Jenny Beavan: An Empire Podcast Interview Special

0:14Hello, pod. I'm Chris Hewitt, and welcome to another Empire Podcast interview special. Jenny Bevan is one of the best costume designers in the business, celebrated for her wonderful creations, as seen in the likes of A Room with a View, Mad Max Fury Road, and Cruella, all of which she won Oscars for. In fact, her acceptance speech for Fury Road, delivered in a pleather jacket, is a belter. She's also received 12 Oscar nominations in total over the years, including the most recent, for Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris just a couple of years ago, and a string of them for her incredible work with Merchant Ivory, including Howard's End and The Remains of the Day.

0:56Her latest film is Nicholas Heitner's rather delightful Le Coral, starring an ensemble cast led by Ralph Fiennes and set in 1916 Yorkshire, which offered Bevan a particular kind of challenge, as I found when I invited her to join me in the pod booth for a deep dive into her approach to her work, her interactions with directors like George Miller, James Ivory, Robert Altman and indeed Nicholas Heitner and her career overall which it's fair to say has not turned out in the way she initially planned. To find out why you'll have to listen to this interview of course in which Bevan is on cracking form.

1:31She is an absolute delight and if you have any interest in following in her footsteps and heading into costume design yourself well stick around to the very end for a few tips. So here you go. The wonderful Jenny Bevan talking about the coral and other animals. Enjoy. We are delighted to be joined on this very special episode of the Empire podcast by the legendary costume designer, three time Oscar winner, no less. That's roughly three more Oscars than I have. Jenny Bevan, welcome. Thank you very much. How are you? I'm fine. Thank you. Other than the rain and the traffic, all is good. Well, I've done my back in.

2:10Oh, no. Well, you have a lot of sympathy for me. I've had back problems and, you know, gosh. Oh, my God. I don't know what happened. Osteopaths the way forward. I think so. I have a very good physio. I have a very good physio we can talk about after. Oh, yes. Yeah, please do. Any tips or advice would be absolutely amazing. Thank you so much indeed. Let me just double check something here. Oh, I should be okay. So, Jenny, first of all, you are here to talk about The Coral, which is this beautiful new film by Nicholas Heidner with a screenplay by Alan Bennett, no less, and one hell of a cast, all of whom you have dressed and costumed.

2:49It's a really, really exquisite movie. Can you talk about how you got involved, first of all? I'm so glad you said that. I absolutely love that film. Yeah. I mean, I've done some really gorgeous work recently and very, very varied, but there's something incredibly special. So I got sent the script by my agent, obviously loved it. Next thing was, could they give my contact details to Nick Heitner? I said, absolutely. And he called and we agreed to meet. And I think he just asked me to do it. Obviously, he knows my work. It's curious, I had met him once a million years ago and I do remember it quite clearly.

3:32I think it was a bath to do, and he was standing by a staircase. How I got talking to him, I have absolutely no idea. We talked about his aunt, Ruth Myers, who's a costume designer. That's basically all I remember. And obviously I've seen a lot of his work at the National and various other theatres and obviously liked it, but hadn't really thought about it. And I was just thrilled. And anyway, he came into Cosprop, which is the costume house I work out of and that basically provided all the clothes for the choral except the army uniforms. And I put some stuff on the stand and he seemed really thrilled with it.

4:12I could see the film. I could just see the colours. I mean, the way it's written is so clear. It's so glorious. And Bennett's writing. And that's really how I got involved. How does your brain work when you start on a project? Do you, because you said you saw the coral in your head, you saw the colours. Is that how your brain works? You're primarily a visual thinker in that way? I am a very visual thinker. The costumes and colours pop into your head? Absolutely. I read the script, obviously, and it's amazing how images do come into your head. It's a bit like listening to a radio play, where you're suffering a better scenery than, you know, a real play.

4:53Yeah. And, I mean, it was just grey and blue. I don't know why, but Yorkshire. I've been to Yorkshire quite a lot. It's always gloomy. I've rarely seen a bright sun in Yorkshire when I've been there. And it just felt right for it. It's set against the background of the First World War. In a way, it shouldn't be sunny, and it never was, except I think the very last day of filming, the sun suddenly came out and it was like, whoops. But we got away with it. and it just felt like it was grey and pounding skies and big moorlands behind these sort of mill towns. So, yeah, I just saw it. In terms of colours, so you saw grey and blue, and I've spoken to a number of directors this year about the colour scheme of their movies, and a couple of people said, a couple of people said, we deny red.

5:53we don't want any red in our movie until a certain point because it is significant. I'm not saying red necessarily in this case, but do you think about it that way sometimes? You go, okay, I'm going to focus on grey and blue, I'm going to deny myself a particular colour because it's making a thematic point or it might have a significance later in the film when we do allow it to bleed into the costumes. I guess I do on some films. The Coral wasn't really like that. The Coral is a very real film. It's about real people in real circumstances with real tragedy and real joy and real humor. And so the only color that slightly surprised me was the bright blue of the convalescence.

6:33I didn't know about the convalescence. But when they come back from the wall and they're not visibly very injured, they used to wear these convalescent suits which were like really badly cut loose pajama. But in a very strong blue and it meant that people who saw them would know they weren't deserters or skybing. They seriously had been wounded and were. So they were in the convalescent home when he goes to recruit from there to add. And I was terribly worried because blue is always a colour that can really squawk on film. I mean, that blue. I normally use blue with a lot of grey in it or, you know, soft.

7:11Anyway, Mike Ely lit it so beautifully that actually I began to love that blue, particularly in the scenes where you see it. it's always lit in just a glorious way. And I got very fond of it. And it didn't squawk at me. It's a lovely phrase. My friend Stephen always says squawk blue. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Absolutely. And so the colours come into your head, the costumes, you have these images in your head of costumes. But then, as you say, you do a lot of research. Oh, yeah. In 1916 as well. so you have to draw upon, you have to be period accurate also? I always feel it's better. I think you then connect to the characters better.

7:58I've been asked in the past, how are you going to put your mark on it? And I thought, I'm not going to put my mark on it. It's not about me. It's about the story. So 1916, Milltown, Yorkshire, there's a lot of photographic evidence. There's even sort of little videos, I suppose, taken on cinefilm, of workers leaving the mill. And there was a surprising number of straw boaters and bowler hats. And I was very surprised by some of the things I was seeing. And we're a fabric mill, so it's not filthy dirty. I think they were incredibly loud. I have been in the mills in Barnsley on another film for research.

8:38and I think we even shot in one on the King's speech. So I kind of know about fabric mills, but it wasn't difficult to find excellent photographs of the period, of all the walks of life from the town Alderman, like Alderman Duxley, to the actual mill workers. So that wasn't difficult and I love the research. It was a great job. We had sort of shared albums on the computer and everybody was in on it, which is a great thing these days. So Nick could be in on it, Peter Francis, our production designer. Everyone knew where we were going. Obviously, the photographic work is in black and white, but you kind of know what it would have been like.

9:25You fill in the greys and the blues yourself, yeah. So tell me about working with Ray Fiennes on this, because you have this amazing ensemble cast. It's an extraordinary cast. But then Nick, of course, is the perfect person in terms of his knowledge of, you know, working with actors and English actors. Rafe, I've done quite a few odd things with Rafe, including sort of screen tests and things where we've never ended up doing it or whatever. But, you know, so I sort of feel I know him. And we had a lovely play called The Talking Cure at the National not so long ago. Lovely. Probably years ago, but it felt quite.

10:01and I mean he's just the perfect choice the repression that man has to show the character Dr. Guthrie in so many ways I always say he out-raved himself he's so brilliant at emoting and also humour there's wonderful moments when he's listening to them and he doesn't make a terrible grimace but you can tell in his eyes it's like oh my god do I have to listen to this But he's so clever with being subtle. Yes. And I knew I wanted to give him a sense he'd been in Germany, but without overdoing it. And I knew that kind of suit would work. And, I mean, it was just like the lack of the costume designing, God who keeps an eye on me.

10:49But Cosprop had that amazing suit, which hardly needed an alteration. Really? Okay. It could be, I mean, it's an English suit, But it had just a sense it could have been in Germany, and the hat could have been in Germany, without pushing it, because that's what I love about the script. And the way it comes out is it's full of really important messages, anti-war, not being kinder and more accepting of different types of people, but it doesn't slam it in your face. It's just quite subtle, and I think that's so clever and so much more powerful. Talk me through the relationship between a costume designer and an actor as well.

11:32It's a collaboration. Yeah. It has to be. I've said it many times, but if I wanted to be, to do my own thing, I'd be a fashion designer or a fine artist. But as a costume designer, you're absolutely part of a team. You're, obviously, you've got the script, the director's vision, if they have one. Some don't. They just want you to do it. So I'm almost micromanaging. I mean, that's just the natural thing of different people. And then with the actor, they will have learnt and know their script and their story in a different way, possibly to me. So what I do, because often you don't know who the cast is for some time.

12:13Late casting is the sort of thing we all go on about in the film world. So I go down the racks. if it's a film like The Coral Weather is stock and we had an incredibly small budget. So we weren't making very much. We were getting it off the racks at Cosprop who have a wonderful stock. And I go down the rack and I just sort of pull what I feel is right for the character and I almost make like notebooks on another rack of what might work. Then when I get the actor's name and measurements, I can refine, focus it down and they come in for a fitting. And it's that the fitting when they're dressing up, basically, that you find the character or not, if it all goes wrong, which it doesn't too often.

13:00But this was, well, it was in one way easy because Nick cast it so beautifully. So the people were kind of what you expected. Do you know what I mean? They were just wonderful, diverse, interesting, believable characters of all shapes and sizes, which was heaven. And the other wonderful thing was, you're in a mill town in Yorkshire in 1916. They're not poor, but they're working class. People did not have a lot of clothes. so I could legitimately give them basically two outfits and give it a truth rather than a change every time you know someone appears like Cruella where you know we were just it was like the whole fun of it was that you gave everybody a completely different outfit every time this was the opposite it was like just keep it simple and accessories with a cardigan without you know little bits to just the other wonderful thing is spoiler alert they don't really give a performance so we didn't have to do Sunday Best.

14:07Yeah. And to be honest, I think that's why, well, I think it looks great. Not hopefully playing my, I think the whole film looks great because there's a real truth in it. We were all really struggling with money. Very well supported by the producers. I can't say a word, you know, there just wasn't that much money. And I think in a way it helps the film. Because I imagine you've been in a position in your career, something like Cruella, Fury Road, films like that, where money is essentially no object. It's never no object. Cruella was a particularly good budget because we had so little time, and it was a bit last minute.

14:47And Disney were very, very kind to me. Fury Road, actually, curiously, we do all the Mad Maxes on very modest, absolutely possible, but modest budgets, because I think a lot has to go on visual effects. Yes. I mean, Furiosa, we shot in Australia. there wasn't a grain of sand anyway when you see Furiosa there's a lot of sand now Namibia fine it was sand everywhere yes but equally yeah it's slightly different but also Fury Road is on the opposite end of the spectrum also from Cruella where you essentially have to pick one costume for each character Furiosa is slightly different because there's a huge times band going on there a little bit more time yeah but Fury Road is Fury Road was, yes, even less than the quarrel.

15:37They basically had one, they went out, it wasn't there, they came back. That's the story. So talk me through that then. Talk me through the process of how did you design the costumes for that film in terms of getting Max's look right, getting Furiosa's look right. Well, Max was kind of prescribed by the Mel Gibson character. I mean, because we'd seen him in Road Warrior and Thunderdome. Yes. And there was a sort of continuity in Max. Leather jacket. Absolutely. The rest, some of it, I mean, George had been trying to make that film for, I believe, 30 years. Now, my facts are never to be entirely trusted, but, you know, I think it was about 30 years.

16:18So they'd had several goes at it, from Australia to, and then they thought about, you know, backs and forwards. Anyway, when we actually got it off the ground, I was new to it, because Norman Morisot had always been the costume designer of that. And I think she just didn't want to spend a whole year of her life in Namibia at that stage of her age and career. So I got involved and obviously absolutely loved it. Quite different for me, but storytelling, so it was in the future. But George, a lot of work had already been done. And some of it I didn't agree with because it had been done so early on.

16:54It was very S &M, and I didn't feel that was right for the time when we were doing it. So I beefed up the look a bit. They weren't sort of slinky black trousers. They were in much more robust trousers with pockets because the war boys had nowhere to put anything. Do you know what I mean? I mean, so anything they owned, they would have carried on them. Yes. Not that they would have had a lot, but it was also very handy for a water bottle and a mobile phone, you know, impractical. But that was not the reason. But it was definitely, yeah, that was, there was a lot that had been thought about. Japanese artists had done stuff.

17:34So I was finding my way through some of that. You have the concept artists, you have storyboards. We had all sorts of, all going on. And a lot of clothes that came over from Sydney. So I remember going to Fox Studios and it's about 50 degrees and I just looked at all these boxes and said to Mel Dykes, so I cost him to see a plaza, I don't think I can cope with this. I was literally jet-lagged off the plane. There's thousands of boxes of clothing. I said, let's just get it to Namibia where we'll have a crew and we can unload it. And we had, I'd seen, I think by that time I'd probably seen the workshop, which was some industrial estate on the edge of Swakamont and knew we had space.

18:15Yeah, so anyway. Amazing. Well, that of course is one of the three movies you won Oscars for, Cruella is the other one. and Room of the View also. And I was just intrigued by talking about Mad Max's leather jacket because when you won the Oscar for Fury Road, you wore a leather jacket. I would like you to know, Chris, it was pleather. It was pleather? I'm a great supporter of people's ethical treatment of animals. Good, quite rightly so. Although, of course, the problem with pleather and fake fur is it's probably less biodegradable than real leather. Anyway, it was pleather from Marks and Spencer, It was looked at quaintly, I think is the word, which doesn't bother me at all.

18:57Quite rightly so. In fact, it went down very well. It went down like a storm, absolutely. I love being a little bit naughty. I was brought up naughty. Sorry. As I said at the beginning, 12 Oscar nominations in total, three wins. So by the time Cruella rolls around, you win for the third time. were you getting used to it all or was it old hat for you by that point it never is i mean i'm i still enjoy all that and what's lovely actually is you meet other costume designers which you don't often in um in the world because you're the only one it's such an isolated role in some ways on in studios a little bit around costume houses but to be honest i don't know many other i mean we sort of communicate on instagram things and there's some really lovely people out there but I don't often see so the awards things are actually quite fun for a little bit of communication.

19:56So there's no costume designers WhatsApp group that you're a part of? Well not that I know of I mean there's so many WhatsApp groups. If there is if anyone's listening to this please do include Jenny in your costume designer WhatsApp group. I think WhatsApp's great actually. I mean WhatsApp on the choral was vital. Yeah. Showing everybody's but that's what's so brilliant now you can keep everyone in the loop all the time. So no surprises and nothing. Yeah, it's such a, that's one of the real plus sides of the whole internet, cyberspace, WhatsApp, mail, photographs, shared albums, you name it. Yes, absolutely.

20:34Which has changed, of course, substantially from when you began. Oh gosh, yes. When did you, I want to talk about how you got into costume design and when you began. So when did you first start? What was your big break, so to speak? Oh gosh, I had lots of big breaks. So I studied theatre design at Central School of Art and Design with Ralph Coltie, who was at the peak of his career as a set designer. And that's all I wanted to do. Set design? Set design, yeah. I wanted to create worlds. And I love creating worlds on a stage. But by chance, I knew a boy who I'd grown up with who got to know Merchant Ivory and asked me to help on a film they were making in India called Hullabaloo over Bonnie and George's Pictures, which was a commission from the South Bank show.

21:16Marvin Bragg's arts program. And Dame Peggy Ashcroft was in it as an eccentric English art collector traveling overland to India with her female companion to find a legendary collection of miniature paintings along with an American art dealer and an Indian art dealer. And they were actually allowed to steal the collection. Anyway, it was a great story, of course, Ruth Praja Bala. And Dame Peggy asked me if I'd go with her She was a little concerned about going to India on her own. She was 70. Seems very young now to me. But she said she'd been offered a first-class ticket. If she changed it for two economies, would I go with her?

21:59So I pitch up in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. And again, as you said, we're way before the internet or anything. I think it was a dodgy telex system possibly and a very dodgy telephone. And immediately become part of the Merchant Ivory family because I was up for anything. I mean, I looked after Dame Peggy. everything she needed, which she was very undemanding. And so I helped crowd collect props, costumes. I then ended up acting in the film because the actor who was supposed to come up from Bombay for some reason couldn't make it. And I ended up being the Scottish governess. I promised they'd dub me. They didn't, of course.

22:37Liars. And became, I mean, after that I was just part of, and they thought I was a costume designer because I come out with her costumes. And the next film they were doing was the Europeans. And Ismail just said to me, you will be Judy Moorcroft's assistant. So I thought, okay, fine. And Judy seemed to be quite happy. And the next one was another small South Bank show and I designed that. And then the last, and the one that really got me going was the Bostonians. Yes. Judy was supposed to do it and got offered David Lean's passage to India. And again, Ismail just down to me and said, Jenny, you will do it.

23:13That's his famous phrase. Crikey, Moses. You know, 1870s, massive party scenes, all going on, lesbian love affair, or was it, who knows? And John Bright from Cosprop not only obviously supplied the costumes, but was phenomenally helpful. And we were in Newport, Rhode Island, doing the very first scenes, massive party scenes. And she's speaking, Madeleine Potter playing. Oh, my God, I've completely forgotten her name. That's me all over. Anyway, and all the American who were around were going, you know, it looks amazing, Jenny, it looks amazing. And I thought, yeah, it does. But it's not me. It's John and me.

23:58And so we became a partnership. So John Bright and Jenny Pevham became, you know, I think we did 12 films, 11 or 12 films together. Oh, my God. Some for Merchant Ivory, but not all. we were in Alaska doing White Vang in Kenya doing Mountains of the Moon looking for the source of the Nile in 1860 we did Sense and Sensibility with Ang Lee yeah it was an incredible time oh my god and so you didn't miss the set design element at all you were I kind of did but I was far too busy and I had to earn my living I was you know became a single parent and you know and do you why not just out of your problems really not that she's a problem she's better than I ever did sorry Caitlin that could have gone wrong Caitlin it's alright I love you even now though when you're designing costumes and you're on set do you look around and go I could have done a different job with this I could have done better than no never on film absolutely not but maybe theatre Theatre I do occasionally go and think, oh, you know, I would love to have done this.

25:14I don't think I dare criticise what other people do. But I really love creating the space, the world that could be inhabited. And of course, in theatre you mainly do your own costumes, so you're then creating the people who go within it, but you're thinking about it all at the same time. So in a funny way, I slightly do. I've done theatre since, but never the sets. I've always had costumes for Bill Dudley or Tim Hartley or someone, you know. So at what point did you properly consider yourself a costume designer? Well, I think the minute I started working with Merchant Ivory, I think Bostonians completely.

25:54On the Europeans, I was an assistant. And it was, you know, those days when there were literally three of us, dressing and undressing everybody. I think we gained one extra person when we went actually into Boston. and we were shooting it all in New England. Room of the View, we did with four people in Florence. Oh, my God. Me and two others dressing and undressing all the crowds. Oh, my God. And Sally Turner looking after everybody on set. Stiff collars, collar studs, corsets. I mean, we just did it. Now you'd have a career of 15, minimum. It's another world. but I imagine it helps because you were nominated for an Oscar for the Bostonians and you won for Room of the View very very quickly afterwards I'm not sure they used to call it the curse of the Oscar you never got a job I mean you never got a gauges to get back because people thought you'll be too expensive or whatever because I did a big the very first things I did in theatre was I designed Carmen at Covent Garden four sets and 300 costumes I was 21 and after that and it was quite successful on this very traditional look so Georg Schulte wanted a very traditional look to his Carmen and I was working with a guy who ran Welsh National Opera, Michael Jelliot who was directing it that was the reason I got, they asked me and so it was very solid and I was tremendously supported by the staff at the Opera House because they realised I was very young but it looked it looked what it looked and again I wasn't immediately offered you know work I think people thought crikey she's young can she do it again or is she going to be very expensive and grand because she's done you know I could have gone grand I mean I think it's quite easy to I hope I never did I think I had enough friends who'd sat on me if I got and went and ground but I think Yeah, I think it took a bit of time.

28:04But I was always quite good at doing other things. I was a really good prop maker and not a great sewer, but I can. And I definitely made some costumes for Welsh National Opera, actually. Really simple stuff. So I was always busy. We used to make ridiculous props in our sitting room. My sister got into an enormous tuck-duck. Do you remember tuck biscuits? It was sort of like a massive puppet. Yes. That was, of course, a lot of glue on the carpet. I mean, we were always making things. Big props and 50-foot inflatable men. Which we blew up up the back of the house. 30-foot spiders. God knows why, but it was something we all did.

28:49Oh, my God. That sounds amazing. I imagine Halloween around your house must be an interesting time of year. I've just got a few tricks and treats. Luckily, not many kids live in my area. No 30-foot spiders. And I'm a long way from the... Yes, I haven't encouraged it. The cat and I will bunker down, I think. Fair enough. I mean, you've worked with some amazing directors over the years. You know, James Ivory being, I guess, the formative director of your career. He thinks he brought me up. Without a doubt. Tucked you under his wing. He was very funny. I've read I've told this before. When he saw Fury Road, he wrote me the following email.

29:28So he was 85 at the time. Jenny, I did not bring you up to run around deserts with semi-naked men and scantily dressed females. I quite like the man with the chrome lips, but that was not your department, I guess. You and I are living in Berlin, I am told. Maybe that's the abrupt cause for your abrupt change of costuming style. And then he went on to say how much he liked the film. But it's just, you know, I did not bring you up to run around deserts. Oh, that's so beautiful. Jim, you did, actually. Yeah. You brought me up really well. So yes, he's my absolute mentor, revered. I must try and get over and see him.

30:07He's 97 now, but he's still... Wow. And I just haven't made it back. I did see him here last year when we did the Merchant Ivory documentary, and he came for that, and that was wonderful. I saw quite a bit of him, but I'm not... I mean, I'm sure he'll travel again, but it's a long way. It's a long way, absolutely. From upstate New York, Saudi and try and... It was just timing because everything's beginning to get busy again. And I'm like, you know. But those movies, we were talking earlier on about the relationship between a costume designer and an actor being a collaboration. But the key collaboration, of course, is with the director.