PEAK PRACTICE
Kiwi's gothic horror role
AT LEAST one good thing came out of Guillermo Del Toro’s abandoned vision for The Hobbit – it helped launch the film career of Wellington-raised and trained costume designer Kate Hawley.
Hawley worked on costume concepts for the Mexican writerdirector’s adaptation of JR R Tolkein’s book, before he abandoned the project due to ongoing delays in 2010. However, he never forgot his Kiwi collaborator, signing her up for 2013 sci-fi actioner Pacific Rim and co-opting her to create the sumptuous and lush turn-ofthe-20th-century wardrobes for his latest work, the opulent Gothic horror Crimson Peak.
Reviewers have singled out Hawley’s creations, with many putting her in the running for the Oscars and other significant awards.
Speaking from Beijing last week, the globetrotting Kiwi says she and del Toro share a common language. ‘‘We have this kind of alchemy – a love of similar horrors, fairytales of the darkest kind.’’
Coming from a background of theatre and opera productions, films are still a relative novelty for Hawley, although she believes del Toro’s work feels structured, almost like an opera or orchestral piece. ‘‘Certain themes are a constant with Guillermo – the use of seasons, his colour coding. Even when I worked with him on Pacific Rim, the background cast were incredibly important, their colour and shapes became part of the landscape. This makes them immediately more theatrical than other directors I have worked with.’’
Those other directors already make impressive reading. There was our own Peter Jackson on The Lovely Bones, Doug Liman on the Tom Cruise-starring sci-fi tale Edge of Tomorrow and David Ayer on the bad-guy Avengers-style-collective comicbook-inspired movie Suicide Squad.
Sworn to secrecy about that last, eagerly anticipated project, due out next year, all she can say is that it was a completely different experience.
Which appears to be something Hawley thrives on.
She says the biggest challenge of working on Crimson Peak was that it was a ‘‘period piece’’.
‘‘Fortunately, I was involved very early in the process, so I had the luxury of seeing how Guillermo and Tom [Sanders], our production designer, were developing the central house. It was a place rooted in familiarity, but unique to the world Guillermo was creating – not a house you could find out in the real world at all. That dictated my approach to the frocks for both Jessica [Chastain] and Mia [Wasikowska]. Guillermo always asks that I reflect the architecture within the clothes – that in a close-up they become representative of the environment.
‘‘All the components of period costumes are complex – accessories, hats, bags, shoes, corsetry, petticoats. I think we had to be very resourceful and clever with our problem-solving. Guillermo did not want to compromise the quality of anything on screen, so we would build a dress and he would then request, say, 10 more versions of the same to enable him to throw elements at them. He sees great beauty in decay. My team were exceptionally brilliant at working out ways so we didn’t compromise on the finish.’’
Compromises were made though to accommodate the actors’ comfort, especially given they were shooting some of the film outdoors. ‘‘It is one thing to create and shoot in snow, but it is no fun for your actress to be running around in minus 30 wearing a gossamer-thin nightdress, so we created seamless undergarments to protect against the cold and even made false feet for Mia to wear as slippers.’’
Hawley says that on any project she ‘‘magpies’’ her inspiration from different sources. ‘‘Sometimes it’s contemporary references, or it might be a colour, a texture or a piece of fabric. Then, I try to distil these down as I work to establish the rules and quality of the world the director and I are trying to create. I look to create a sense of atmosphere and suggest a dreamlike, painterly quality.’’
She says that while the budgets may be bigger on a movie production, most of the resources tend to go to CGI and other, bigger elements and there are actually a lot of similarities to theatre.
‘‘My process has pretty much stayed the same. I still have to start with the character and then respond to them in the context of their environment. I guess the biggest differences are that on a film production you have the stunt department or visual effects people wanting to have their say as well and we also move constantly between a wide shot and, say, a medium or a close-up. That of course is when you see the detail and it can be very unforgiving when you see your work blown up on the big screen.’’
Admitting to still finding her way in the movie world, Hawley says she’s constantly looking for directors, like del Toro, who she has a ‘‘chemistry’’ with and projects she can ‘‘invest her heart in’’.
‘‘I’m not being funny, but it is like an emotional thing for me – it’s like falling in love. I’m not a very good jobbing person.’’
And, she confesses, she’s also still trying to find the right work-life balance. ‘‘I try to invest myself in being a mother for a while when the projects stop – the first few weeks are glorious, but then you go ‘dammit, that money is going fast, I’d better get back on the job again’. Currently leading a nomadic life with her daughter, Hawley says they both miss home.
‘‘There’s a way of being, in New Zealand, which is very freeing. My daughter wants to eat fish and chips and head down to the skate park and I love walking on the beach. It has always been a place to have a breather and dream. On the plus side, I have found the US and Canada have now discovered the flat white – there was even a cafe a spit away from where we were staying in Toronto.’’
Another challenge of constantly moving has been taking her book collection with her each time. Over time, it has expanded from a single suitcase to 45 boxes.
‘‘I have some in storage in the UK, as well as at home in New Zealand. My collection contains obscure horrors and a predictably eclectic mix from my four years, and counting, on the road, including many photography and art books, a book about rubber, another one on the brothels of Nevada and a book of x-rays. I think I’m going to have to get a shipping container and build a portable library in it, because they are getting bloody heavy!’’ THE DETAILS Crimson Peak (R16) is now screening.