There are many reasons to see the new film Trumbo, directed by Jay Roach. The story of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo’s blacklisting in Hollywood and how he survived this shameful period of American history is fascinating and important to reflect on. Bryan Cranston gives a powerful performance as the eccentric Oscar-winning screenwriter and he’s joined by a spectacular ensemble that includes Helen Mirren, Diane Lane, Louis C.K, Elle Fanning, Michael Stuhlbarg, and John Goodman. For a classic movie lover like myself, it was also thrilling to see the Hollywood of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s perfectly recreated along with amazing depictions of the well-known personalities who interacted with Trumbo including Hedda Hopper, Kirk Douglas, Edgar G. Robinson, and John Wayne. Costume designer Daniel Orlandi (Saving Mr. Banks, Jurassic World) had a blast creating hundreds of costumes for the film that spanned several eras and all walks of Hollywood society. I sat down with Orlandi to discuss his exquisite work on this film.
Danny Miller: I would imagine a film set in this time period and featuring these people would be one of the most plum assignments any costume designer could ever hope for.
Daniel Orlandi: Absolutely. Such great characters and a subject I was very interested in.
Do you find dressing real-life characters more of a challenge than fictional ones?
It’s a challenge but it’s great because there’s so much material that is available. I love doing the research — I’ll make each actor a book of pictures of their character for them to mull over. One of my main goals is making sure the actors really feel like the people they’re portraying. I’ve done a lot of movies about real people and you do feel a responsibility to learn as much as you can about them and be as truthful as you can within the confines of the story.
It must have been such fun to create those crazy outfits for Hedda Hopper!
Oh, yes! We didn’t copy anything that she had actually worn but we worked hard to distill the “essence” of Hedda! It was odd because Helen Mirren was leaving for a long film shoot in South Africa so we only had a chance to have a brief conversation several months before we started. I didn’t see her again until about three days before we started shooting the movie. Usually, I like to work with an actor throughout the process, I don’t just present them with their costumes. I prefer it to be more organic and have them try things on and go over fabrics and different looks. But this was different — I made all these clothes and hats on my own and when Helen arrived we spent a lot time mixing and matching. Hedda didn’t really wear “outfits” — the hats didn’t necessarily match the dresses. So Helen and I had a lot of fun putting those clothes together.
And is it you who also decides on the jewelry and other accessories for her character?
Yes. We had boxes and boxes of jewelry for Hedda Hopper. At one point, Helen said, “I feel like I’m a Christmas tree!”
I would think that you work more closely with actors than anyone else on a movie except for the director.
It’s true. Sometimes I’m the first person they see after they get the part. They’ll usually ask me a bunch of questions. “How’s the set? Is the director nice? Is the star going to be okay on this movie?”
I guess you have to be like a therapist in addition to a costume designer.
Yes. One time I was working with this big actor, and the first thing he said was, “Okay, who do you hate?”
Do the actors typically have a lot of input?
I want them to feel very comfortable. It’s my job to help them identify with their character. I always tell them, “If there’s something you don’t like, please tell me!” I don’t want to hear about it on the day of the shoot.
I assume for a movie like this you pay a lot of attention to the little details to make sure they’re accurate, including things we never see like the character’s underwear.
You definitely need the right underwear for the women to get the right shape — especially when you get to the 1950s and they had these teeny little waists. I was very lucky with Diane Lane on this movie, she had a perfect figure for that look!
I would guess that dressing her is like dressing some of the stars of the classic era. She’s like our modern-day Ava Gardner!
Definitely. She’s so beautiful. And you know, Cleo Trumbo, who Diane plays, was quite attractive herself. Diane’s character is really a rock, I think of her as the heart of the movie. So we wanted her to have a certain simplicity about her clothes as opposed to Hedda who was obviously very flamboyant. Trumbo, too, was quite an eccentric dresser. I remember talking with Bryan Cranston during some of the fittings and he’d say things like “I think I should have a more aggressive shirt in this scene!”
I love how you costumed the people playing the movie stars. Again, that must have been a challenge since we have such a clear idea in our heads what they look like. Boy, I thought the guy playing Kirk Douglas was such a dead ringer!
Wasn’t that amazing? When they put Dean O’Gorman in the Spartacus costume, I was like, “Oh my God!”
And those knit shirts you had him wear were so perfect.
We had a million publicity shots of Douglas and I worked hard to create that young sexy movie star look. I heard that Kirk Douglas saw the movie and loved the guy who played him!
That’s quite a compliment! I also liked the guy who played John Wayne, but he didn’t look very much like the actual actor. In cases like that, do you just work on creating the right feel?
Yeah. We looked at these photos of John Wayne with his big ties and loud suits. We had to make all of those costumes from scratch because, like John Wayne, actor David James Elliott is huge!
Do you have a favorite scene in the film in terms of the costumes?
I love the opening scene where they’re all in their evening clothes. I put Hedda Hopper in this kind of 40s Schiaparelli-inspired dress with shoulder pads while Diane Lane is in a kind of Dior dress with a totally different shape — we wanted to show the two different generations. But we also dressed every single extra in that scene. I like to make each one a character: you’re the starlet, you’re the studio head, you’re the foreign reporter, and dress them accordingly. That’s a lot of fun!
Does it make you crazy to watch period films when the costumes look more like what people wore in the era when the film was made?
Yes! Even one of my favorite films, Love Me or Leave Me starring Doris Day — it’s supposed to be the 1920s but those clothes are totally from the 50s! But then there are movies like Gone With the Wind — Walter Plunkett’s costumes are remarkable. Or The Wizard of Oz — except for Glinda the Good Witch’s dress, you’d never know that film was made in 1939!
Who were your biggest influences from the studio era?
I love them all. I love Helen Rose’s work — she did lots of Elizabeth Taylor movies with all those gorgeous costumes. I’m a huge fan of Irene Sharaff, Jean-Louis, so many of them. It was watching those films as a young kid that made me decide that I was going to be a costume designer when I grew up!