CATEGORY: ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUME DESIGN
INTERVIEW WITH: ALEXANDRA BYRNE
FILM: "ELIZABETH: THE GOLDEN AGE"
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Q. How does Shekhur Kapur describe his vision for the look of the costumes to you?
A. When Shekhur talks about clothes, he never talks about them in a naturalistic sense. He talks about the emotion of the character or the emotion within the story, and that's the starting point. In this film, he wanted to tell the story about Elizabeth's journey towards immortality, and that was his dream for the film.
Q. Did you bring the old man Simon with you?
A. I did.
Q. And the kids?
A. No, not the kids. There at home. We had a treat. No kids. Just the husband.
Q. How are you celebrating tonight?
A. In a big way, I think.
Q. Beautiful costumes; details, gorgeous. I'm curious how you maintained the balance between the style of the period and what modern audiences would relate to and appreciate?
A. It is a balance. Basically, I start by researching appearance so thoroughly that I know it inside out, so that I'm in control of decisions of what to use and then what not to use. And then I look at a very eclectic reference from anything, contemporary period, couture, and it's like spinning plates. You leap between the two, but go backwards and forwards and keep in touch with the historical periods.
Q. There are two sequences on the movie that Cate Blanchett looks like an angel?
A. Yes.
Q. What was the idea because after all, Elizabeth, according to history, was anything but an angel. What was the idea of the costume?
A. Okay. Really, the brief came from Shekhur in, as I said his story, he wants to tell the story of her journey towards inmortality and divinity. And he's not interested in the historical accuracy and indeed the script is not historically accurate so it was all about telling the story that he felt was his journey towards her toward being divine.
Q. There have been so many Elizabeth movies, where did you draw the inspirations for this?
A. Everywhere. It's very it is a very eclectic look. I mean, as I said, I started with historical research, and by reading accounts of her ambassadors at court, she was very aware of her appearance, the power of her appearance, and she used that. And then the balance of the portraiture of the period, which is very symbolic, means that I wanted to reinterpret that such as it was relevant to an audience today as opposed to being historically overaccurate and therefore distracting.
Q. Can you tell us where Shekhur is tonight?
A. No, I don't know, actually. Last time I spoke to him, he was in New York, but he travels a lot, so I don't know.
Q. Did you approach this Elizabeth differently than the first film?
A. Totally. And, again, that came from Shekhur. His starting brief was that he he wanted it to be completely different from the last film. And he also said he felt instinctively he saw Elizabeth wearing the color blue, which meant that it was immediately out of the comfort zone of the first film, and I had to find a way of making blue Elizabethan and English and royal. So, yes.
Q. Thank you very much and congratulations.
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