Q: When did this film come together for you?

A: "Blast From the Past" came together for me when we shot the big night club scene. We'd already done most of the period scenes and I began to feel that the contrast between Calvin and Helen's 1960's world and our contemporary world would work as planned.

Q: Have there been any extraordinary moments during the making of this film?

A: The filming of "Blast From the Past" went on in a very smooth, professioinal way, but because of our schedule, we had Christmas vacation ending five days before principal photography. It was very important that my actors trusted me, and understood the bits and pieces of costumes I was feeding them on a daily basis. They had to believe these disparate looks would work out to make one complete believable family story in a bomb shelter.

I think the most extraordinary moment for me was when Sissy Spacek, who plays Helen, was working with one of the toddlers playing her son Adam, at the age of eighteen months. During the precious few minutes before shooting, when she was trying to bond with her young colleague, she exclaimed, "Look, you have slippers on just like Daddy." I knew then that my actors were beginning to understand where I was going, and I knew that all these fine details were truly important. If not ever getting on the screen, then certainly helping the actors create their own reality out of the extraordinary circumstances of their life in the bomb shelter.

Q: Do you ever become a single character from the script as a way into the film?

A: I don't become one character to find a way into the film, I become each of them, and many of my choices come from that internal character work. As a designer, I try to figure out how to best portray their place in the world from a visual perspective as well.

Q: Is it helpful to identify with a singular character in the script when exploring the entire piece?

A: During "Blast From the Past" I would often try to identify with what Adam must see when he finally comes out of the bomb shelter, in making my choices for what the contemporary world looks like for him. He understands the civilization has mutated, that the surviving humans are alien to him. All o fhis influences the kinds of choices I made of a world seen through Adam's naive eyes.

Q: Are you interested in starting a trend?

A: I am not interested in starting a trend. I think when that has happened in the past, it has been for the most part an accident. It's been a case of a look being seen at the right time, sparking the imagination of the public and the Seventh Avenue designers.

Q: Do you think a film style can be marketed?

A: I think a film style can be, and is, marketed and made exciting as part of the big business of marketing the film. As long as there have been stars to idolize, there have been fans who want to emulate them. Therefore, retailers have often connected a stars current film and their product.

Q: Does a budget become a determining factor in taking on a possible project?

A: Yes, budget does become a determining factor in taking a project. When production has budgeted too little for a film that is inherently expensive, for example, a story all about rich people, or an eighteenth century epic, I will sometimes just have to pass. This happens when I feel I can not do the piece justice with the money that has been allotted for the wardrobe.

Q: What are the best and worst aspects of the intense collaboration between designer/director?

A: The best aspect of the intense collaboration with a director is when there is in fact an intense collaboration. The give and take, the free-flowing exchange of ideas, all parties open to suggestions. That is when film making, from my vantage point, is at its best. The direcotr has a vision, explains it to you, and allows you to use your imagination to illustrate that dramatic vision. That also includes the understanding of a director to appreciate and use what an actor and designer have worked out to express the character. These things are most exciting to me in my work with actors and directors, all parties contributing to the final project.

The worst part of the intesnse collaboration with a director is when any kind of compromise is necessary, and when outside influences (the studio dictates, budget constraints, etc.) cause the perfect vision to be put aside for something middle of the road. I have not yet seen a compromise that suits everyone. It weakens the dramatic moment, it dilutes the involved artist's work, and it is at times a missed opportunity at something really strong one way or the other.

Q: As a child what memory do you have of film style?

A: My childhood memories of film styles are MGM musicals, especially "The Bandwagon", directed by Vincent Minnelli in 1953. Slick, gorgeous, glamorous perfection in every aspect of production was like the world made perfect to me. I was also interested in silent films as a child. The look of Charlie Chaplin films was like looking at creatures from another planet when you are twelve years old and seeing fashions from 1915.

Q: Do you imagine you work as that of an interpretive artist similar to shadings, psychological charactersitics and color supplied by the actor?

A: I do believe that my work is that of an interpretive artist, bringing an external life to the inner life created by the actor. Many choices that I make feel right to me in an instinctive way that I can not always explain.

Q: Explain the difference between the kind of work that remains invisible and that which takes on the prominence of character.

A: There is much work that although it remains "invisible" to the audience, it subtly makes a difference in mood, emotional response and character. For example, I used five different color palettes on "Boogie Nights", and then palettes within palettes. I doubt if any anyone noticed the change of colors from 1977 (sequence A) to "high times" and New Year's Eve (sequence B), early 80's (sequence C), "dirty laundry" (sequence D) and then the true 80's palette (sequence E).

They were sections of the film written by Paul Thomas Anderson, and they were guidepoints in the script used to delineate the many moods of the film. These palette changes never took on the prominence of character like Dirk's denim texedo or Amber's lamé New Year's eve outfit but it was there, subtly supporting the actors moods and actions.

Q: How would your work differ if films were silent?

A: I would work exactly the way I do now if films were still silent. What I use to express the character is completely visual, and says everything I want to say silently and eloquently, without audible explanation.

Q: What element of your training do you now feel is most important?

A: I feel the most important part of my training was my work as an assistant costume designer. I was fortunate enough to assist the late Richard Hornung on nine films, putting into practice all I had learned at New York University's Graduate design program, and applying it to the medium of film.

My method of working today is very much the way I learned to work on films with Richard, like "The Grifters", "Barton Fink", "Natural Born Killers", and "Nixon", to name a few. I learned to be more of a colorist, more about fabrics, budget, scheduling, the politics of working with actors and directors, and the psychology of character and its subtle expression. The assisting took what I learned in school, put it into practical use, and prepared me to be a film costume designer in my own right.

Q: Is there a specific signature we might find as we explore the body of your work?

A: I think the specific signature in my work is that it is very designed, even to the extent of not looking designed. There really are no accidental choices in my films (unless a dreaded compromise has had to be made). Color choices and palettes are made for characters and graphic clarity. There is a dramatic arc in the costumes and a specific point of view/concept underneath it all. Little is left to chance. It is all planned to have you looking at what you are meant to be looking at during any given moment of the film.

Q: How often do you return to the script once your work is under construction?

A: I go back to the script many times during the designing of the film. Since we shoot out of sequence, I go back into the script to plug in choices so that each change works visually and dramatically with the change both before and after it. I also go back in to check if what I have planned is going to work for a given dramatic moment. Many times we get new script revisions, so you need to constantly read new pages and make sure the whole piece continues to work with these new additions. The script is the foundation from which all choices flow.

Q: What questions do you repeatedly ask yourself?

A: The question I ask myself most often is "Is this costume the best it can be?" I am constantly re-appraising my choices, the accessories, the colors, and the fit. I am not happy unless everything possible has been done to make the costume complete under the specific circumstances at hand.

Q: Is there a director whose style you feel best compliments your visual sense?

A: I feel Paul Thomas Anderson ("Hard Eight", "Boogie Nights") is the director that best complients my visual sense. He is a very visual director with an innate sense of what will work dramatically. He likes to have a real sense of clothes, not costumes. And because he writes the material he directs, he can be very specific and give great insight into what motivates the characters. He is also a director that trusts the designer to give a visual vocabulary to the world he has created, and allows you to be as creative as you like. He is truly an ideal collaborator for any designer.

Q: Is there a genre of film you like best?

A: My favorite genre of film is comedy. I love really clever, witty comedies with good situations and interesting characters. That is why "Blast From the Past" was such a joy to design. I like designing with humor in mind. I choose all the colors, the fabrics, and the garments with the idea of helping the design be realistic yet comedic. It is a very fine line and I feel we have been successful in doing this in "Blast From the Past".

Q: What elements of the design-color-scope-texture is the most imortant?

A: I think colors are the most important elements of design because they are so connected with the mood and emotions, character, period, affluence, and the graphics of design. Volumes can be spoken visually by the perfect choice of color placed in the right dramatic moment.

Q: What is your finishing touch?

A: Accessories. Jewelry, belts, handbags, and shoes all complete the visual explanation of a character.

Q: What questions do you like a director to ask?

A: "What do you think...?" It means they are open to me and my vision of the piece as a whole.

Q: What is the greatest memory a viewer can take away from a film style-wise?

A: The best thing an audience can take from a film style-wise is that somehow the style of the film caught their attention and imagination, and involved them more deeply with the characters and story.

Q: Does the psychological profile of a character motivate your work? Do you prepare such a file?

A: Of course the psychological profile of a characer influences the choices I make. I do not formally prepare a psychological profile, but my work with the director, and especially my actors, usually lead me to an understanding into that inner life, from which choices, decisions, and visual expressions unfold.

Q: What are the kinds of things you have fought hardest for in order that they stay in a film?

A: During the filming "Boogie Nights", the director, Paul Thomas Anderson, was having doubts about whether or not we should have Dirk wear these canvas cowboy boots with the clear yellow plastic sole. With those he'd be wearing a headband for a very intense scene where Dirk walks out on his adult film family. We talked over a period of several days going back and forth about whether or not they were going to be too much. I felt very strongly Dirk needed to look a bit ridiculous to emphasize how much the drugs and his ego had gotten out of hand, and to make the explosive nature of the scene have more impact. I'm happy to say the boots stayed in the film, and really say so much about the time and place of the action, as well as the adult film world and Dirk's egomania.

Q: Can you be an impartial viewer when you go to the movies?

A: I can not be an impartial viewer when I go to the movies. I'm always judging another designer's work and how successful their choices were in telling the story, setting the scene, moving the story, explaining the character, etc. How successful the clothes were affects my enjoyment of the film.

Q: Do you do your own research? Or can it be prepared and presented to you?

A: I work both ways. Yes, I do my own research. I find it inspiring and many times I get ideas from the photos I find while doing my research. But I do have help from my assistants. They are given a very broad framework in which to search, and know to bring me a wide variety of research within the specific parameters I've given.

Q: Can you be typecast in terms of work? Can you break out of this perception?

A: I think in Hollywood everyone is always in danger of being typecast in terms of their work. It is easier to consider someone by the work they have done rather than by the work they might do. That's just how it is. After I had done "Boogie Nights" I received practically every script that was set in the 70's, and I really didn't want to be known as "that 70's guy". So I deliberately took projects that were different - a contemporary thriller, and a contemporary teen comedy. I think varying the genre of projects you accept keeps you from being typecast.