Behind the Scenes at Vogue World! | PLUS Angela Bassett and Ruth E. Carter on Working Together For 25+ Years

0:28This is The Run Through. I'm Cho Minardi. which we spoke about, and so much more. I can't wait for you to hear our conversation because they have such a lovely rapport. They've known each other for such a long time and they've kind of grown up together as creatives. So they just had lots to say and lots of lovely stories to share, which I won't give away right now. But before we get into the interview, we've been collecting voice notes straight from Vogue World from our colleagues. So let's listen and see what they had to say on the ground.

1:00LAX at 5am. Everyone streamed in to the American Airlines lounge. Many destinations across the globe. Made possible by our dedicated team members. We'll all do it for one reason. Can you hear the American Airlines safety video in the background? We are reporting live from Vogue Air. You're all gorgeous. And that's so true. But you're going to be walking with Gracie at Rope and the Doja Cat. There's been a weather update. Here's the 100 % chance you're going to slay that Bogue World runway. So thank you all. Here's my Bogue. And here's Caroline. Alex Consani was getting coffee. Leah Cabetti and her daughter strolled in.

1:50Scarlet White was running to Hudson News before getting in line to board. It was a real all models It's all hands-on-deck experience. And now we are taking off.

2:04Hi, I'm Hannah Jackson. I'm a fashion writer at Vogue. And we're reporting outside of the Beverly Hills Erewhon. Jose, what do you think of Erewhon? This is actually my first time in L.A. period. I'm having a great time. I got the Goth Smashing Pumpkin Smoothie. You know what? Would highly recommend, mostly because I'm expensing this. Thank you, Condé Nast. Hi, this is Christian Allaire. I'm a fashion writer here at Vogue. And today, a lot of the Vogue staff is busy preparing for the show. We're writing our content. We're building our stories. There's just a lot of excitement in the air. Here we are reporting live from the Vogue World Hollywood War Room in the back lot of Paramount Pictures.

2:46Paramount Studios.

2:52The photos from arrivals are starting to trickle in in our Getty Drive and we are starting to put up our arrivals gallery. Everything is very exciting back here. There's a lot of Starbucks protein lattes being drunk, some C's candy. The heat is on.

3:12Hollywood glamour and action KJ!

3:24I feel like highlights for me were the end when all of the whole cast came jumping and galloping back down the runway to the Beach Boys. I loved Gracie Abrams coming and coming out of a loading truck and singing. I've been there too.

3:54Angela Bassett in her Wakanda costume was such an iconic moment. I was sitting next to Viola Davis and Viola just gasped with awe.

4:08Baz Luhrmann and Nicole Kidman were such a duo. It was all thrilling from start to finish. Cast and crew, cast and crew, cast and crew. That is a wrap!

4:30We are back in the war room after the most spectacular Vogue World Hollywood. I have never been front row at a show with that much excitement and energy around it.

4:47The run-through will be back in just a minute.

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5:38Here's my interview with Angela Bassett and Ruth Carter. Hi Ruth and Angela. Hi there. So, so happy to have you on the podcast and Ruth, welcome back. This isn't your first time at the rodeo here. Oh, wow. So when was the last time? Oh, it was a while ago, wasn't it? It was three years ago. Okay. Oh, well, I'm happy to be back. Thank you for bringing me back. I guess I didn't do a bad job. I came back for a rerun. Back by popular demand. Back by popular demand. Right. So I'm talking to you as we're just days away from Vogue World in Hollywood. You two are obviously already in L.A. and you're doing a fitting for the big show today, which I'm so excited about.

6:25I'd love to hear from you, Ruth, about how you prepared for this fitting. And can you talk about the process of bringing the Black Panther costumes for the show? I think people are going to lose their minds. Yeah, I'm excited about it. I'm honored that Angela has lent her time and her busy schedule to come and embody Queen Ramonda. I mean, she and I have been together thick as thieves through the career. Angela Bassett has played Stella and not only Queen Ramonda, but Tina Turner. So we have kind of like a poetry together. We've built a long legacy of strong Black women, and she knows how to embody that role.

7:16So coming together with Marvel, who actually owns the costume, and they bring it and prepare it for the queen, I show up like I'm in the queen's court. And we put the Ishikolo on, and we're honoring the Zulu women. uh we put on we adorn the costume which tells the story you know the storytelling aspect of what costume designers do and so it's been really exciting to you know hear that marvel was on board to bring the costume and that we could come together and honor costume designers you know, to really let us take the stage for a change and, you know, bring fashion together with costumes. So is it stored, are the costumes stored in sort of a Marvel archive or how does it all work?

8:12Yeah, they're stored in the Marvel warehouse and they're like archival pieces. They're museum pieces. I have an exhibition, Afrofuturism and Costume Design, and they put 50 costumes, you know, However many we request in that exhibition. So this is, too, like taking the stage. This is an event. And so they are lending their archival pieces to this wonderful, wonderful event. Angela, I hear you often go into character for fittings. Will you be in character as Queen Ramonda for this fitting? And why do you like to go into character? It sounds like it's quite a ritual to put on. I mean, these costumes are quite impressive and they probably, I mean, they have this power.

9:00They kind of hold this power. I'm so curious to know. Yeah, it is just that, you know, a lot of times the costume is just an entryway into who the character will be. You have the script, you have the words on the page, that's one entry point. But also, once you envelop your costume, in this case, they were just so regal. So that aided, that helped. And as you're looking in the mirror at yourself, maybe the first and last time, you see her come to life. You see how she stands, how she comports herself. You just get little clues into who the character is. Ruth is just so humble. As a matter of fact, I thought she owned the costumes, but I can understand that.

9:48Yeah, no, we do a lot of things. 3D printing, all of this stuff that happens and they finance all of it and then they store it. I mean, I really don't have much storage to put all those beautiful costumes, you know, away in the proper, you know, temperature and all that that it needs. So it's kind of a great thing that they do that and then they're able to bring it out and let us see them. This week, Vogue released the twinning story that features those iconic costumes. And I know you were paired with Olivier Rostang of Balmain, which I thought was such a great pairing. And he made a creation that was in homage to one of your costumes in Black Panther.

10:29It was so beautiful to see them side by side. Did you get a chance to speak to Olivier about his reinterpretation? And what was your reaction to the finished look? Well, my reaction to the finished work was, you know, dead on. I loved how all of these elements that embody storytelling came to life in this creation by Olivier. I have been out of the country on Thomas Crown Affair and super busy. So I wasn't able to be as immersive as I would have liked, but he did just fine on his own. It looks amazing. And I'm honored that we have this pairing. Who's the pairing, Ruth? He interpreted the Dora Milaje.

11:13And so it's a knitted garment that has all of these textures. It has beading. It has layers. It has netting. The colors are exactly from the piece, the Dormelache piece. So there's reds and browns and it's gorgeous. It's really gorgeous. You guys have worked together on so many movies, five. In fact, some of my favorite films, including Malcolm X. And I'd love to hear the story of you've collaborated on Malcolm X. Angela, you played Betty Shabazz, Malcolm's wife. Do you remember the first outfit Ruth fitted you in, Angela? and Ruth, what was your first impression of Angela? Because just getting on the call today, I can tell you have such a lovely rapport and it's so nice to see that.

12:00And obviously it's so great when you have a collaborator that you really connect with. Yes. Well, Angela has been my muse and my sister and from the start. And on Tina Turner, I'm going to go back. Okay. Yeah, let's, how could we forget? Let's go back to the first time. I'm going to go back to the first time I ever saw Angela. She was sitting over by herself, being Tina Turner, doing the gestures, studying her craft. And I looked over there and I saw someone who was so focused and so dedicated. I said to myself, I have to meet her where she is. I have to go and focus and be, you know, on point with whatever her needs are because she embodied the character.

12:44So I needed to shepherd her to the film, to the lens, by giving her everything she needed to feel in that costume. And then we came together again on Malcolm X. And that, too, was such a wonderful experience to see the same person like, you know, this person. And she's doing another character and she's embodying more of a quiet resilience, a quiet strength that Betty Shabazz had, a real assured person. And I'll never forget a scene between her and Denzel Washington when Betty was trying to tell him that the nation was against him and he didn't want to hear it. And she went toe to toe to toe with Denzel.

13:35and when the scene was done, Denzel looked at her and said, that was good. Do you remember that, Angela? Do you remember that? I do. I do remember that. Yes. Powerful. Quite intimidating. One of my favorite scenes in Malcolm X. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I remember in Malcolm, that was pretty early in my career. I remember I had just moved from New York to LA. You heard this was happening. Somehow I procured the script, which, you know, you could only get pages to go into audition, not the entire script. I kept it under my mattress. I thought, you know, I would sleep in through osmosis. The character would come to me.

14:19You know, I had my Malcolm X t-shirt that I slept in from 125th Street. You know, this face emblazoned on it. I was just trying to just draw Sister Betty to me. And I remember going in, meeting Ruth and putting on the, what is it? The headpiece, the white guard. Yes. The covering, the head covering that the Muslim women in the nation is from war. Yes. You know, how demure. That makes you become. Mindful. You know, you have strength and yet demure reverence and, you know, sisterhood. The entire filming, just the work ethic of everyone in the making of that film was at, you know, such a height and such excellence.

15:08Yeah, we really cared. We really cared about that project. And, you know, the casting was so, so well done. Everybody had a synergy. So it's great. Sounds like an incredible experience. Ruth, I know you spoke to Betty in preparation for dressing Angela for the role. I'm curious to know what you learned from her and how that influenced the decisions that you made with the costumes because they were so great. And Angela, your performance was just flawless. Spot on. Yes. I went to the university where Dr. Shabazz was teaching the late Dr. Shabazz. And I was sat in a classroom waiting for her and someone advanced her to say that she'd be arriving shortly.

15:51and she came in and she sat down with me and she asked me what I wanted to know. And she told me that her upbringing was not Muslim and that her parents really didn't want her to be a Muslim, but she believed in it so strongly and they gave her clothes. They wanted her to embody a level of dignity and class. And so she was given pieces from her mom, from her mother. And, you know, that's what I remember her telling me that she really, you know, felt like, you know, if she was to be portrayed in this film, that it needed to have the same connection of elevation that her parents or her mother wanted her to have.

16:46And so I, with that, I went forward with Angela's selections and in keeping that in mind. I'm going to go back to Tina. I know that Tina was present for the filming, which must have been quite an experience. I'd love to know what it was like when you met her, what advice she gave you for the role, because for me, you became Tina. It was like, it was incredible. Well, thank you. Yes, I met her early on in the studio. I had like 30 days to prepare for it. And I was working with Michael Peters, a fan choreographer at his studio at his home. and she came through and he would put me through the paces.

17:32And he was dealing with his own health concerns at the time. So he would just put me through the paces. Then he'd go lay down and rest. And Ertha Robinson, his assistant, would just make sure, would just drill me and make sure I got through. Tina would come through, came through once to his studio. And she was just like, Michael, please, let her learn it before the stilettos. Oh, Jesus. Sorry, let her learn it. flat footed first, which I appreciate. I mean, she was an advocate. She showed me pictures and old pictures and, and you could just point out, Oh, what's happening here? Oh, I was, you know, it might've been after a, you know, an incident with Ike and, and just the way she talked about it, it was, you know, it, it, nothing brought her down.

18:21She had, you know, such exuberance and, life and affirmation within her, within every cell of her being. So I just sort of, you know, tuck that away, put that away. It was like, it was as if nothing could stop her. Then of course, you know, she lived, you know, abroad. We continued with our work and at the end she came through and for that last scene in the movie, she actually did my makeup and everyone's knocking on the door like, you need anything? Do you need anything? She did makeup in 10 minutes. It would take them an hour. Wow. Someone who, you know, who put her costumes together and her makeup and her hair and her whole glam and her look, you know, you know, on the road, on the circuit when they were doing it, 10 minutes and it was done.

19:09It was perfect. But she also went into her archives and gave me one of her costumes to wear for the disco inferno it has a long v piece in the front and you know it's very high on the sides you know you remember it i do i do wow yeah could i couldn't imagine that it fit but it did i mean she long ways short way whatever it was perfect it just gave me such such power to be wearing actually one of her costumes and then i remember one day she actually went shopping. Ruth, do you remember? I think she went Beverly Hills somewhere and came back and she was like, I got you this and these shoes. Yes.

19:51Slippered shoes. And she just wanted to make sure I was supportive. Yeah, she was lovely. We were on a journey together and it was intense. And I was dealing mostly with Tina's assistant, Rhonda. And she took me to all of her collections in her storage units. And I got to look at like all the performance costumes, like, you know, in person. And, you know, it was just really a wonderful experience for a young costume designer, you know, like me, who really wanted to like embody this, you know, this look for Angela. And I just remember the What's Love Got To Do With It song at the end, the leather dress, and Tina coming to me with our CD cover and saying, And, you know, I want this for Angela for the What's Love Got to Do With It song.

20:42You know how she had her voice. I was like, OK, it's tomorrow, but I can do it. And we made that leather dress like overnight. And she was really grateful. And I remember seeing her walking across the base camp with her wig on a styrofoam head and going towards Angela's trailer. And she was like, meet me at Angela's trailer. And I walked over there and opened the door. And there was Angela sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of Tina. Tina was plaiting her hair to put the wig on to pass her crowd. Okay. No camophones. Just right here. Wow. Yeah. It was good. That was good. It sounds like you built this trust very quickly.

21:39You know, there was this bonding experience that you had on these films. And I'd love to know what you've learned from working with each other, because I think it's obviously like a very great two-way collaboration happening here. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we started, I guess, with both, you know, early in our careers, although, you know, Ruth had been working with Spike on the number of, what, two or three films before Malcolm X? Yeah, yeah. Of course, I was, you know, of course, a big fan going to see every last one of them and just beautiful around. And then when I got the opportunity, I mean, everything's exciting.

22:22It's like finally made to the top of this mountain. And to see Ruth along this journey, I swear, when I walked into, you know, our last collaboration on Black Panther and Wakanda Forever, my mind is still blown. I'm getting goosebumps. A moment that makes me so proud to see how we as women, as artists, as creatives, grow and challenge ourselves and take the hard road and wind up exactly where we're supposed to, getting two Oscars. Yes. So well deserved. Yes. Oh, my goodness. I think that because we both started in theater, we understood the artist's journey. We understood the inspiration. And as she's explained, I like to bring in the environment to the fitting.

23:15So while you're thinking about how you want to play your character, and I'm thinking about how I want to adorn and have things, I need to have things around me. I need to have things around Angela. And so I think what I've learned from Angela is, you know, we are artists. We are we're on separate journeys her as an actor and performer and me as a costume designer. But we're still both artists. And like the resilience and the dedication to the art is something that's like an ongoing lesson. every time I'm with Angela in the fitting room. And I just love how she stands in the mirror and she looks at herself.

23:59And you can say that she's not looking at Angela Bassett. She's looking at the image of the character in the mirror. And she's turning left and right. You want to just dive inside her brain and think what she's thinking, but you want to also give her the space to feel it out and understand where it could go. The run-through will be back in just a minute.

24:34Hi, I'm Rebecca Ford, Senior Awards Correspondent at Vanity Fair and co-host of Little Gold Men. Oscar season is upon us. Little Gold Men takes you behind the scenes of the race for the biggest prize in Hollywood. There's a hundred wrestlers in the room. But only one can be Oscar nominated. Whether you're a movie lover or an industry buff, Little Gold Men from Vanity Fair has everything you need to know about this year's Oscar race. Follow and listen to Little Gold Men wherever you get your podcasts.

25:11I wanted to take a second to talk about some of your recent projects, Ruth, because Sinners for me was a cultural moment, And I spent hours debating that film with friends and talked in detail about the costumes and how the twins were dressed differently. And for me, it was such a big, big moment. And your fingerprints were all over it. So I would, I mean, we could talk about this film for a long time, but I just kind of wanted to touch on it a little bit. What it was like entering that genre, horror genre, which was new for you. and what the conversations were like with Ryan because obviously he's been a frequent collaborator too and this film had such a big, big impact.

25:55Yeah, well, Sinners was such a personal story for Ryan. Horror was a little bit for me on the back burner. I really wanted to embody the history of the Mississippi Delta and the history of the story of the blues and how people who are disenfranchised like they were in 1931 could make something out of nothing. And what did that look like? And the idea that we were going to shoot in this large IMAX format said, I could tell an even bigger story about the history of Black Americans in this country. And the more I dealt into it, the more it laid the landscape for what was eventually a horror story.