In the latest episode of “The Envelope,” our hosts chat with Greta Lee, who portrays a woman reuniting with a man from her youth in “Past Lives,” and Francine Jamison-Tanchuck, the costume designer for “The Color Purple.”
Lee discusses what it means for her as a Korean American actor to break through with her first lead role in Hollywood after coming to terms with the possibility that she might not ever enjoy that particular spotlight. And Jamison-Tanchuck shares some of her trade secrets on how she prepares historically accurate costumes for actors of color in period pieces.
Yvonne Villarreal: Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of “The Envelope.” My name is Yvonne Villarreal, and I’m joined by my co-hosts Mark Olsen and Shawn Finnie. We have a great episode. Mark, you talked to Greta Lee, who gave an amazing performance in “Past Lives.” And Sean, you had the great pleasure of talking to the costume designer of “The Color Purple.” I’m speaking of Francine Jamison-Tanchuck. So jealous. How was that?
Shawn Finnie: It was amazing for so many different reasons. Francine has been on so many films — “Glory,” “[Birth] of a Nation,” “Just Mercy,” all these pieces that really encapsulate periods of time. I loved talking to her about her process because when I think of films like that, I think the world is created around what an actor needs to really step into that space. And that’s what she, the production designer and [director] Blitz [Bazawule] and everyone have created. But I also find it really interesting she worked with the costume designer Aggie Rodgers [on] the original “Color Purple.” So we had a lot of conversation around what that was like being on set then and then getting the call from Blitz to be on the set this time. And so it was a beautiful journey into her understanding of her career, but also what this moment means to her and the culture and the community. What about you, Mark? I know you spoke to Greta [Lee], whose performance we all loved.
Mark Olsen: Well, I think what’s exciting is that Greta is an actor that we’ve seen over the last few years, and she was so terrific in “Russian Doll,” she’s really good on the “The Morning Show.” But those have been supporting roles. With “Past Lives” she really steps up and plays the lead in a film. It’s the debut feature for writer director Celine Song, who has been a playwright up to now, so it’s not as if she’s fully coming from nowhere. And for Greta, I think this is a role that draws on her own heritage as a Korean American. She speaks in Korean in the film, which is something that she’s said many times that she didn’t think that she would do in a movie. To see the way that she’s kind of stepped up in her performance and then also the response that it’s gotten ever since the film first premiered at Sundance, it’s just been so warmly received. Greta so far, got nominations from the Spirit Awards, the Gotham Awards, a Golden Globe nomination. It’s just been great to see the response that she’s gotten when you see someone take a chance and move forward in the way that she has.
Villarreal: We benefit from seeing her on this press tour and just seeing the looks that she’s delivering.
Finnie: I watch the “The Morning Show.” I love the “The Morning Show.” But like also I’m like, where is she? Because she just comes in every time and kills it.
Olsen: We’re going to take a short break. And when we come back, we’ll have my conversation with Greta Lee for the Los Angeles Times and “The Envelope.”
Olsen: I’m Mark Olsen. I’m here today with Greta Lee from the film “Past Lives.” Greta, thank you for joining us.
Lee: Thanks so much for having me here.
Olsen: The film is the debut from writer-director Celine Song. It’s about a woman in New York, Nora, who reconnects with her childhood sweetheart from Korea, which causes some tension with her husband. How was that?
Lee: That was really good. I was going to say, it’s one of the hardest things to say, the logline. And often I find myself just Googling my own movie. And I thought that was really succinct and really well done.
Olsen: Recently, I’ve read a few things where people are almost debating whether to describe the movie as a romance or if it’s something else. The story of Nora sort of mourning and in some way rediscovering her own identity.
Lee: I love this argument.
Olsen: How do you see it?
Lee: When I think about my first encounter with this movie and reading the script, I had exactly that kind of conflict, of how to categorize or how to evaluate this movie. Because, yes, on the one hand, as I was reading, it’s absolutely clear that it’s a romantic drama and that there are certain tropes like a love triangle and a woman choosing [between] two men who represent two different lives and two different identities. And yet it is that thing that only Celine can do where she’s able to take that idea and that genre and make it feel for me like science fiction. There’s just this way where it does become so much more than just a romance. I mean, it has to be. The things we were talking about, we were talking about the human condition and we were talking about all the choices that can make a life. And even this idea for someone like Nora and maybe for anyone, that the greatest romance could be the romance you have with your own life.
Olsen: I had an opportunity to talk to Celine Song and she said she feels like she’s gotten to know the audience for the movie so well because people come up to her and share these really personal stories that are sort of similar, sometimes not. Have you had that same experience?
Lee: It’s been like a tangible experience that I am re-encountering the movie through our audience now. At the supermarket, mid-putting a cereal box into my cart and having someone say, “Oh my gosh, I just saw your movie.” And the things that have been revealed, sometimes it’s a lot to receive. I think that is what’s so signature about this movie. Depending on where you are in your life, it seems to hit you in such a different way. One of my favorite exchanges was with a young person who said, “I saw your movie and I realize I’ve never been in love before. And though I was devastated by the end of the movie, I was so filled with hope for the day that I’ll be in love.” I just never even considered that before. And then on the other hand, people have revealed, “I’ve been married for this long, but I’m thinking I need to really reconnect with this person from my past and what do I do?” And I have no answers. And then much older couples who been married for several decades saying that the movie kind of reinvigorated and restored their union, and the long walk that they took after seeing the movie. So anyways, it’s just been a really wide range of a response that I do love and appreciate.
Olsen: You kind of had this niche of these really captivating, intriguing supporting roles and I’ve heard you say that you don’t like the phrase scene-stealer.
Lee: Did I say that? Yes, I must have.
Olsen: Was it a conscious thing for you that you knew you wanted a lead role?
Lee: As an actor? Of course you want a lead role. The assumption is you like the job and the assumption is also that you want more of it. It would be disingenuous of me not to talk about it in terms of opportunity and representation and what that means to actually be the center of your own story and to tell a story like this around someone who looks like me, on my own terms. Yes, that was absolutely something that I’d always dreamed of since I was a little girl. When I first imagined [it], I was just a girl who was like, “I want to be in the movies.” In a lot of ways, I’m exactly the same. I’m still that little girl who wants to be in movies. Yet I think over the years there is this voice that tells you, “Maybe that’s not in the cards for you.” And frankly, I think I had arrived at a place where I had made peace with that. I love these characters that I’ve gotten to play. Maxine from “Russian Doll,” Stella Bak [from “The Morning Show”]. These are not small people to me. And then Celine came along with this script that just sort of ruined everything.
Olsen: You auditioned for this role, and at first you did not get it. And as an actor, I assume you are used to a certain amount of rejection, but this had to have felt different.
Lee: It did. It hurt a lot. It was so clear that this movie was special and it was so clear that this role would be life-changing for whoever got to take it on. I couldn’t take for granted reading something like this, a chance to use cultural specificity to take away the heavy lifting of having to explain yourself. And instead getting to actually simply just present a story about love, which is something I had watched my peers get to do for decades.
Olsen: And so when it came back around, what did that feel like?
Lee: I think my journey with this movie and how I got to be involved, it kind of reflects the core ideas of the movie itself, inyeon and destiny and soulmates. Because I really felt like I had inyeon with the script when I first read it, and then for it to come back around in a way that it did almost exactly a full year later was really astounding to me even now. And getting that chance completely out of the blue to meet Celine, who I also now feel we have this inyeon. We are almost certain we are married in another life. In the way she said that, I’m not always sure that she means it completely in a positive way. We were definitely married, but I really did find an actual creative partner. I think that those are all things that we were kind of pulling from in terms of the essence of Nora and the spirit of the movie that we were trying to make.
Olsen: I find it so striking that I’ve seen you say a couple of times that you kind of never really expected to speak Korean in a role, and then you get this part and you’re really self-conscious that your Korean isn’t good enough.
Lee: I think most people who are bilingual in America, there is a level of self-consciousness and, I will say, like a shame. “Am I Korean enough? Have I assimilated too much?” And it’s very revealing to show your language. After I got the movie and I realized just how much Korean I was going to have to speak, I was absolutely terrified about that in ways that are kind of difficult for me to explain. I will say that it’s sort of like the way that Nora is saying goodbye to her child self and a life that was never lived in Korea. The process of doing this movie in Korean, my first language, brought back a certain kind of reconciling my own identity that I had said goodbye to.
Olsen: You worked with Sharon Choi, who people know as Bong Joon-ho’s translator on the “Parasite” press tour, kind of as a consultant.
Lee: Because of the movie we wanted to make, and because ultimately we’re talking about what it’s like to almost pivot between two worlds. The seed of this movie is Celine’s real experience, where she found herself sitting at a bar between these two men who know her completely differently and what it’s like to be at the threshold between them. And that requires something hyper-specific in terms of the language too. I essentially was really scared that we were going to find a conventional dialect coach who would make me sound like a perfect Korean woman, which is something I wanted to be for a lot of my life... The genius of Sharon is she understands that language is so fluid and it’s so much more than just the technical aspects of how you sound. Of course, there is a lot of that, but we worked for months in talking about the specifics of how you would sound based on how much time you had spent in one place versus the other, looking at a scene and figuring out, “Is there a way for Nora to sound very American at the beginning of the scene? And then maybe after hours of reconnecting with her Korean childhood sweetheart, she would sound much more Korean again?” To find that in a very nerdy, scientific way was so gratifying.
Olsen: I’m a bit of a DVD commentary nerd, and on the commentary for “Past Lives,” you say something that I found really fascinating. You mentioned the “Celine Song school of radical restraint.” Can you describe that more clearly?
Lee: Don’t cry. I think I’m guilty of this, too. When we think about great performance, there is this sort of subconscious assumption that you are meant to show that you understand “What is the assignment,” as the kids like to say. This idea of “more is more,” right? This movie is not that. And that was also one of the very apparent challenges of this movie right from the beginning. But it’s also what made it so excellent to read. That kind of restraint, especially in this moment where it seems like everything else is antithetical to this. We support so much more this idea of the loudest voice in the room. Our movies are getting bigger. For Celine to come in, this being her debut and being so unapologetic and insistent on this kind of stillness and the value of the ordinary, it was stunning. I feel forever changed by her. That kind of courage is just innate. What that meant on a technical level and on a practical level in terms of our acting — what they call naturalism, it requires sitting on so much. Which was something I’d never been asked to do before, to trust that the audience will still hopefully be invested, even if there’s not a lot of emoting. The way the script was written, there was always going to be a big emotional payoff happening at the end of the movie, which felt really risky. This idea of, “Will they still be with us at the end?” Nora isn’t seen crying, bursting into tears. There’s one scene where you do see her cry. And I couldn’t help but laugh because I realized Celine and our incredible cinematographer, Shabier [Kirchner], they were shooting it from behind. So this one moment where I thought, “OK, I can really let it rip” was shot from the back of my head when Nora breaks up with Hae Sung. But I think that that is one of the core tenets of this movie, that kind of truth of what it is.
Olsen: I want to ask you about the final scene in the movie. Nora walks her childhood sweetheart down the block, puts him in a cab. He goes away. She pauses, and then she just walks back to her apartment. And it sounds so simple, but the scene just is so full of meaning. And it is the biggest action scene or something, there’s so much happening in that. I’m personally so haunted by the way the breeze catches your dress and sort of pulls you back.
Lee: It pulls the dress in his direction.
Olsen: Tell me about shooting that scene.
Lee: I love talking about this scene. In a way, it felt like we were shooting an action sequence. This is our big Michael Bay moment because there were so many elements in place and technically speaking, we shot it in one take. There is a dolly that tracked from the apartment to where the Uber comes and then back to the apartment again. I love what Celine described to us then, that even the direction of our walking and the camera, all of that was so intentional because Nora and Hae Sung are walking right to left towards their past. And then the wind blows in that same direction, towards the past. And from there Hae Sung leaves and Nora continues back left to right, into her present, and then also Hae Sung drives away into the future. It really was so surgical in the execution. But it is that kind of actor’s dream, in that there’s this framework that is so specific and really robust. And within that there was so much that was left to chance because the wind was something that just happened in that moment. The timing of when exactly the car was going to come was not known before, and Celine didn’t know either. Her background in stage work and even comedy, that’s just what this is, timing, tension. Trying to throw all of those elements together for that scene was really challenging and terrifying and so special. Just really one of the top moments professionally of my life.
Olsen: And what has it meant for you to have the movie get the kind of response that it’s had? Right from when it debuted at Sundance, it got a tremendous response there. It’s had a successful theatrical release. It’s been gaining awards, nominations. What has that all been like?
Lee: You can have an experience that feels so distinctly extraordinary and then also feel the success of this movie is beyond your comprehension. I am so amazed. I feel so proud of what we made. In terms of the recognition, we are in excellent company and these are massive films by beloved filmmakers who we have loved for so long. And it’s absolutely surreal to have been on this ride with this movie that was so personal. It’s hard to even talk about, what this is and our love for this kind of movie to exist at all. I think that was certainly something we were thinking about in making this with an excitement of, “Can we pull this off, a movie like this, right now? Is there an audience for this?” And just finding that there is. I don’t know if there’s anything better than that.
Olsen: Do you feel like the movie has already had an impact for you personally or professionally? Can you feel that something is different for you because of this movie?
Lee: It’s a strange thing for me to wrap my mind around because I’ve been myself this whole time. There are funny monikers, like breakout or breakthrough, but all these things happening now for me at this moment in my life is very is wild. I’m 40 years old and to be a breakout is a very hilarious thing to me, but also so neat. I had said goodbye to a certain kind of career that I thought I was never going to have. And now it looks like there is a world where I will continue to move in this direction, be at the center of of my own story. And to keep [being] that girl who just wants to be in movies...
Olsen: Does it feel that way to you? The sense that there was this career that you have had and that now there may be this other career you’re hoping to have? I find that very striking.
Lee: It’s easiest for me to put it in the context of not just me but other people. When I think about what it’s meant to have this opportunity, coming from a place where I’d accepted, I thought, “Maybe I’ll get one shot like this in my lifetime and it’ll probably come towards the end of my career.” Now, having had this experience, I know distinctly I do not want that for myself, and I don’t want that for anyone else. I don’t want that for any other women or any other women of color or anyone else who’s been told, maybe explicitly, that they’re marginalized by this industry or they’re powerless. I don’t want that. Now, what to do about that is an ongoing, complicated question. I have to be honest that my expectations are different. I’m going to be more demanding of the people who are in power. I’m thinking a lot about stewardship and what it means to not just hold myself accountable, but hold other people accountable. As a result of having done this movie, how do [I] swing this door open for everyone else?
Olsen: Was there a moment when you became aware of the fact that the TV shows, movies did not include people like you? When did you sort of process that?
Lee: I think that’s just something that happens over and over and over again: The first time I saw “Annie” as a little girl going to school and saying, “I would like to play Annie, please.” And being told kind of gently, “Well, probably not.” Instances like that collectively made it very clear that though I may perceive myself as Annie, the world around me at that time does not. But it’s finding ways, finding side doors. I recently had this memory of what it was like when I went to college and when my first assignment was to go to the student store and buy myself a box of stage makeup. There are these Ben Nye makeup kits and when I got to the store as an 18-year-old kid, I discovered that there were only three kinds of boxes. There’s a Black box, Latino box and a Caucasian box. And I remember I was in the store for a while trying to figure [it] out. I had to buy a box for class. It’s remarkable and important for me to remember personally that kid didn’t burst into tears or feel like a victim of her own circumstance. The kid that I was really sprang into action and was trying to make certain calculations like, “OK, well, I’m like a sort of tan Asian. So is there a way I could combine the Latino box with maybe the Black box? Which in retrospect I think is absolutely heartbreaking to know that’s what was happening. But I’m so grateful that girl , even upon discovering that her dream literally did not exist anywhere on those shelves, just decided, “Well, I’m going to make my own path.” Sometimes it’s those paths that don’t exist, that didn’t exist previously, that can end up to something great.
Olsen: How often do people ask you to do the sweet birthday baby line from “Russian Doll”? And do you do it?
Lee: I don’t do it. I have already gotten that line out of my system. There’s the assumption that maybe I said that line once or twice and they kind of reused it. Every time you hear me say “Sweet birthday baby” on the show, that is maybe take however [many] — when you do the math, that’s a lot of times. That’s enough times for any living person to say that phrase. So I appreciate the interest and people still wanting to hear me say that. But I respectfully decline that request.
Olsen: And now this recent season on “The Morning Show,” your character became much more central to the story. And is that something that you expected? Did they tell you that ahead of time or do the scripts just come in and you’re like, “Whoa.”
Lee: We had a different set of writers. Charlotte Stoudt came in for the third season. We had Kerry Ehrin the season before. We work with a really excellent team of people who are managing a behemoth of a show with multiple storylines. And I could appreciate and reading the scripts, they are really digging into what it’s like for a woman like Stella to navigate all of these very dynamic pieces of power. Her abuse, coming in as an outsider, these moral dilemmas of her own personal beliefs versus what would make for an effective boss or businesswoman. All of these very interesting ideas. And I could see that they were developing them. I don’t know. I like to think that maybe it’s because they thought I did a good job the season before. And also just that group, it is such a fun gig. You may be shocked to hear this, [these are] really excellent actors who really genuinely care about the craft about what we’re doing that day. It feels like theater school, which I think is rare and is something that I absolutely treasure when I find it.
Olsen: You were recently named by The New York Times as one of the most stylish people of 2023. And I have to say, I’m also taken by red carpet photographs of you. I am curious about how you like dressing fashio-forward for the red carpet?
Lee: I always find it so surprising when people mention my red carpet stuff. It’s sort of like what we’re talking about in terms of this moment. For me, having been spent some time in the business and now being at the age that I am, I think the red carpet is this funny extension of trying to answer the question , “Who am I now?” You happen to get me now, so who is this person? I genuinely find that challenge thrilling. How can I present myself, certainly the best version of myself, on these big events, but how can I do it in a way that preserves some part of myself in a way that I can get on board with? Because the red carpet has become its ow — not to get too boring about this — industrial complex in its own projections of all sorts of ideas about what a person should be, what a woman should be. I’m sort of enjoying the dance that I’m doing of wondering, “What’s my answer to that?” How can I step forth with joy and celebrate this moment while holding on to something that feels true and personal? Again, it’s surprising to me every time because there I’m trying to hold on to that certain weirdness. Frankly, I think people these days are just less weird and there’s less humor. There’s less of a sense of this playfulness that I really feel nostalgic for. And everyone looks so good. Everyone looks flawless. But to me, I just don’t find that as interesting, genuinely. So, yes. Every time someone says that they liked something that I wore, it does mean something to me.
Olsen: Greta, thank you so much for joining us today. I’m going to try to hold on to some weirdness going out into the world.
Lee: Thanks for having me. This is so nice. Thanks.
Olsen: Coming up next, Shawn’s conversation with Francine Jamison-Tanchuck.
Finnie: Welcome back to “The Envelope.” My name is Shawn Finnie, and I’m looking forward to today’s conversation [about] one of my favorite films of the season and I think one of the most anticipated films of the season, with costume designer Francine Jamison-Tanchuck from “The Color Purple.” Hello, Francine, thank you for joining us. How are you feeling?
Francine Jamison-Tanchuck: I’m feeling very honored. Really excited about the how “The Color Purple” is being received. And it just makes me smile a lot. Here we are in 2023 and we’re watching “The Color Purple.”
Finnie: I think a story that impactful can have many different lives.
Jamison-Tanchuck: Oh, yeah.
Finnie: And especially with the impact and contributions from individuals like yourself. I want to just run down because you’ve had an amazing career and will continue to have an amazing career. But some of [your credits]: “Glory,” “Birth of a Nation,” “Emancipation,” “They Cloned Tyrone,” “The Color Purple.” There’s so many. “Just Mercy,” I believe, as well. I want to get into all things “Color Purple” from script to set. But I think what we do is illuminated by who we are and our early beginnings. I want to take you back just a little bit. Because I know when you were about seven or eight years old you started playing in the space of costume design with your dolls. So walk me through a little bit of that. I’m curious how that kind of started.
Jamison-Tanchuck: My mother was very much a seamstress, although her profession was a surgical nurse. She loved the crafts and she really loved to sew, and she taught me how to sew. She taught me how to do hand stitching and hand embroidery and all these different things. And I was only seven when I learned that. And she would not really want me to go on the machines, because the older machines were a little bit different. And she just was concerned about my safety. But eventually I did and I was just kind of sneaking in, did it on my own and figured it out. And I was about nine when I ended up just stitching my own doll clothes first and then mine and some cousins, having us match the dolls.
Finnie: And you love cinema and film. When did you start to understand the power of [combining] those together?
Jamison-Tanchuck: I remember many years ago when a lot of films were coming out of the theater and were on television. Some things I don’t think my parents wanted me to see, like “Carmen Jones.” When it it aired on television, I just thought, “Wow. Dorothy Dandridge. Look at these beautiful African American women. Look at these beautiful Black women and how sexy they are in the clothing and in that era.” ... And then another film I loved was “Sayonara.” It was the costumes on the culture of the the Japanese people.
Finnie: And they tell a story of their own.
Jamison-Tanchuck: They really do.
Finnie: The costumes really help. I think the actors and the crew and everyone has to immerse themselves into the character. I’m curious... how you started to see this as a path for a career?
Jamison-Tanchuck: You know, earlier I thought I wanted to be a surgical nurse because my mother was. I was so proud of my mom because she was part of saving lives and helping people. And I thought that maybe that’s the way I would like to go. But I just had such support in my family and really from my mother [who] realized, “You really should be in the arts. Francine, I don’t think the medical profession is where you should end up.” I decided to work as a junior volunteer or candy-striper or something when I was a teenager and, and I thought, “How can I be a nurse when I can’t even deal with the sight of blood or people blaming you? That’s not going to work.” I went on to a college called Mount San Antonio College, which was wonderful, with a program in fashion merchandizing and design. I received my R.A. and I was on my way to UCLA and I had my SATs and all of the things I was preparing to continue for my B.A., and I had the opportunity of a lifetime — an apprenticeship program that was starting in the film industry ... And I decided to apply. I thought I would never, ever get it. Lo and behold, it came through. Out of almost 500 applicants, two of us went in that particular year.
Finnie: How do you think you’ve kind of carried that energy throughout your career so far?
Jamison-Tanchuck: “Glory” really catapulted me into the Designers Guild Some thought that a woman doing a Civil War film, a young woman doing a Civil War film, a young African-American woman doing a Civil War film — how is this going to work? ... [Director] Ed Zwick was the one that said, “Women were at home. They were sewing the uniforms for their husbands and sons, and they had to deal with taking care of the homestead while a lot of them went to war and even some of the women disguised themselves going to war. So women were a very, very instrumental in [the war] and carrying on when a lot of things [were] almost collapsing during that war.” Ed Zwick thought, “Why not? You know, a different perspective from a woman’s point of view on doing this particular film.”
Finnie: This is not your first rodeo at “The Color Purple.” You worked with the legend herself on this.
Jamison-Tanchuck: Miss Aggie, who was just a joy.
Finnie: Tell me about the experience of working on the original “Color Purple.”
Jamison-Tanchuck: Well, my particular job at that at that time, there were two supervisors — a film supervisor for the women, one for the men. Don Vargas was the supervisor for the men’s costumes. Aggie and I just gel so much together. And she knew my love for period and those types of vintage outfits. And so she really wanted me to go through the costume houses and just search for different things, not only just for the the women, [but] to see if I came across other things for the men’s costumes as well. And she utilized me for doing switching fabrics and just working with her in fittings. It was such a wonderful collaboration with Miss Aggie. So my inspiration from her just carried into working on the “The Color Purple” 2023. Just remembering I had so much fun and the fondness that I had for that particular movie, that particular production.
Finnie: And when you think about again with that film, the impact of that film has had, the responsibility to Oh, I’m so I’m so curious how once you started to okay, now the you’re like, okay, I’m going to do is actually going.
Jamison-Tanchuck: To do it. You know, having the divine presence seemed to come with me on. This or. Any something. Extra distinctly in. Addition to bring this. Together bigger than me. Yes.
Finnie: In a film taking place in the early 1900s, you know, going into the Deep South, but also in Africa, let’s just start with like the process. I’m curious, where do you start with the sourcing and the process?
Jamison-Tanchuck: How I like to start, of course, is totally collaborating with the director and coming on board of his vision. “Where are you headed for this?: And Blitz was envisioning how this “Color Purple” was going to evolve. And I loved the idea. This guy is so talented with his art — he really can see it in his mind. And I’ve been able to have that as well. With costumes, I can see the costume already built, how it can be shot, how it’s worn, even before it’s made. Before anything else on paper or sketched or patterns or anything I can already see it built in my mind. I like doing what is called mood boards, costume mood boards. They give us the mood and feel of every character, and I created them for every last character, starting, of course, with Celie. Young Celie and young Nettie and Shug and every last one of them . And and I was really sharing that all the time... everyone could see it, so production design and cinematography and makeup and hair and all of us [together] really were trying to create this world and the characters. And because we were so unified, I think that all the departments on this film, whenever anyone had wonderful research that you came across, they would share it. It just evolved into a wonderful kind of a family effort.
Finnie: And then I think about the dancers, right? What is that process? Because I imagine their costumes are different because they have to move and bend and be able to stretch and expand. Walk me through.
Jamison-Tanchuck: They cannot be inhibited with the costume or constricted in any way. The wonderful Fatima Robinson and her beautiful choreography, she was able to send me videos [of] what the dance would look like, and and I could visit the rehearsals and see how they were moving. And Taraji [P. Henson] says, “I’m doing my own dance. I don’t need a dance double, I’m doing the whole thing.” And of course, because they are all dancers. Taraji, Fantasia [Barrino], they come out of theater. In theater you do everything. You’re like a triple threat. ... When [Henson] arrived blitz and I said, she has to have that moment when she’s coming on that barge. And I said, “Blitz, no color does that like red. It’s got to be red.”
Finnie: Yeah, it pops. And it has its own statement.
Jamison-Tanchuck: Yes, indeed. And to reuse the red statement for Celie, for Missy... I think we wanted to carry that through that this was that strong color that makes, you know, this says something that says a statement, and it had to really just pop. And when Shug arrived at the juke, she threw off that cocoon coat. She was ready for the show. ...
Finnie: [The actors are] already coming with their chops and able to perform. But I think the costumes and the world that is created with production design, makeup and hair really kind of help. Immersive. I’m curious [for] your perspective.
Jamison-Tanchuck: [The process was] really introducing them to and showing them the mood boards and having that in the fittings. And we were talking about how their character was going to travel through time and they just trusted me. They were really so open to trust me on the decisions, trust Blitz on what our vision was.
Finnie: One of the standout characters, there’s so many, is Miss Sofia [Danielle Brooks].
Jamison-Tanchuck: Blitz and I wanted to have Sofia’s costumes to [suggest] kind of a girly woman. Because Sofia loved that. She loved her beau. She liked being a wife to him. She loved being a mother, sister, and all of that. So her costumes didn’t have to come across in a way that reflect her strength because she knew who she was anyway. So it was great, too, because they were still in this little rural country town in the South, in this area. So everything had to kind of reflect that, of course, and they were getting their cottons and fabrics from the general store. And I wanted to show those little calico cottons or those little things that were of that era. And I wanted to keep it that vein, in that particular world.
Finnie: I’m curious. When I think of Shug’s number at the bar — how many sets of these costumes?
Jamison-Tanchuck: Three.
Finnie: Wow.
Jamison-Tanchuck: Three for Miss Shug herself, one for the double in case we need [her] to do the dance. Double who never really did. So it was, I would say, four in all. Because let’s face it, I mean, that fringe that was big and sequined and if anything snagged or whatever on tables or, you know, with her moving...
Finnie: Is that common to have two or three different sets?
Jamison-Tanchuck: Oh, yes. Especially for your principal actors, you have to, because time is money and trying to take the time to rebuild a principal costume... You really have to go for multiples.
Finnie: From a personal perspective, like from the community, I just have to say that this film has meant so much and I’m so proud that you were able to harness the energy from the first and then bring your own element... I am so moved by this film. I hope that you know that your contribution to this film not only painted but created the world for the audience to enjoy.
Jamison-Tanchuck: And I thank you so much that. Thank you, Shawn.
Villarreal: Thanks for watching The Envelope. We’re going to be taking our own holiday break, but we’ll be back with another episode on Jan. 11 with more conversations with some of your favorite talent.
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