00:00Hey, who, what, where?
00:01I'm Dakota Fanning, and today we're going Behind the Looks.
00:10Uptown Girls is, and I think even more so as the years go by,
00:15has become a very comforting movie to a lot of girls and women.
00:21I played a character named Ray, and Brittany Murphy,
00:24who I loved very dearly, played my nanny.
00:28And the costumes for both of our characters were a huge part of telling the story.
00:33For her character, it was about the free spirit, kind of childlike playfulness of Molly.
00:40And then for Ray, it was kind of the uptight hypochondriac little girl
00:46who was sort of scared of everything in that scene where I do the dance performance.
00:52That costume was really special and handmade.
00:54It had all these little plastic dars on it and little, like, crystal, like, teardrops.
01:00It was supposed to signify absorbing some of Brittany's character into my character's spirit.
01:07I really do remember the costumes and the experience like it was yesterday,
01:11but it was not yesterday. It was a long time ago.
01:13My fondest memory of working with Brittany, there are too many to count.
01:18She was such a gentle, fun person who wanted to make every day special for me.
01:28When we, you know, finished shooting and wrapped,
01:31like, my whole dressing room at the studio was filled with balloons.
01:36And she got us, like, matching, juicy couture, like, tracksuits with our names on them.
01:43Like, she just, every little detail was always, like, how could I make something fun for Dakota?
01:51And I just loved her so much and still really, really miss her.
01:58I'm Sam was my first movie. I was six and I turned seven.
02:03Michelle Pfeiffer was in that movie and now I'm, you know, in a show with her 20 years later,
02:08literally to the day. I turned 27 working with her again after having turned seven working with her
02:14the first time. It is such a ever-present experience in my life because it sort of started
02:22my career and I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be where I am today without, um, you know, that experience
02:29and the, the writer and director Jesse Nelson. And there was a baby dress that you see my character
02:35Lucy wearing as a baby. So my character Lucy at six years old wears that same baby dress, but it's
02:42now
02:43worn as a shirt because she's grown and she's taller. I have that dress slash shirt in my house framed.
02:52It's so little and small. When I think about it, I think about like my little self in my first
02:57film.
02:57It's very special. One of the best costumes that I've ever worn was a handmade origami crane
03:05Halloween costume. And it was made out of like aluminum foil. One of those homemade things that
03:10just like looked so special, you know, it was one of those. Didn't get to keep that, but I might've,
03:14I don't know. It was, it was tin foil after all. I don't know where that ended up, but it
03:20was very cute.
03:20In the cat in the hat, I play Sally, such kind of an iconic book and getting to work with
03:26Mike Myers.
03:27It was a real world that was created. Bo Welch was the director. He's a, you know,
03:35world renowned production designer. And so he was very, um, invested in the look of the film and
03:41like the color palette, like everything is pretty much like purple, green, orange, or yellow, you know,
03:45like that's sort of, and then, and then the cat, you know, is black, white, and red. And so it
03:50was
03:51kind of all about contrast and creating cat in the hat land. And, um, I wore that costume
03:59every single day for almost seven months, but the character Sally, like you go through different
04:05things. So sometimes it would have like purple, like slime on it, or it would be like kind of dirty,
04:12but you know, in the cat in the hat land, like you're perfect in the next scene, you know,
04:16you walk through some magic door and you're back to your perfect self. So there were different
04:20versions of that look that were, um, that fit whatever circumstances the characters had, uh,
04:26found themselves in girlfriends who I met like later in my life in high school. And they were like,
04:32when I was little, all I wanted was your costume from the cat in the hat. Coraline is,
04:40I think maybe one of my most beloved films I've ever done by a lot of people. The way that
04:48animation
04:48is done is it's all, the world is built and the models, they're moved a couple times of a second
04:54to
04:55put it all together. Um, so a little model did wear my Coraline costume and I do have a model
05:01of
05:02Coraline in a glass box in another room in my house. So we're, we're seeing a pattern here.
05:07I voiced the character of Coraline over a period of like five or six years. I started doing it when
05:13I was like nine and I think it came out when I was about to turn like 15. At one
05:18point, like my voice
05:19was like kind of had changed a little bit and I had to sort of go back to like a
05:25younger, like pitch
05:27my voice up a little bit to be younger. Coraline is also has an iconic look having the kind of
05:33black hair that's like the blue black hair. And then of course the changes from like the eyes to
05:39the button eyes and that, you know, being a big part of the film, getting your eyes
05:44so shut and have buttons put on your eyes and her yellow raincoat. You know, she lives in like a
05:50wet
05:50place. It's, it's a, it's a iconic, uh, iconic wardrobe for an animated, but not really animated.
06:00It's like hard to describe what, what Coraline is. Oh yeah. Mm-hmm. Yes. Twilight. I was in three of
06:08the
06:08Twilight films. I played Jane, one of the Volturi vampires. The costume over the course of the three
06:17films would change slightly, but the Volturi represent a very, you know, kind of dark sinister
06:25sect of vampire. And so I think that the costumes were meant to be kind of menacing and very
06:32cloak-y and high neck and lots of capes and boots that buttoned all the way up to the knee
06:38and, and
06:39uh, sort of baroque in a way, you know, they're kind of stuck in a old Italian mausoleum type place.
06:48Um, and they don't leave very often. I also had like the Volturi like crest necklace that we always wore.
06:55But no, I mean, listen, I don't think you can get further away from who I am or any other
07:01character than, than
07:02playing a vampire. Um, so it was fun to kind of dive into the super pale pale skin and of
07:11course the red
07:11contact lenses and, and kind of playing up the, the creepiness. And I did, I've seen some Halloween
07:18costumes of people dressed up as Jane and that's always like funny to see. The Runaways, I played
07:25Cherie Curry, the lead singer of The Runaways. We got to recreate some really iconic looks of hers,
07:36the white corset, of course, when she performs Cherry Bomb, the fishnets. And Cherie was a young
07:42girl in a sort of man's world and man's industry. And she, the way that she took ownership of her
07:50power was to, to shock and surprise, even wear something that might make somebody uncomfortable.
07:56Um, and, and that was kind of how she survived that sort of tough, tough rock and roll scene.
08:02It was also exciting to get to play with that kind of crazy seventies makeup and, and, uh, glam rock
08:09stuff and, and the costumes. And I actually got to keep all of the wardrobe from that film. So I,
08:14I have it. The Alienist, Sarah Howard in the first season, she's not a detective yet,
08:20but she is a detective in the second season. So detective Sarah Howard, um, you know,
08:25a huge part of the Alienist was the world, the costumes, the sets, you know, really transporting
08:33the cast and the crew back to that time. And then of course, you know, hopefully transporting the
08:38audience watching it. Um, for the first season, the costume designer was Michael Kaplan, who was like,
08:44you know, a genius and has done so many costumes that when people think of movies,
08:50they think of some of his costumes. And for the second season, Rudy Mance, who has worked with
08:54Michael a lot, he was the costume designer. So it was great. It was like, didn't feel like a huge
08:59shift. They have the same eye for detail and the same sensibilities. And Michael kind of led the way
09:04for Rudy to take over when we did the series of the second book. If there were 70 buttons on
09:12my
09:12jacket, they weren't facades with snaps underneath. They were unfortunately some days really 70 buttons.
09:22Um, but I got very good at knowing what I could take off when I'm like, are you going to
09:28see,
09:28are you going to see this in the shot? Nope. Okay. I can take these off early. You know what
09:31I mean?
09:31Like, Oh, I take certain pieces off. And then at the end of the day on, on, on series like
09:37that,
09:37you're the person who kind of gets you dressed and helps you get undressed in the morning and the
09:41night time is so important. You become so close with them. And so I had two wonderful women for
09:46each time. And I would, they would say I was done and I would be kind of disrobing as I'm
09:51walking back
09:52to my trailer, um, to get changed. And Dora would be behind kind of big, you know, I'd be like,
09:58Oh, here we can take this off. I can take this off. I would do everything aside from like what
10:02I
10:03needed to keep on to not be naked in front of everybody. But it was like really hot in Budapest,
10:08Hungary. And so it would be rough. Some days, some days were hard. Um, but most days were great. And
10:14and it was always wonderful to see the, the different outfits. The first lady, um, I play Susan Ford,
10:21the youngest child and only daughter of president Gerald Ford and his wife, Betty Ford. So excited
10:30about the project and to be working with Michelle and to recreate the mother daughter bond between
10:36Betty and Susan. I think it was a very formative relationship in Betty's life. And as I said about
10:42I am Sam working with Michelle has been such a formative experience in my life and getting to know
10:48her as an adult and spend, um, you know, off time with her as well was such a dream. We,
10:54we became
10:55very close and she's just, she's just the best. The costume designer scene, the looks are to a tee,
11:02some photos of the Ford family, like every detail she recreated. I'm so, so excited to, to see it
11:09in its entirety and, and to see the other women's stories. The show was filmed in three separate blocks.
11:15So, um, Betty was first. So Michelle and I were filming first and then it was Viola's Michelle Obama block
11:23and, and then Jillian's Eleanor Roosevelt block at the end. So, um, you know, there's so much of the show
11:28that the people in the other blocks don't get to see. So I can't wait to see it all, um,
11:34woven together
11:35and, and see the, the great, great women behind, you know, the great men.
11:41So, um, you know, the great women behind the scenes. So, um, I know, but you can see it.
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