Alison Stewart: You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Costume designer Paul Tazewell took home an Oscar and a Tony this year. In one case, he helped turn a musical into a movie. In another case, he helped turn a movie into a musical. Paul won an Oscar for his work on the film Wicked and also took home his Tony for his beautiful and sometimes hilarious costumes for the new Broadway musical Death Becomes Her. We spoke to Paul earlier this year about Wicked as part of a special series we do called the Big Picture. To tell us more about it is the producer behind that series, Jordan Lauf. Hey, Jordan.

Jordan Lauf: Hello.

Alison Stewart: Tell us a bit more about this series in case people aren't familiar with it.

Jordan Lauf: Yes. This is a series of interviews we've done for a couple years now. Each time as we approach Oscar season, we talk with below-the-line nominees, and that's just a term for people who are not actors on the call sheet and are not directors. People who are cinematographers, our editors, our sound mixers, all people that we've spoken to. A lot of these craftspeople are easier to book than the big stars during Oscar season because not as many people are banging down their door wanting to talk to them, but they should because they're often some of the most interesting interviews we do each Oscar season.

Alison Stewart: Amazing interviews.

Jordan Lauf: I love hearing about all of the details and research, and thought that goes behind making some of the year's best movies.

Alison Stewart: How did we land on inviting Paul Tazewell?

Jordan Lauf: First, he caught my eye because he had already won a Tony, actually, for his costumes on Hamilton. That sparked my attention because I thought, "Oh, it makes perfect sense that a Tony-winning costume designer would be a good person to transition Wicked, obviously, this beloved Broadway musical, into its big screen debut." Also, the clothes for Wicked are just so fun after I saw it. The uniforms for the school are fun. Glinda's beautiful pink dresses are amazing. Even the hat, the sort of witchy hat that Elphaba gets to wear, you could tell it was so thoughtfully designed. I was really excited to get to invite him on the show.

Alison Stewart: Every detail is accounted for with Paul Tazewell.

Jordan Lauf: It absolutely is.

Alison Stewart: Then he won an Oscar. Paul Tazewell became the first Black man to win an Oscar for best costume design. It was very exciting. By the way, Paul will be designing the costumes for Wicked for Good, which is out later this year. Here's my conversation with Oscar-winning costume designer Paul Tazewell about his work on Wicked. [music]

When did you first know you wanted to be a costume designer?

Paul Tazewell: Oh, my God. It kind of trickled in, but I would say the germ of it started when I was maybe nine years old, when I learned to sew. Then, when I was in high school, that was probably my first full production that I designed, a production of The Wiz. It was a high school production that my high school was doing. That was the opportunity for me to see that I could actually do it and that I love to do it. It just took me a bit of time to find it once I went to undergrad and realized that I wanted to be a costume designer over being a performer, which was my original goal, so here I am.

Alison Stewart: Who taught you to sew?

Paul Tazewell: My mom. She, I would say, is my art angel. She was the one that pointed me in the direction of creating in many different ways. One to start with drawing and painting, and then making puppets, that was earlier in my life. Then starting to make shirts for myself. I came up when the dashiki was a very popular silhouette. I made many dashikis.

Alison Stewart: A lot of T-squared maps, I guess, so patterns.

[laughter]

Paul Tazewell: Then it just continued. Then I learned how to drape period dresses and tailor frock suits and all that through college, so as I matured, so did my skills. Then, once I graduated from graduate school, I entered into the world of costume design professionally. I started working at the Arena Stage in Washington, DC, and continued on to many of the regional theaters around the country. Then my work was seen by George Wolfe, and he invited me to design-- George C. Wolfe and he invited me to design Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk.

That was my first Broadway show. Then I was working freelance as a designer. For three years, I was a professor at Carnegie Mellon, teaching costume design. That was 2003 to 2006. Then I then entered back into freelancing as well. I actually never gave up freelancing. It just so happened I was doing two full-time jobs at the same time. I decided I would go back to just designing costumes. The rest is somewhat history. Also, looking to what's ahead as well.

Alison Stewart: When you were a student studying, what's something that you remember from that time that has stayed with you to this day?

Paul Tazewell: Wow. I think that somewhere in there, I realized the power of listening closely because I spend a lot of time doing that first with directors that I'm collaborating with, so that I can better understand what their point of view is and how they see telling a story. Then it is listening to actors when I'm in a fitting, which ends up being a very intimate period, or that process, because they're trying to figure out where they are with a character and how they're going to become a character.

I play a role in creating that character as well with the designs that I come up with. Really, it's listening to the words that are coming out of their mouth and then also listening to the silence and really understanding what's going on in their face, their facial expression, and then coming up with questions to ask so that I can get more information. I would say definitely, that's both for the director and for the actor. It's just to get a better understanding of how can I be of support in the process for them, which then directs me or redirects me in a different direction for what the costume might be.

That was definitely developed when I was in college. As with everyone, you make lots of mistakes, and then you've got great successes, and you figure that out, and you figure out who you are within the process of designing costumes. I honed my skills, as I was saying earlier, to understand all of the underpinnings that it takes to do any specific period, so like I could figure it out backwards and forwards. I really understood what period silhouette is specific to each year.

Then once I had that under my belt, then being able to understand and make critical judgment on what will best underscore what a personality is, what choices would a character make? That will then resonate for an audience, and if you're working in different periods, you still have to find that right color or that right shape that will speak something specifically about the character. With everything that the collective of all the productions that I've done, both in straight theater and in musicals, and then in the films that I've done, it's all additive.

For every production, I understand more and more what will resonate, how it resonates, and it's a personal process for me because I have to feel it. When I feel it, I rely on the fact or the hope that at least a significant percentage of the audience will feel the same way as I do and see things in the same way. That visceral process, it is specific to me, and that's what is telling. That's what I bring to the event.

Alison Stewart: You're listening to my conversation with costume designer Paul Tazewell. He won an Oscar for his work designing costumes for the Wicked movie. We'll have more with Paul after a quick break. This is All Of It.

[music]

You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is costume designer Paul Tazewell. Paul won two major awards this year. He took home a Tony for his work on the new Broadway musical Death Becomes Her. Earlier this year, he took home the Oscar for best costume design for his work on the Wicked movie. He made history as the first Black man to win an Oscar in that category. Let's dive back into my conversation with Paul Tazewell, which happened before his big Oscar win. You want a Tony for Hamilton, but you've also worked on film adaptations of musicals like West Side Story and now Wicked. What's the difference between designing for the stage versus designing for the screen?

Paul Tazewell: First off, when you're designing for the stage, or you're creating a picture or in multiple pictures or multiple paintings, if you will, but it is, for the most part, seen from one vantage point. With Broadway stage, it's a proscenium theater. It's a proscenium house. You're creating a picture for every scene or every moment within that production. Then, how I orchestrate shape and color and different characters, it is inclusive of everyone that's on stage. With film, you zone in on one character, one moment, very close.

It doesn't necessarily relate to everything that is surrounding it. Because I've come from the world of theater, I'm also thinking about what is the environment that this character is going to be in? How are they going to be seen? What is the wall that's going to be behind them, or the series of buildings, or in any of their surroundings? Then how is that space peopled with background characters as well? Knowing that, then most of the scene is going to be filmed very, very closely and closely on the principal characters.

That is one element. The other element, you definitely see it with West Side Story, and you see it in a magical way with Wicked, is that I'm creating a full world. I'm responsible for the look of everyone that's walking up and down the streets of Harlem when we're in a scene, the number of America, let's say. We've got the principal characters that will be dancing in the number, and then we have the surrounding community. It all needs to feel seamless. It all needs to work together.

With West Side Story, speaking of America, I was orchestrating that color-wise so that it gave a certain kind of energy, and then we could find Anita and Bernardo within that as well. It's very intentional how I'm setting up what the background is going to look like as we see them on the streets of New York, and then how the principal characters stand out from that. For Wicked, it's very, very similar.

If you you think about all of the characters that are part of Emerald City when Elphaba and Glinda enter into this magical space of Emerald City, everyone has an element of green, but there's variation of that so that we keep the picture interesting so it doesn't become this kind of green, murky space, but they become sparkling with different qualities of green. Then holding them in a more specific silhouette so their figure cuts out from the activity that is surrounding them, and that gives that energy that very excited energy that is one short day.

Everything that that number is about. You have to think about what is the 360 view of what this space community environment going to be? What does it require? I don't necessarily need to think about that as meta away when I'm working on theater pieces. It's much more condensed and refined. We might have a cast of 24 or 32 at the very most, but you're not talking about 400 people all in the space at the same time.

Alison Stewart: I'm interested in your point of reference for Oz because obviously, your palette could be almost anything. It could come from any inspiration. This is a made-up place. You get to decide. It's awesome when you think about it. Where did you go for inspiration?

Paul Tazewell: It is a privilege to get the opportunity to design Oz-- To want to work just with the themes of the Wizard of Oz as we know it and how we've embraced it as Americans, and then globally as well. I just had to start in. I've created worlds with The Wiz, let's say. I've designed four productions of The Wiz, and each of them is different. Then with Wicked, I knew that there was a huge fan base that loves the Broadway show. When they're entering into our film to experience our film, they need to be able to hold on to something that feels familiar.

The characters need to feel familiar. I also, as a designer, my intention is to-- Also for definitely for Jon M. Chu, the director, he wanted to create a new experience for the audience because there would be those people who had seen the Broadway musical and there would also be people who had never experienced the Broadway musical and they were going to see this story in a brand new way. It became imperative for me to figure out what parts or elements or energy of the Wizard of Oz film from 1939, and the Wicked novel by Gregory Maguire, and then also the Broadway production.

What of those things can I capture energetically, the spirit of? Then, as I'm designing, create a new vision for what this world might be. That's inclusive of what Nathan Crowley, our production designer, was bringing to the design for the environment for the set. Also, how Alice Brooks was seeing the lighting and how she was going to shoot all of the different scenes. For me, it was how can I best interpret the character of Elphaba, the character of Glinda, the character of the Wizard of Oz, of Madame Morrible, and feel in sync with what the culture of Oz is, but not like-- I'm also acknowledging who's playing those roles.

To have someone like Ariana Grande playing Glinda, it colors what that what that character is going to be, how she wears clothing, and what her overall aura is. It's specific to Ariana Grande and then most definitely with Cynthia Erivo as well as to newly see Elphaba as a literal person of color being played by a person of color, and she is then green in our fantasy world. It resonates in a much stronger way, I feel. I might be partial because I'm also a designer of color. I get the emotional path that she's walking, and that was a huge entry for me into her design and how I wanted to represent her.

Then, having worked with Cynthia Erivo before in Harriet, I also had a sense of how she wears clothes, her great ability, and she's an athlete, basically. Also, just how she will move through space and how I could also underscore what the messages for how we want to see our idea of what is wicked, and the assumptions around people that are different, all of those questions feed into my interpretation of what she's wearing.

Alison Stewart: I'm so interested in the glasses that Elphaba wears. She wears these really interesting swooping black glasses. Can you tell us a little bit about them?

Paul Tazewell: Sure. What is stylistically consistent within our whole world, and this was early on, imagery that I was very much drawn to was the idea of the spiral. Really, it started by just being drawn to that shape as a whimsical shape. Then, as I investigated it, I was seeing the information around the golden spiral and how the golden spiral is a formula for creation, for nature, and how it's represented in all of nature. That led me then down the road of the organic and mushrooms.

I've talked about just how mushrooms and bark and the textures that you find in the forest were influential as well. This idea of the spiral is throughout. You see it represented in the clothing and some of the detail of design, some that is just decorative. Then also, as we were looking at designs of frames, because we decided early on that she would wear glasses earlier in her time at Shiz, and then lose them as the time progressed. That pair of glasses was one that was reflective of the spiral, and that asymmetry was, it was reflective of what we were representing throughout the film. Definitely.

That wasn't the only design that we created. We created probably five different designs and prototyped about five different glasses. We arrived at this one that seemed to be-- It was large enough. It incorporated the spiral, and then it also allowed for us to see her eyes very clearly. We wanted to make sure that we could engage with her expression and make sure that we weren't cutting anything off. That was all part of the process, our research and development as we were creating these glasses.

Alison Stewart: I have to ask about Elphaba's hat. It is one of the most important articles of clothing in the film. Let's think about Elphaba. She's green, she's wearing micro braids. Walk us through the main decisions that you had to make when it came to designing Elphaba's hat.

Paul Tazewell: I knew that it was going to be-- Like you said, it was going to be an iconic piece because the witch's hat is one that is recognizable throughout our popular culture. You see it on everybody at Halloween, and so it became the shape of that which is wicked, that which is undesirable. I wanted to make sure that our shape was appropriate and really captured all of that energy as well. When Jon M. Chu would describe how he was imagining the film would start, he always said, "Well, we'll do a close-up on the hat, and then we'll kind of zoom in, and then as we pull back. We'll see that what looked like originally a mountain or some pointed structure.

We'll see that it indeed is the witch's hat. Then it's surrounded by water." There was a payoff for this. It's now in this very primary spot within the film and setting up the energy of what this film is going to be about. That led me to incorporating texture into the hat, which was also reflective of Elphaba and all the texture that is within her clothes, which is reflective of the underside of mushrooms, and it's reflective of bark. It has all of these organic elements, still mostly black. We do have an undercolor, an iridescence of color that runs throughout her clothing wardrobe.

It is essentially this black hat that needs to resonate in a very interesting way. Another part of it, or another part of that hat story, is that it was originally created by Glinda's grandmother. Glinda is traveling to Shiz with this hat as a keepsake, but she doesn't like it. It's gifted to Elphaba as a joke by her and her two friends. When we first are introduced to it, aside from the very beginning of the film when we're introduced to the hat from Glinda, it has been collapsed, and so it's stored like a collapsible top hat, actually.

Then it opens up and you see the points of it, and it's a delightful moment. Then, when it's offered up to Elphaba and Elphaba puts it on it, it represents all her power. It's a power source for her, where, on one side, it's being given as a joke. For Elphaba, it's the definition of who she is. It becomes an integral part of her silhouette. That silhouette, it's reflecting or referencing the 1939 Wicked Witch of the West silhouette, and it's that of turn of the century 1900s silhouette that we then are left with when she dons the velvet cape, and she has on the hat, and she has on the dress with the prominent sleeves.

Then she spins around, and she is catching that broom in her hand. She is Elphaba. She's not necessarily the Wicked Witch of the West, but she is reflective of that character. Yes.

Alison Stewart: That was my conversation with designer Paul Tazewell about his Oscar-winning designs for the film adaptation of Wicked. You can see his costumes for Wicked for good when the movie premieres this fall. Before we end the hour, my producer Jordan Lauf is back to play us out on some music from Lord Huron.

Jordan Lauf: Yes. I wanted to spotlight this song, one, because it's been on repeat ever since they came to the studio. The song is called Bag of Bones. It's from their brand new album, the Cosmic Selector, Volume 1. I just love the song. They did it live. I loved it more when I heard it, and I've been listening to it like crazy. Also, they brought so many musicians and so many instruments to this booking. I've never seen so many instruments. When I told the producers and tech people like, "Hey, they could strip it down a bit," they said, "Oh, this is stripped down. Shout out to Lord Huron for really putting their all into a Public Radio live performance, and you can tell it sounds really great.

Alison Stewart: This is Lord Huron with a special performance of their song Bag of Bones from their brand new album, The Cosmic Selector, Volume 1.

[MUSIC- Lord Huron: Bag of Bones]

This is how my tale begins, I was outside, looking in again

Nothing like rain to wash you clean, so I slept in the cold and left unseen

I'd never seen a sky that pale at night, should've known it wasn't right

Wandered out there on my own

Just a rattling bag of bones

I can see you're doing just fine without me

What did you say when you left?

I believed you'd never get far without me

How wrong I was in the end?

Thus, my tale of woe continues

It was me they got, but it should've been you

You were the only one I trusted, but you left town and I got busted

Let me see you one last time, you can kiss my worthless ass goodbye

I doubt that it's been nice to know me

Bon voyage, you'd best be going

I agree, there's something not right about me

I thought the darkness would pass

I believed you'd never get far without me

Life is a joke if you laugh

This is how my story ends, I'm stoned and broke and drunk again

Nothing lasts and no one stays

I'm just floating on through my aimless days

Been a long road, but I'll be alright, I'm living on the countryside

I'll be out there on my own

Just a rattling bag of bones

I'll be out there on my own

Just a rattling bag of bones

I'll be out there on my own

Just a rattling bag of bones

People die and planets turn and empires rise and fall and burn

Nothing lasts and no one stays, you just spiral off into outer space

Never seen a sky so full of stars, makes me wonder where you are

I'll be out here on my own

Just a rattling bag of bones

I'll be out there on my own

Just a rattling bag of bones

I'll be out there on my own

Just a rattling bag of bones