The Big Picture - The Case for a ‘Black Panther’ Best Picture Win, Plus a Conversation With Nominee Ruth E. Carter | The Oscars Show (Ep. 127)

Episode Date: February 15, 2019

Micah Peters and Rob Harvilla join the show to make the case for why ‘Black Panther’ transcends the Marvel Cinematic Universe and should be taken more seriously as a Best Picture nominee (1:00). Then Ruth E. Carter, the film’s costume designer, joins to detail the unique demands of designing for a comic book movie, her work with Spike Lee, and her path from Broadway to Hollywood (21:38). Host: Sean Fennessey Guests: Ruth E. Carter, Rob Harvilla, Micah Peters Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Bud Light. Enjoy responsibly. AB Bud Light Beer, St. Louis, Missouri. I'm Sean Fennessy, editor-in-chief of The Ringer, and this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about some of the best superheroes in the whole darn world. I have a few guests on this week's episode. I'm joined in the second half by Ruth E. Carter. She is nominated for Best Costume Design at the 91st Academy Awards. This is Ruth's third nomination, and this one is for Black Panther. This whole episode is going to be about Black Panther.

Ruth is a really smart, fascinating person who's been working in this business for 35 years. If she wins on Sunday, next Sunday, she will be the first African-American woman to win an Oscar in 30 years in the non-actress category. So think about that. Along with Ruth, Hannah Beachler is also nominated for Best Production Design. If she wins, the same will also be true for her. But before we talk to Ruth, we're joined by two of my Ringer colleagues and two sincere Black Panther fans. Micah Peters, you're joining me in the studio. What's up? Bang, bang.

And Rob Harville is on the line. Rob, hello. Hello. Rob, you wrote about Black Panther this week in our Make the Case series. You said Black Panther should win Best Picture, which of course it is nominated for among six other awards. Rob, why should this movie win best picture you know i saw it in the theater on opening day uh revisiting it last week um i just

it was of the seven movies it's just the most complete movie to me just in terms of being crowd pleasing in terms of being thoughtful like i think it's easily like i'm a big thorn ragnarok guy but like i i think that it's easily the best marvel movie the most fully realized marvel movie i you know the sag awards thing it won it won best ensemble is that right that is correct the terminology is that like just their euphemism for best picture or do they actually mean like best acting ensemble um i think getting into what awards are euphemisms is a complicated territory so we'll just say it is it is their their their capping award at that award show

okay i i but i think best ensemble like in the literal sense like works i just i loved everybody on screen you know i i remember vividly in the theater like shuri was my favorite for sure and like now re-watching it like a koi like i write a lot about in that piece like she's who i was sort of drawn to but like everybody like i think it's the best marvel villain you know the standard mcu thing it's like oh it's x bad guy and they have x relationship with the hero they have x motivation and they do a horrible thing and they want to do a horrible thing like just that boilerplate that's applied to like every one of these movies in one way or the other i think like king killmonger is the most vivid villain that the mcu has had and like the most sympathetic and like you

sort of understand his plan and and you can empathize with it in a way that's new to me at least in the mcu and i just, just every character, good or bad, I thought the soundtrack was great and sort of standalone stands alone as its own thing. Like just the action, it just was the complete picture for me above and beyond any of the other movies up for best picture. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's, it's seven nominations. I guess we should just walk through those quickly before we chat with Mike a little bit about its chances here. Of course, Best Picture, Best Original Score, which was created by Ludwig Joransson. I feel very good about that pronunciation. Shout out to you. Thank you. Best Original Song, All the Stars by Kendrick Lamar, who you noted, as well as Mark Soundwave, Spears,

and Anthony Top Dog Tiffith. Lyrics by Kendrick Lamar, SZA. We still don't know what the hook was, actually. We don't, we don't. Even after reading the lyrics online, I still can't pick it out. That's a good point. Me neither, which maybe should be held against it. We'll talk about that. Best Costume Design, I mentioned with Ruth.

Best Production Design with Hannah Beachler and Set Decoration by Jay Hart. Best Sound Editing, Benjamin A. Burt and Steve Boddicker. And Best Sound Mixing, Peter Devlin, Steve Boddicker and Brandon Proctor. So Rob, you noted that this is the best Marvel movie, and there's something interesting in that kind of identification, that kind of nomenclature, because best Marvel movie- It's a backhanded compliment. It is, it is. And because I think there are actually quite a few great Marvel movies,

but there are a few that kind of transcended, that was good for a Marvel movie too, that was a great movie. And maybe that's changing a little bit. Certainly Thor Ragnarok preceding it. We had two in a row where I was like, wow, there is some real invention and auteurism going into these movies. Micah, did you have a similar reaction when you first saw Black Panther? Because you're a noted comics reader and you really cared and you were anticipating this movie. I think even before you worked at the ringer, if I recall. Yeah. Yeah. This is, yeah, I did. I did write about this for Fox sports. I remember. Yeah. Which, which, you know, like was kind of incongruous, but yeah, I have, I had been anticipating it. I mean, the Christopher Priest run of black Panthers,

maybe my favorite run of comics ever. Um, I mean, it definitely, and Rob wrote about this, it just kind of immediately puts you in the universe that you're supposed to be in. It doesn't feel any larger or smaller or more ridiculous than it's supposed to be. The opening vignette of Sterling K. Brown doing the voiceover. A meteorite made of vibranium. The strongest substance in the universe struck the continent of Africa, Wakanda.

Talking about the warring tribes, the vibranium, the heart shaper, the panther goddess, all these things. And it's just kind of like, I was like, fuck yeah, I'm here. I'm ready. And like it's it's and then i'm gonna confess to you that i've i saw it four times at the movies that's great which is i guess the big point is that like rob is talking about how it kind of glues you to a moment in time when you watch the movie and it was such a phenomenon and like isn't that what this is supposed to be you know um yeah even hearing you talk about this and i i wrote about this a little bit when the movie was

first released just the idea of it tethering to real life events the idea of oakland in 1992 and what that represents which is where ryan coogler is from and the way that they set us there that's meaningful yeah uh i mean zuri being like you know, it's these two Grace Jones looking chicks. Everything about that makes sense. Yes. It feels real. Yeah. On the flip side, though, I think that that narration that you're talking about, and Rob, you also noted this in your piece, that sort of title design, the way that they thrust this into this world, didn't strike me as comic book-y. It struck me as Lord of the Rings. It was like, this is a grand mythical mythology that we're building for everybody. Yeah. Start with the map. Exactly. Start with the map. And that also struck me as the kind of thing that was kind of Oscar-y. I think that it's very easy to say, this is just

a dumb Marvel movie. It's a comic book. It doesn't really mean as much as you think it means. You're reading too deeply into these movies. I've certainly gotten my fair share of that feedback in my writing and thinking and podcasting about this movie. But The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King won Best Picture. This happens. Ben-Hur won Best Picture. This happens. That's myth-making. That's what the Oscars does all the time.

And this feels kind of in keeping with that. Micah, is there any reason that you can sense of why this movie has no chance at winning Best Picture? Because as near as I can can tell it's got no chance i don't know i mean like it's it's the argument that we're having isn't about whether or not it's good enough or worthy enough it's again with like all of the arguments surrounding the oscar races is about convention and campaigning i mean disney definitely thinks that it's worthy of Best Picture, obviously. They haven't listed the likes of Oprah to talk about how wonderful

this movie is. There you go. But it really comes down to the fact that it's still people in spandex punching each other. And that's what the suits on TV will see it for. I think that's right

yeah I think that's right Rob do you think if there wasn't a nine minute sequence in which two CGI characters punched each other

in front of a train at the end of the movie didn't appear that this would somehow change because I do feel like even though the movie has this wonderful ending

with Killmonger that fight sucked let's be honest about it it is the it is the key flaw of the movie and that's kind of why i asked about it i mean and there are good action set pieces in this movie there are a lot of the first warrior falls one was amazing incredible i think the korean uh casino shootout

is wonderful really well staged it's very bond yeah when he jumps up and he's just like yo murderer yeah all of that stuff is great the museum heist is great all of that stuff is is classical but rob do you think that that ultimately is what's holding it back to the kind of two panther men wearing spandex hitting each other, as Micah noted? the technical level the way it's sort of a long shot and it keeps going up and downstairs like it'll follow a bullet or it'll follow a sword or whatever like i thought that was actually really beautifully done but yeah like the train fight scene is pretty dorky honestly i mean the re-watching it the scene that sort of sealed it for me that i decided that this was actually legitimately like my favorite movie of of last year and deserving of best picture was the the second scene in the ancestral plane with killmonger when he goes back that was incredible to the oakland apartment i gave you a key hoping that you might see it someday

yes the sunsets there are the most beautiful in the world as you say like immediately you go from that animated sort of mythology setup which is very lord of the rings like you go straight to oakland you go from that animated sort of mythology set up, which is very Lord of the Rings. Like you go straight to Oakland, you go to a very specific time and place and point of view, and you're sort of grounded in reality immediately in a way that I don't think the MCU or superhero movies in general, they,

I don't think they always managed to do like the, the mixture of reality and fantasy in this movie up to an, including like the central sort of argument, like of every movie or television show that has basically been about the notion of a wall, quote unquote, whether we should build a wall, like walls versus bridges or whatever. I think the central argument that T'Challa and Killmonger are having in this movie is the best fictional conceptualization of that argument that I've seen in a movie or a TV show or anything in the past two years. But the scene in the ancestral plane where they're in the apartment and it's Sterling K. Brown and Michael B. Jordan, and they're having a legitimately quiet and affecting scene. It's not overplayed. It's not super melodramatic, but it's really affecting. And outside is the ancestral plane, like the purples and the pinks, just the overlay of

a real place and real people within this fantastical sort of Marvel superhero world. That's the mixture that I don't think I had ever seen from the MCU or frankly, even at their best, like the Nolan Batman movies. I mean, you always go back to the dark night as like the big thing where the oscars sort of realized that they had to contend with these movies and treat them like actual legitimate art but i i do think that the black panther is a cut above that and the way that they're able to stack fantasy and reality on top of each other and i think that that is like looking at the source material

inquisitively, like as in, but not so much like Nolan did where he had pretty obvious disdain for the Batman character. The villain was the best part of any one of those movies. With this one,

it's more so like, I guess if you take like T'Challa and Killmonger are supposed to be equal and opposites and the way that like way that their warrior falls battle in the comics lasts for days. And Killmonger is the same way that he is in that he's just smarter than everybody, stronger than everybody, basically is a deus ex machina to himself. But this one is just like, why don't you just take that and then say

how did he get to that point basically it kind of closed it collapses the difference between the distance between the person reading the comic and the villain that they're looking at can i ask you the fourth time that you saw it in the theater micah like what did you get out of it that you didn't get the first three times? Like what really that understanding just because like, I've talked to charity about this before, but it's just like, I loved Michael B. Jordan's performance and then I hated it.

And then I liked it again. And then like the fourth time I was just like, Oh, well this is several people that I went to college with, or this is, this was me in this year. You know what I mean? I do. I think it's a movie that has a lot of artifice by nature because it's about vibranium and it's about fighting at Warrior Falls. But also there is something that is practically real about what Michael B. Jordan is doing that feels actorly, but also feels like

he had a long conversation with Ryan Coogler, who clearly has a lot of these ideas and he is affecting a lot of Ryan Coogler's personal presence in the character. And when you see that on screen, you're like, this feels wrong. Yeah.

This feels like, and in some ways it feels like a bad performance. I've seen people say he should have been nominated for best supporting actor or should win. And I've seen people say, it's amazing that a movie star of this level gave such a poor performance that's so fascinating for something to vacillate like yeah it's like it's supposed to be a little

bready like yes and the say for instance the museum scene also from benin seventh century in fula tribe i believe. I beg your pardon. It was taken by British soldiers in Benin, but it's from Wakanda, and it's made out of vibranium. Don't trip. I'm going to take it off your hands for you. Like, when he goes,

what about your people? Did they pay a fair price, or did they just steal it like they took everything else? And I was just like, damn. History is just like a long, long story of white people not chilling. Maybe that's why it's not going to win. That may be why it's not going to win. I mean, sure.

But at the same time, it's just kind of like you can see the choices. It definitely bears the seams of like the conversations that probably Michael B. Jordan and Ryan Coogler had, but it makes sense this is kind of the best it's going to do. Like if you take all of the performances together, there's this really great small Sterling K. Brown performance in here. There's this really great Danae Carrera performance as a coyote that like nobody ever really considered her best supporting actress. Drop your weapon. Would you kill me,

my love? For Wakanda? Without question. But she's wonderful. Yeah. Lupita is in this and she's won best supporting actress before.

So it's not unreasonable, but maybe there's just not enough screen time or not enough presence. And Chadwick Boseman as a performer is often so reserved and unshowy

as an actor. The Academy very rarely recognized that. I did want to share one interesting tidbit with you guys. I did a Q&A with Joe, Robert, Cole, and Ryan

four or five weeks ago. And we were chatting about the construction of the movie and what their inspirations were, your typical kind of bad questions from a guy like me in front of an audience. And Ryan told this great story about meeting with Francis Ford Coppola, and he screened the film for him. And Francis Ford Coppola gave him some notes in that kind of typical way that a director will give another director notes about how you can make your film better. But the key thing that he asked him to do was go back and watch the movie Brigadoon. Have you guys ever seen Brigadoon? No. I can't say I have.

It's a Vicente Minelli movie from the mid-50s. Here's the very quick logline. Americans Tommy Albright and Jeff Douglas are on a hunting trip in Scotland and become lost in the woodlands. They happen upon Brigadoon, a miraculously blessed village that rises out of the mists every hundred years for only one day. So that's the idea of Wakanda and the idea of this kind of world building, Rob, that you talked

about in your piece too, has just got roots in historical great Hollywood cinema and it's not so far removed. And I found that to be such an interesting comparison. Also, shout out to Francis Ford Coppola for just being like, here's what your movie is. I guess I'm still having a hard time connecting why, if Francis Ford Coppola can see this, why the Academy can't see this. Because certainly from a strategic point of view, this is what they should do. Sean, you've been talking at length about how the Academy has screwed up this Oscar ceremony in every conceivable way. This is the best case scenario for how to end this. In terms of resetting yourself as a forward-hour sort of apology for the previous grammys and the way that they sort of shunted especially women but also like rap off to the side like this

is the smartest thing the academy could do if they were only thinking about it from like a political from a strategic point of view like that i knew going into the second watch but like i the second watch from a quality perspective again you know I think it also actually is the best movie like you don't it it isn't a matter of virtue signaling like it's actually the best most complete movie I mean the other detail and it's such a small thing that struck me about the warrior falls like the shoulder shrug thing like the eskista yeah yeah just the world building there like it's just it's a complete universe that i understand and like i you know infinity war was fine but i did there was this ache that i had to watch

wakanda and these characters be exposed to the larger mcu again to just become like another element along with like the guardians of the galaxy people and everybody else like it just it felt like such a terrible thing to spoil this complete self-sustaining universe by like reinserting it into the larger thing and making it just you know susceptible to the larger thing it's just it's just it's the marvel movie for me that stands on its own whose universe stands on its own where it doesn't need any of the larger mythology because it has so much of a vivid mythology of its own and how perfect for the movie for that exists in that fashion to be a movie that is essentially about the battle between isolationism and open your opening

yourself up to a wider universe you know that that is truly it's exactly what it's great merit they have one glance towards that in the movie when they meet on the tarmac. And like, there's the joke between War Machine and the Hulk about like, you know, am I supposed to kneel? Or is this like, you know, yeah, he's a king. And it's just like, and meanwhile, Koi is just being like, when you said that we were going to open our borders, I thought that we were going to get like a Starbucks or whatever. It's kind of the same joke at the end of the first movie. In a recent conversation that'll be on this podcast soon, we talked a little bit about how the Oscars actually ends up ultimately giving out awards. And inevitably, they rarely give out awards to the most deserving movies in their time. Rob, you noted that maybe they'll give a Marvel movie an Oscar at a later date. I realize this is not easy to do given that we don't know what

the schedules of these movies are, but what Marvel movie is going to get the Oscar that Black Panther deserves like 10 years from now? What story are we going to see? And they're going to be like, okay, finally, we'll acknowledge that this is meaningful. I think I'm not a comics guy at all, but I'd say another Black Panther. Honestly, I don't think there's another.

Micah, is there another character in the MCU? Like Captain Marvel or whatever is not going to do it, right? Is there any other significant, compelling, standalone character left at this point? Because I'd say just another Black Panther that's just as good or better, that's just in a more welcoming environment. Yeah, I mean, I would think that it would be another Black Panther movie. I feel like the makeup call will come on another Black Panther movie. Yeah, I don't think that there's another character that I really feel is as compelling that will come at a later date.

I am excited to see the Black Panther versus Namor movie because that is going to be amazing. Well, now that Fox has been purchased by Disney, perhaps that entire universe can be pulled together. Ryan Coogler, of course, is going to be directing Black Panther 2, which I suspect will come probably around 2021, still a ways away. And maybe we'll reconvene this podcast and the three of us can discuss how and why it is three years too late. Rob, Micah, thank you for doing this. Of course. Thank you. Thanks again to Rob and Micah. Please stay tuned for my conversation with Ruth Carter. Sonos Beam is the smart, compact soundbar for your TV

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services and airplay, so you can really play everything. You can listen to music, you can watch television, or you can watch those screeners that I'm talking about. And if you don't have that option, maybe fire up Netflix or Amazon prime or Hulu or any streaming service you'd like to use. The beam has completely changed the way that I listen to music. And it has especially changed the way that I watch movies. So go to Sonos.com to learn more and order your beam today. That's Sonos, S O N Oos.com to learn more and order your beam today. That's Sonos, S-O-N-O-S dot com. I'm delighted to be joined by the magnificently talented Ruth Carter. Ruth, thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me. I wanted to open the conversation by basically asking you where things start for a costume designer. So when you enter the process and what that's like. Are you sent a script? I am. I'm sent a script usually for my interview. But in this case, Marvel does not share their scripts. So I wasn't sent a script.

I was sent a few clippings from the Black Panther comics. And I was sent some backstory to read. And not a lot. So for this film, I had to call everybody up that I knew that knew anything about Black Panther, including my brother, who was a police officer in Springfield Mass, and all his patrol officers got together and did a group call to me. My illustrator, who has worked on several Marvel films and knew a lot about the comics in the Black Panther and was super excited.

I could tell he was standing on the chair as he was talking to me on the phone. And they were able to give me a crash course. Are you pitching yourself in that situation at Marvel or are you already asked to be a part of the project? No, I'm pitching myself. You're pitching. Yeah.

So what goes into that process? I just have to sort of imagine if I were on the job, what would I do? I have to use everything I've got to inform myself what this world could be like, and then do a visual story. And I present that visual story. And, you know, the whole time I'm crossing my fingers that it's the right one. It's the right visual story based on what I've learned, you know, about Wakanda from the comics. How does this compare to other things that you've worked on? Because obviously most of the films that you've worked on are original stories. They're coming whole cloth from writers and directors. There's a huge amount of mythology involved here.

What are the notes like in terms of how loyal should you be to the mythology? How much can you reinvent the way that a character looks and feels and the way that they fit inside their costume? Well, you know, I'm lucky because I can rely on a studio like Marvel that knows everything about it. And Ryan Coogler and Nate Moore, who are comic book fans and Black Panther fans. And so if there is something that seems a little bit off, they're my advisors to say, this is the direction that that's going to go in. They're the ultimate advisors. They're marvelous hands-on and not in a bad way, not in a pushy way, not in an intrusive way. I'm there because I'm also an artist and I'm joining a group of artists that collaborate.

It's the ultimate in collaboration. So I want to get it right. We remain open to each other adding their layers to the story. I'm so interested in the trial and error aspect of what you do. I suspect there's probably a couple of different stages of it. Maybe when you and your illustrator

are showing your ideas to filmmakers, but then also I assume when actors are getting in the room and you guys are looking at materials together. Yeah, well, the easiest trial and error is on paper. Illustrations are done, and I have a group of illustrators with me, and there's a group of illustrators at Marvel. And so there are dozens of sketches that are presented before a final is agreed upon.

And then there is another phase, which is the creation of these costumes. You know, an illustration is 2D, and so we have to create it front, back, and side. And that requires a selection of materials and textures and processes that, you know, you have to take each layer of the process very seriously because one affects the other. In terms of sort of the Marvel aspect of it, is there pre-existing fabric and materials that you have to work with that they say, well, this is sort of our- Marvel cloth? Yeah, our tapestry.

Exactly, yeah. I mean, I don't know enough. Is there something like that? No. You're looking at me like I'm a damn fool. No, no, no, R. Tapestry. Exactly, yeah. I mean, I don't know enough. Is there something like that? No. You're looking at me like I'm a damn fool. No, no, no, no. No, but, you know, it's a superhero film, so there's a language to that. And with Wakanda and the Black Panther, there was a language to that story.

There's tabards were kind of part of the language. Textures, superhero fabrics, for me, was a part of the language. So you have a superhero suit that goes through a certain process. And Lupita's dress for the casino went through the same process as the superhero suit, but without the muscle suit behind it. So we used that language in the cloth and that's what provides a consistency and a story. There's almost like a meta aspect to this because there's sort of a showroom sequence in the film itself where, you know, Letitia's character is showing Chadwick's character sort of

costume options in a way. Like, did that feel strange to you to be almost like having characters doing a thing that I'm sure you've partaken in in the past? Yeah, Letitia was like the princess costume designer, you know, but a scientist, you know, an innovator, the future of Wakanda. She was many things. And what we wanted to do was show that in her costume as well, that, you know, even though she was working in a lab and she was the head of the Wakandan design group, she wasn't in a lab coat and she didn't fit within a certain don't know if there's been a ton of depth around it. I'm curious specifically what the references were for you in terms of building the costumes in general and how do you work? Do you show your illustrator, hey, I'm looking at this Sunrise album cover. This is what I'm going for. Or is it much more of a conversational kind of thing? Oh, it's everything. I'm very entertaining in the

illustrator's room. I eat my lunch in there. I have boards in make breastplates. We used Dogon masks to make wooden armor for the Jabari tribe. We look at all kinds of techniques that they used in the artistry of Africa to infuse in the costumes. And so once I use a whole bunch of post-it notes all over my inspiration boards, I have these little tripods that sit on their desks behind their monitors so that they can easily look up and reference them. And then they happily dim the lights back down and they start illustrating and I leave them alone. And then they'll do like a series of illustrations in grayscale, and then we'll talk about them. Sometimes I draw on top, you know, when I'm trying to work out how I saw the silhouettes going. Or maybe sometimes it's the way that I want to present them at our next big Marvel meeting.

And then they go back, and they'll add color and texture. Or we'll just, one of the illustrators might show me a page that they'll show me all these different types of weapons throughout Africa. And we'll talk about ways we can change them or combine them to create different pieces of armor for the clothing. What was it like to be almost having a board of approval in a way with this sort of thing? Was it unusual? Because you've worked with so many singular vision filmmakers in the past, and this is a little bit different.

Yeah, well, between Kevin, Victoria, and Louis, they're all so different personalities. And so... This is the brain trust at Marvel. The brain trust at Marvel. The brain trust at Marvel. So you get between Victoria, who's very happy-go-lucky, and Kevin's intense love for the comic books and the stories of Marvel, you really do have a great mix of support and intel. Intel. And so it's not as bad as it may sound. You really aren't in front of the three kings of Rome or something. You really are finding yourself being supported and embraced. Your ideas are really thought about. Help me and the listeners understand at what time in the process of designing costumes that the production is happening on the film is everything done months in advance are things happening on the fly on

the day of shooting how does it work in a project like this oh man it's all of that yeah and and especially with this because we were creating a world that had never been seen before so there was a uh there were ideas that needed to be designed first because their processes took so long to sort of generate and come to life. So I was hired in July. We had approved initial drawings in October, like the panther suit and the Dora Milaj and the Jabari. And then we went to building them so we could start shooting in January. But there were other types of costumes like Shuri's Lab and the casino that we're still designing as we go. Nothing is really on the fly because everything has to be created.

There is nothing that's really bought at the store. You cannot go to Macy's and get this. But do you have a breathless night before where there's just some incredible sewing happening to make sure that something's going to work for the next day's shoot

or is it much more controlled than that? Oh, I wish it was much more controlled than that. Breathless nights, yes. Yeah. Especially with Lupita. She was so many

different characters in the film. She was a Nigerian captive, a war dog, a princess, a bond girl, a warrior. I mean, I felt like there were hundreds of costumes in this film and most of them were hers. That's really interesting. Did anything significantly change from when you first started conceiving of this? Did you think, oh, well, Wakanda will be like this, but it's actually all turned out to be like that? No, it's everything that I imagined it would be, honestly.

And I didn't have time to even think twice about it because once I went on that road, the journey was so intense. You know, that whole thing about cortisol, you know, when you don't get sleep and you're pretty stressed out all the time. And, you know, I always felt, I was sleepy all the time. Even if I had a full night's rest, I felt like, did I sleep at all? So I just felt like the journey was so intense because there were so many deadlines and we were working towards this wonderful, wonderful end, this beautiful idea that we all wanted so badly. And that was our focus. And then we didn't really even see it in its full effect until it actually came out. What about a film that requires so much sort of balletic and action film movement? Not a lot of your work has done that. Did that change the calculus of how you

design things? Absolutely. I learned a lot on this. I felt like the Panther suit was the biggest hurdle of all because it was the new suit that gave us the greatest challenge. It was thinner. It was more technologically advanced. So it was much simpler. And I used the thinnest Euro jersey available to create the top layer. And as the stunt guy wore it in our filming process, he kept blowing his pants. And that was pretty embarrassing.

Can't have that on screen. Yeah, I know. And well, CGI took care of a lot, not the vis effects took care of a lot of that, but we had to actually hire a woman from the Boston Ballet who knew how to change the gussets and things like that in the suit. How interesting.

So that he could actually do his stunt work. And we built another suit, which we called our tough suit. And then once we built that suit with the actual gussets and things, it was fine. Whose idea was that to hire someone from the ballet? You know, as a team, we just was like, okay, one, two, three, huddle. So you're just spitballing ideas. Yeah, we're spitballing ideas. And someone said, I have a friend who works in ballet.

I bet you let me call her and see what she suggests. And then we brought her in. How fascinating. You've worked with a lot of the same filmmakers over and over again over your career. Spike, of course, John Singleton. You've also worked with great filmmakers, Steven Spielberg, Ava DuVernay. Tell me what the relationship between a director and a costume designer is. How exactly do you guys fit together?

Yeah, we're co-conspirators. We're together on a visual element. There are costume in every scene, just like the actor is in every scene. He's wearing clothing on his back. And I think because of that part of the storytelling, it's a balance. And we both have an intention in the scene, and that is not to overpower the words or the story. It's to work sinuously with the words and the storytelling. So there's a process of showing photos after a fitting. There's a process of showing color palettes and images of illustration.

There's a process of communication and talking. And you really have to be a good listener. The listening is, I think, probably the most important element of the relationship between a costume designer and a director because the director is the ultimate visionary, and we are all trying to fit within. All department heads are trying to fit their part within this one vision. And it's important not to be on your own island, doing your own thing in your own world, and then come to the table. It's important to know who's on first, you know, and the director knows that.

Tell me a little bit about Ryan Coogler. I met him a few weeks ago, and the first thing he noticed was my sneakers. I get the sense that he is very visually acute. He knows what style is. So what was it like working with him specifically on this? Yeah, I was surprised. Like, you know, his style sense seemed to surprise me. Oftentimes, he has a really keen sense of it, and he really wanted Shuri to have a top-notch sneaker game.

And he also felt embraced by the costume department, where he could come in and feel at home and help us work out problems. I talked to him about the border tribe elder and his blanket is described in the script as this magnificent blanket. And the Lesotho blankets were already pretty glorious and beautiful. And I thought, how do I take those blankets to yet another level for this border tribe elder? And he said, let me help you with that. Let me help you with that. And so his ideas are flowing. He's a visionary. He's a director. He really is a leader. He's very articulate and he knows in the process what he wants to do and you can rely on that. Help me understand a little bit where the line between costume design and production

design ends and where they meet because I feel like in a movie like this where there's so much invention happening around the world, what are the sort of demarcating lines between those two things? Yeah, there is a high level of trust that has to happen between production design and costume design because they're working so far in advance. And we're actually working on different timelines as far as creating these worlds that in the initial phases of sharing of illustrations and color palettes and what the DP is going to do in terms of lighting these environments. You know, we have to keep a conversation going and then we separate and

we start working independently of each other. Sometimes not seeing each other for days on end because the production design department is weeks ahead. And even sometimes when you go to look at their sets, they're not painted, they're still sculpting, they're not decorated. You're not going to get what you think you're going to get in those environments unless it's a practical location. And even then, it's sometimes not giving you what you want to know as far as putting costumes in those environments. So you have to have a certain level of understanding, trust, and sharing. And the sharing part is in their initial ideas, their initial illustrations and production design. And I think it's not a someone's over the other.

They're not a dictator to the costume department. I think sometimes production designers like to feel like they are over costume designers, and we get, like, really upset. But that's because, you know, they care what comes into their world that they've created. But I think in that caring, it's more like sharing. Do you guys have one big group text that you're on where you're all saying, like, I had an idea for this with this work in this world? Like, how does it work? At Marvel, you can't do that. That's a good point.

Is there some sort of closed server that no one can break that you guys can communicate? Yes, there's a closed server. And that server is populated all the time. You can go there and take a look at stuff. And then you can ask questions in person. It does really mean that the designer has to physically meet with the production designer face-to-face. Can you tell me a little bit about your background? I'm curious, whenever someone is such a highly skilled craftsperson in this field, how they get to this point.

So when you're coming out of school, are you like, I will be a costume designer in films. That is my goal. I was saying I'll be a costume designer in films. That is my goal. And I wanted to be that. And I had no aspirations for film. I just didn't really know it. I wasn't exposed to it. I was exposed to theater and opera. And the theater and opera experience gave me character breakdown, script breakdown, color palettes. And I could actually look at a theater piece and see the story from beginning to end through rehearsals, through the idea of seeing a set being built from beginning to end through rehearsals, through, you know, through the idea of seeing a set being built from beginning to end and seeing that magic happen, you know, when the lights come in

and the curtain goes up and you go on this ride of a theater piece. And I really loved that, that environment and that, that medium. But then I came out to L.A. and theater wasn't as big here as it was in other places. Yeah, so film found me. And I had to sort of adjust my ideas about how to present costumes in film. And it was much more detailed. And I always liked detail because I loved painting on costumes for theater. In theater, you can paint a pattern on a piece of fabric and then make the item. And it looks from the audience like it was printed.

But when you see it up close, wait, it was painted. Was there a production you really liked working on in theater in your earlier days? Oh, my God, yes. The English Cat, Moliere, The Would-Be Gentleman, The Tempest, Raisin in the Sun, Stye the Blind Pig. I mean, I was just doing them. I just loved that world. I always wanted to work for the Negro Ensemble Company in New York. That was my goal. So how did you end up in Los Angeles? I just, I went to the opera in New Mexico and I had relatives that lived out here and they were like, hey, you want to come out to

California? We have something called the film industry out here. And I was like, whatever that is, I'll come out. And when I came out here, like I said, I looked at the cover of the calendar section of the L.A. Times, and there was a picture of the staff of LATC, this brand new theater that was opening up downtown. And I was like, wow, they need me. And I went down there and I talked myself into a dresser position. I was a dresser backstage. And I dressed Wole Soyinka. I dressed a few plays. Madge Sinclair, Moses Gunn, Richard Lawson, Vanya's Three Sisters. I was a good dresser because I come from opera.

And then I talked myself up into the costume shop and quickly they made me shop foreman because I was a good talker I guess but I wasn't ready for that position you're showing us that right now sorry I'll stop no I'm excited it's been great anyhow I uh and I didn't like shop for there being a shop foreman and I ended up being an assistant costume designer to all the designers that came through that theater company. And that theater company housed five theaters under one roof. How did this shift into film then? Because I think of your, I mean, maybe just from all your work with Spike, but I think of you as such a New York visionary in a way.

Like the things that we see, that I see in New York are almost like reflections of people just watching Spike's movies for 30 years. Yeah. Spike, my friend Robbie Reed introduced me to Spike. Is Robbie a casting director? She's a casting director. We went to college together, and she lived out here, and she was one of the people who I was friends with when I moved out here. And she introduced me to him, and then we both went on to do school days with spike and in new york and that new york experience um was also very eye-opening like i said i knew how to do

film i knew how to break down characters film was new to me now new york was new to me um but i knew how to get costumes together i knew knew how to do that part. But these new worlds were opening up to me. And I love the heartbeat of New York because I grew up on the East Coast. And so being at 40 Acres with Spike was brand new world, brand new world. And I was excited about it. And we were all young filmmakers so we were kind of learning this new i was learning the new medium along with some of my other fellow filmmakers and spike was our leader you guys are both being celebrated this year with your nominations but not for the same film is that weird at all for you um no i feel like it's for the same reason

yeah it's uh it's his dream it's my dream. We've both been in this industry a long time. And, you know, we're supposed to be diverse. And we're supposed to be doing all kinds of stuff. And, you know, we're not married. No, no, of course not. No, no. I just thought it was interesting. We are married in film.

So many of the things that I think of when I think of his films are things that you you know bugging out 12 films with him when i see people what they were wearing in those films that that that's that's you yes yes a long history i'm curious if there's a kind of movie this being your first superhero movie that you want to work on in the future if there's another challenge that you're interested in tackling yeah i really enjoyed this Wakandan story. There were a lot of things that we didn't use that I'd love to see maybe in the next one. And I think that when I see superheroes now, I see how different they are from the one we made. And it would be exciting to create another superhero that was as diverse as Black Panther. Like, I like Aquaman, you know, like what they did with Aquaman.

You know, I know that the other Marvel superheroes really do follow very tightly to the comic history and the comic model. And that's exciting, too, to see. But I really like the creation of story within the superhero model. Just out of curiosity, do you prefer period or contemporary in terms of the setting of the films that you work on? Because you've done both. Yeah, I have. That's a hard one because I like them both. I like them both.

I love fashion, especially now. Fashion is just so creative right now. Who are your hot points? Who are your touch points right now? I like Victor and Rolf. I love what Valentino has done. There's just so many. Fashion has really taken off. And if I could get on a contemporary film that would show some of that creativity, it's just as rewarding as being on a period film where you dive into some of the things that we don't normally see every day. Ruth, I have to ask you, even though your category is going to be appearing on the Oscars telecast, not all the Kraft's categories will. So I just, I'm interested in your reaction to that news the Academy announced this week. Yeah, you know, I feel like here in makeup, they always get the

back, the backseat, you know, they're always the one that's pushed to the side. And, and I, and, and you must have such intersection with that group too, right? Yeah, I do. You know, usually on set it's like wardrobe that's usually the one that gets the last 15 minutes before. It's like, what's taking so long? You know, are they still in wardrobe? It's like, we just got them. And I think, you know, filmmaking to so many people is the, you know, the effects, you know, the directing and everything else. And hair and makeup just seems to be like not filmmaking to some.

And so they get, oh, let's put them in the commercial. Can you imagine what some of these actors would look like without hair and makeup i know what they do i know what they look like you're saying not not as good i'm just saying and you know let's let's take them out of the commercial and put them out front i agree they deserve it um ruth i end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing that they have seen so i show by asking filmmakers, what's the last great thing that they have seen? So I'm going to ask you, what's the last great thing you've seen? The last great movie?

Sure. The last great movie that I saw was Mary, Queen of Scots. Oh, what did you like about that? Speaking of makeup and hairstyling. The makeup and hairstyling. Incredible, right? Yeah. I love the clothes, too.

And I love the story. I. And I love the story. I love the detail of the story. I love the characterizations, the characters. You know, I'm the one who could sit down with a really good book as a kid and just go on that journey of story and characterization. And they really did. I love the acting. So that's the last really good thing I saw. Are you a very critical viewer

because you know so much about how these things work or do you find yourself falling inside of a movie frequently? I can be critical, but sometimes people go to say to me, you know, did you see the costumes in that? And I go, yeah. What did you think? And I go um i liked it

well i liked uh what you did in black panther thanks for doing this thanks again for listening to this week's episode of the big picture thank you to ruth carter to micah peters and to rob harvilla. If you enjoyed my chat with Ruth, please check out previous episodes of Conversations with Nominees like Nicholas Patel and Barry Alexander Brown. And of course, please stay tuned to this feed for the next couple of weeks when the Oscars will be happening. Next week, you'll find a complete Oscars prediction episode of The Oscars Show with me and Amanda Dobbins. We'll be going through all 24 categories, making our picks. We'll also have an Oscars video series coming on TheRinger.com. You can check that out, breaking down all the narratives you need to know ahead of the show. And of course,

on February 24th, immediately after the Oscars, Amanda and I will be here talking about what will hopefully be a show that breaks in the right direction. We'll see you then. Today's episode of The Big Picture was brought to you by Sonos. I myself am a Sonos Beam user. I may or may not have watched Black Panther, the subject of this podcast recently, with a Sonos Beam, and it sounded radiant, vibrant, and Ludwig Joransson's score was absolutely majestic.

Sonos Beam is the smart, compact soundbar for your TV and the newest addition to the easy-to-use Sonos Home Sound System. So if you want to get brilliantly clear sound when you're watching movies just like me, go to Sonos.com to learn more and order your Beam today.