much more, there is this texture this richness that adds so much to the film and the experience of seeing it. I think it is this very collaboration you speak of. This use of the imagination of others, the improv, all these things that you and the actors have shared with me, his willingness to embrace this, really shows.
In my next question, I will use the movie “A Knight’s Tale” as an example. In that film, every single scene is color coordinated. From props to costumes. In one scene everyone will be wearing a shade of tan and be on a dirt road near dying grass, or they’ll be in front of the knight’s tent and the tent is a shade and print of green and every costume will be in a shade of green or slight tone off of it. It’s true of every single scene. Did you color coordinate your scenes in this manner or was it more about the fabrics and costumes themselves? I hope my question makes sense the way I’ve expressed it?
MP: I didn’t work that way on this movie. I had some ideas. I wanted to use Asian textures, so I used kimonos for Doctor Parnassus. I used Iku dyed fabrics in coats, I used Indian charms, I used Chinese pants. I didn’t want to do an Asian theme, but I think that the Asian fabrics are so beautiful. They have beautiful texture and they are colorful. I mean our contemporary, modern, western culture textures are good for money suits and power suits, but they are not beautiful. They don’t have a richness folkloric richness that we find in Asian, more like Eastern culture fabrics. That was one of my things. I wanted to use these fabrics; to use the richness of it because they are rich and they are interesting. They use a lot of colors. So, at the end of it all colors were used and all colors kind of matched together because it’s just it works. Eventually you choose a theme and everything is working because they all echo each other because we use them for certain reasons. So, Valentina is the most spectacular. But, Doctor Parnassus, if you notice, is also quite spectacular, in his kimonos, coats and his four layers of pajamas, a sweater, then another sweater, then two scarves. All that, the layering, even if there is no plan, eventually it will all come together because there will be a scarf that will resume the colors and you will see it as a kind of finishing and then the colors will kind of tie in.
TS: I personally liked your use of jewel tones, which bring to mind the 16th and 17th century and for me really served to remind me of the ages this man had traveled through. Then he’d have on a bed cap like many men wore all the way through to the beginning of the 20th century from the 16th and 17th centuries as well. Then he would have a sweater that would be a style from say the 1950’s that might be tan. Those layers were very pertinent to me in the story. They added to the richness. Such attention to detail.
Did you make or purchase most of your costumes?
MP: You know most of the time they are what I call a composition. Some pieces are made, some are found, some come from a costume house. They are fabricated in the sense that they have been composed. So, depending on what we did; like Tony’s, we designed for him and made the white suit and designed all of his clothes. And they were all made for Verne Troyer. For Lily we made the red dress, the Imaginarium white dancer’s nymph costume and we made other dresses. Then I found stuff in Asian stores and I got Armors at Angels and it became a composition of all these elements that then creates all the richness. I call it hunting and gathering. (both laugh)
TS: I can see why you would call it that in this movie in particular. You paid such attention to every detail. From every intricate headpiece, to the mask to every little flower, I was stunned. After seeing the movie I found myself thinking, I can’t even imagine how long this woman looked for all of these things. How long did it take you to costume the film?
MP: We shot over seven months. I was on the movie for about seven months. So, we made costumes almost to the last week of shooting. And the elements, some of them had to be put together. I would say the initial stage where we conceived it was about seven or eight weeks. Then I was in London and I had a helper and I was like, go get me birds and flowers and butterflies, and whatever (starts laughing) you know. She’d go and come back with a bag full of flowers and other things. Then we would go another place and look at buttons and then somewhere else to look at ribbons. Then I had a fantastic assistant coordinator in London, his name was Michael Mooney, and he took me everywhere he could think of and we hunted and gathered and gathered trim and fabrics and he has worked with extraordinary people who came to help us. For example, the costume that was really fun to put together was the monster costume that Percy wears on the stage. It was called a medieval monster, but Terry wanted…well, I did some research then Terry said, “You know some of these guys were really awful and they were really disgusting and they had faces on their butts and they did the disgusting stuff, the farts and all that, you know. So, I figured, I looked at Verne’s shape, Verne is little and his body shape is pretty specific so we did a whole new body shape. So, I said to myself, go get some foam balls and things and we put it together with bubbles and things and glue and disgusting oozing color and hair in the pustules and it became so much fun. It was kind of this creation of a monster and feathers, and paint and wings and it was quite fabulous. And there was a young woman who is a fantastic costume builder and because that’s more of an accessory, it’s more than a costume; it’s more than a fabric, it’s like a sculpture. And I made the nose; I rolled some paper and we scotch taped it and painted it and put it on. And, we put it together. And, because Terry is an artist, he is in constant, constant process. He doesn’t have one idea and sit on it. He has 400 ideas. And, if you keep him interested and if you bring him things that catch his fancy, he works with you and he’s like, go, go, go…give me more, give me more. And, the beauty of working with him is that he’s like, “Give me more” and I’m like, “Ok” and usually when you work in the movie industry the regular people are afraid to go far because they want to stay as close to reality as possible unless we go Science Fiction. But even then it’s, “We have to be real, we have to contain, it has to look good and everyone has to look pretty.” And suddenly I’m working with someone who says, “I don’t want pretty, I just want BIG. I want this to be torn, I want this to be dirty, I want this to be textured.” So, it is like, WOW, WOW, WOW!
TS: It sounds wonderful.
MP: It was a fantastic experience. I hope that I can work with Terry again and again.
TS: I hear that comment from a lot of people about Terry. It makes me proud. He is just one of the sweetest, most brilliant (though he’d disagree with me) people I’ve ever met. Being around him is a joy because he never puts a “foo-foo” on your imagination, thoughts and feelings. If you happen to hit on a nerve that catches his fancy, you find that you both just run with it. It’s just a wonderful and very rare thing.
MP: I agree.
TS: This whole Support Site Campaign has just been such a joy. It has been the biggest grassroots, labor of love between fans, the moviemaker, the cast, wonderful people like yourself, Jeff Danna and so many others. It has been what passion for film should be about and I’m so proud of everyone involved. As fans and movie lovers we just refuse to be stuffed into those little societal boxes Terry and I discussed a few weeks ago. We are determined to be heard.
Now I have something I want to say to you personally. When the awards nominations are announced this year, I want to see your name nominated for an Oscar for Best Costume Design. I have not seen a film in years where the costumes were so pertinent to the story and affected me and my movie going experience so much. I think what you did was phenomenal and as visually gorgeous as this film is and as great as the acting, directing and story is, it would be lacking something extremely vital without your work. I just wanted to tell you how I feel about this.
MP: Thank you so very, very much.
TS: I want to thank you for your time. You have been so enjoyed our conversation and appreciate your kindness so very much.
MP: I want you to know that I watch your site. I met a lady in Toronto from your site.
TS: That would be Jane, she’s a lovely lady.
MP: She told me about the site. Thank you for the work you are doing on the movie. Like you, I am very attached emotionally to this movie, I want Terry to succeed. I want him to be able to do more movies the way he does it because it is so much appreciated. And, I hope, one day to be able to work with him again. It would be such a great pleasure.
I thank you so, so much and I really appreciate what you are doing. Hopefully we will meet. Hopefully there will be some stuff happening in LA for the movie where I will go down there and check it out.
TS: I will look forward to that, I’d love to meet you as well, it would be a pleasure to meet with you.
Again, thank you for everything and have a wonderful weekend.
MP: And you as well.
