Dakota Fanning undoubtedly has one of the most impressive careers in Hollywood. She broke onto the scene at a young age and has continued to wow us with iconic roles throughout her career.
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00:00Hey, who, what, where?
00:01I'm Dakota Fanning, and today we're going Behind the Looks.
00:10Uptown Girls is, and I think even more so as the years go by,
00:15has become a very comforting movie to a lot of girls and women.
00:22I played a character named Ray, and Brittany Murphy,
00:24who I loved very dearly, played my nanny.
00:28And the costumes for both of our characters
00:30were a huge part of telling the story.
00:33For her character, it was about the free spirit,
00:37kind of childlike playfulness of Molly.
00:40And then for Ray, it was kind of the uptight hypochondriac
00:45like little girl who was sort of scared of everything
00:49in that scene where I do the dance performance.
00:52That costume was really special and handmade.
00:54It had all these little plastic dars on it
00:56and little, like, crystal, like, teardrops.
01:00It was supposed to signify absorbing some of Brittany's
01:03character into my character's spirit.
01:07I really do remember the costumes and the experience
01:10like it was yesterday, but it was not yesterday.
01:12It was a long time ago.
01:14My fondest memory of working with Brittany,
01:17there are too many to count.
01:18She was such a gentle, fun person who wanted
01:25to make every day special for me.
01:28When we, you know, finished shooting and wrapped,
01:31like, my whole dressing room at the studio was filled
01:35with balloons and filled, like, we, and we hit, we, um,
01:38she got us, like, matching juicy couture, like, track suits
01:42with our names on them.
01:43Like, she just, every, every little detail was always, like,
01:47how could I make something fun for, for Dakota?
01:51And, and, and, um, I just loved her so much and, and still really,
01:56really miss, miss her.
01:58I Am Sam was my first movie.
02:00I was six and I turned seven.
02:03Michelle Pfeiffer was in that movie and now I'm, you know,
02:06in a show with her 20 years later, literally to the day.
02:09I, I turned 27 working with her again after having turned seven
02:13working with her the first time.
02:15It is such a ever-present experience in my life because it sort
02:22of started my career and I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be
02:26where I am today without, um, you know, that experience
02:29and the, the writer and the director, Jesse Nelson.
02:31And there was a baby dress that you see my character,
02:36Lucy, wearing as a baby.
02:38So my character, Lucy, at six years old, wears that same
02:42baby dress, but it's now worn as a shirt because she's grown
02:45and she's taller.
02:46I have that dress slash shirt in my house framed.
02:52It's so little and small.
02:54And I, when I think about it, I think about like my little self
02:56in my first film.
02:57It's very special.
02:58One of the best costumes that I've ever worn was a handmade
03:03origami crane Halloween costume.
03:06And it was made out of like aluminum foil.
03:08One of those homemade things that just like looked so special,
03:11you know, it was one of those.
03:12Didn't get to keep that, but I might've, I don't know.
03:15It was, it was tin foil after all.
03:17I don't know where that ended up, but it was very cute.
03:20In the cat in the hat, I play Sally, such kind of an iconic book and getting to work
03:26with Mike Myers.
03:27It was a real world that was created.
03:31Beau Welch was the director.
03:33He's a, you know, world renowned production designer.
03:37And so he was very invested in the look of the film and like the color palette,
03:42like everything is pretty much like purple, green, orange, or yellow, you know,
03:45like that's sort of, and then, and then the cat, you know, is black, white, and red.
03:50And so it was kind of all about contrast and creating cat in the hat land.
03:55And, um, I wore that costume every single day for all those seven months, but the character
04:03Sally, like you go through different things.
04:05So sometimes it would have like purple, like slime on it, or it would be like kind of dirty,
04:12but you know, in the cat in the hat land, like you're perfect in the next scene, you know,
04:16you walk through some magic door and you're back to your perfect self.
04:19So there were different versions of that look that were, um, that fit whatever circumstances
04:25the characters had, uh, found themselves in.
04:27Girlfriends who I met like later in my life in high school, and they were like,
04:31when I was little, all I wanted was your costume from the cat in the hat.
04:38Coraline is, I think maybe one of my most beloved films I've ever done by a lot of people.
04:46The way that animation is done is it's all, the world is built and the models,
04:53they're moved a couple times of a second to put it all together.
04:56Um, so a little model did wear my Coraline costume.
04:59And I do have a model of Coraline in a glass box in another room in my house.
05:05So we're, we're seeing a pattern here.
05:07I voiced the character of Coraline over a period of like five or six years.
05:12Cause I started doing it when I was like nine and I think it came out when I was about to turn like 15.
05:18At one point, like my voice was like, kind of had changed a little bit.
05:22And I had to sort of go back to like a younger, like pitch my voice up a little bit to be younger.
05:28Coraline is also has an iconic look, having the kind of black hair that's like the blue black hair.
05:35And then of course the changes from like the eyes to the button eyes and that, you know,
05:41being a big part of the film, getting your eyes so shut and have buttons put on your eyes.
05:47And her yellow raincoat, you know, she lives in like a wet place.
05:51It's, it's a, it's a iconic, uh, iconic wardrobe for an animated, but not really animated.
05:59It's like hard to describe what, what Coraline is.
06:02Oh yeah.
06:05Yes.
06:06Twilight.
06:07I was in three of the Twilight films.
06:09I played Jane, one of the Volturi vampires,
06:14the costume over the course of the three films would change
06:18slightly, but the Volturi represent a very, you know, kind of dark, sinister sect of vampire.
06:27And so I think that the costumes were meant to be kind of menacing and very
06:32cloaky and high neck and lots of capes and boots that buttoned all the way up to the knee and, and
06:39sort of Baroque in a way, you know, they're kind of stuck in a old Italian
06:45mausoleum type place.
06:48Um, and they don't leave very often.
06:50I also had like the Volturi, like crest necklace that we always wore.
06:55But no, I mean, listen, I don't think you can get further away from
06:59who I am or any other character than, than playing a vampire.
07:04Um, so it was fun to kind of dive into the super pale, pale skin and of course the red
07:11contact lenses and, and kind of playing up the, the creepiness.
07:17And I did, I've seen some Halloween costumes of people dressed up as Jane,
07:20and that's always like funny to see.
07:23The Runaways, I played Cherie Curry, the lead singer of The Runaways.
07:30We got to recreate some really iconic looks of hers.
07:35The white corset, of course, when she performs Cherry Bomb, the fishnets.
07:39And Cherie was a young girl in a sort of man's world and man's industry.
07:47And she, the way that she took ownership of her power was to, to shock and surprise.
07:53Even wear something that might make somebody uncomfortable.
07:56Um, and, and that was kind of how she survived that sort of tough, tough rock and roll scene.
08:02It was also exciting to get to play with that kind of
08:05crazy seventies makeup and, and, uh, glam rock stuff and, and the costumes.
08:10And I actually got to keep all the wardrobe from that film.
08:13So I, I have it.
08:15The alienist, Sarah Howard in the first season, she's not a detective yet,
08:20but she is a detective in the second season.
08:22So detective Sarah Howard, um, you know, a huge part of the alienist was the world,
08:28the costumes, the sets, you know, really transporting the cast and the crew back to that time.
08:36And then of course, you know, hopefully transporting the audience, watching it.
08:40Um, for the first season, the costume designer was Michael Kaplan, who was like,
08:44you know, a genius and has done so many.
08:48costumes that when people think of movies, they think of some of his costumes.
08:52And for the second season, Rudy Mance, who has worked with Michael a lot,
08:55he was the costume designer.
08:56So it was great.
08:57It was like, didn't feel like a huge shift.
08:59They have the same eye for detail and the same sensibilities.
09:02And Michael kind of led the way for Rudy to take over when we did the series of the second book.
09:08If there were 70 buttons on my jacket, they weren't facades with snaps underneath.
09:16They were unfortunately some days really 70 buttons.
09:21Um, but I got very good at knowing what I could take off when I'm like,
09:27are you going to see, are you going to see this in this shot?
09:29Nope.
09:29Okay.
09:30I can take these off early.
09:31You know what I mean?
09:31Like, oh, I take certain pieces off.
09:33And then at the end of the day on, on, on series like that, the person who kind of gets you dressed
09:39and helps you get undressed in the morning and the night time is so important.
09:42You become so close with them.
09:44And so I had two wonderful women for each time.
09:46And I would, they would say I was done.
09:49And I would be kind of disrobing as I'm walking back to my trailer, um, to get changed.
09:55And Dora would be behind kind of, you know, I'd be like, oh, here, we can take this off.
10:00I could take this off.
10:00I would do everything aside from like what I needed to keep on to not be naked in front of everybody.
10:06But it was like really hot in Budapest, Hungary.
10:09And so it would be rough.
10:11Some days, some days were hard, um, but most days were great.
10:14And, and it was always wonderful to see the, the different outfits.
10:18The first lady, um, I play Susan Ford, the youngest child and only daughter of
10:25president Gerald Ford and his wife, Betty Ford.
10:29So excited about the project and to be working with Michelle and
10:33to recreate the mother daughter bond between Betty and Susan.
10:36I think it was a very formative relationship in Betty's life.
10:40And as I said, I am Sam working with Michelle has been such a formative experience in my life
10:47and getting to know her as an adult and spend, um, you know, off time with her as well was
10:53such a dream.
10:54We, we became very close and she's just, she's just the best.
10:58The costume designer scene, the looks are to a tee, some photos of the Ford family,
11:04like every detail she recreated.
11:07I'm so, so excited to, to see it in its entirety and, and to see the other women's stories.
11:13The show was filmed in three separate blocks.
11:15So, um, Betty was first, so Michelle and I were filming first and then it was
11:21Viola's Michelle Obama block and, and then Jillian's Eleanor Roosevelt block at the end.
11:26So, um, you know, there's so much of the show that the people in the other blocks don't get to see.
11:31So I can't wait to see it all, um, woven together and, and see the, the great,
11:38great women behind, you know, the great men.