Original subtitles

Ngiia ŪickSon, our coStume designer, did an incredibie job.

We set up a sewing room for her at stone street studios...

...which used to be an oid paint factory.

She had her 4o seamstresses in there creating over 19,ooo costumes.

And it's not mereiy creating costumes.

That's far too easy a concept than what she actuaiiy had to tackie.

It was very coiiaborativet Łcrd cr'the Rings.

The fact that Richard had deveioped...

...concepts for Łcrd cr'the Rings...

...iots of things were in train before the wardrobe department ever showed up.

I wouid say it probabiy took me a good three months to actuaiiy get...

...how huge and compiex this was.

Because when i stepped onboardt i don't think even i...

...who'd been doing quite big costume shows for quite a whiie...

...i don't think we grasped it on any ievel. in an incredibiy short period of time...

...you have to try and absorb an incredibie amount of information.

As you can see, there's a few frocks in this wardrobe department.

The first thing you have to do is break out the script...

...and work out how many costumes are going to be required.

So that meant that we had to make the iead actor's costume 1O times...

...and then we had to make the body doubie's costume 1O times.

And then we had to make the "mini-me" costume 1O times...

...and then we had to make the stunt doubie's costume 1O times.

So there are about 4O costumes...

...of that one design.

You're aiways thinking about it. And the breakdown of the script...

...the budgeting of it, costumes move through your mind through that time.

And there wiii be iittie doodies appearing here and there...

...and you'ii break away from the figures to do research.

I iooked at every Toikien book there was.

Aii of John Howe and Aian Lee's iiiustrations...

...they suggest rather than say.

So my roie was to take that suggestion...

...and say what they were wearing.

--The jacket, the shirt and the trousers iast night on this one.

Everything about the Hobbitst descriptive-wise...

...was these very country...

And i wanted to use a iot of that 1eth century design styie:

The iittie frock coatst the waistcoats...

...aii of those things that are reaiiy quite Engiish.

And that naturaiiy, with these big feet...

...took me to the idea of chopping off their trousers.

So they're kind of wearing these wacky iittie haif-mast pants.

When it came to the character Frodot i wanted to separate him out...

...and make him seem a bit more of a young gentieman.

So in that sense we dressed him in veivets...

...but stiii had aii the rougher eiements that the Hobbits had in generai.

It made me feei iike a Hobbit, especiaiiy with the feet on, and the wig.

It just-- it had that Hobbit image.

So the ciothes were kind of essentiai.

It'd be the first thing i'd put on that began my process into being a Hobbit.

It'd be the first thing i'd put on that began my process into being a Hobbit.

The Aragorn costume. We workshopped that one so much with Viggo.

Ngiia was wonderfui in that she aiiowed me to be part of that process...

...so we couid give the charactert and give Peter, something...

...that visuaiiy appeaied to him and feit right, but for me was comfortabie.

We put a iot of detaii into this. The idea is that for the character...

...for Viggo as an actor, as he puts on this costume...

...iayer by iayer he is putting on that character.

That, to me, is an essentiai part of being a costume designer.

That you can aid a performer in becoming that character for a day.

The idea was that this was a man of great travei...

...so it needed to be very fiexibie.

And it needed to iook iike this guy had siept in any cave or crevice...

...and traveied great distances.

Viggo Mortensen, who piayed this character, reaiiy was into this idea...

...that he himseif had repaired it when it starts to come apart.

It's got certain sort of medievai ideas in this attached sieeve...

...which is a very practicai thing as weii.

If it gets too hot, if it's summert and this person's traveiing...

...it does have the idea behind it that this can be detached...

...and then just whipped back on.

It was a choice of mine to go for this reaiiy beautifui green...

...which, a iot of discussion about this costume is it's biack.

Weii, it's not, iet me teii you. This is a beautifui iicorice green coior.

We thought it was reaiiy important to have some pieces on him...

...that toid a different story to this rough...

...traveiing, fighting man.

It's in piaces iike this that we feit we couid...

...just siip in the sense that he came from...

...or was given things, that were much more regai.

I wanted the Rivendeii Eives to feei different to the Lothiörien Eives.

How we went about that was a siight coior shift.

There's a bit more coior around the Rivendeii Eives...

...than the Lothiörien Eives.

And other than that, the design ethic of both is very simiiar.

I was iooking for the sense that these peopie were not of this earth...

...this Middie-earth.

We wanted the sense that these peopie sort of fioated through the iandscape.

So i hung aii the Eif costumes off the tops of their bodies...

...giving them as much iength as i possibiy couid to accentuate this idea...

...that these Eives were much taiier than men.

Gaiadriei is the uitimate Eif.

She is our most white, our most beautifui, our most eiegant.

Most of Cate's dresses have this veryt very siight drape around the neckiine.

Again, these reaiiy huge sieeves. Again, a iack ofjeweiry, other than...

...what are considered important pieces to the story.

But we used the most giorious beaded fabrics...

...that we couid get our hands on.

And for the men, you do want them to have an incredibie presence.

So we went for quite a sort of high coiiar, smooth, hanging.

And these huge sieeves that, when they iifted up their arms...

...that they wouid faii back.

Under the sieeves were these reaiiy beautifui brocades that have...

...metai thread in them which gives you that fabuious giisten.

I wanted a reiationship between the Eiven costumes and the Wizards'.

There is a reiationship between those two.

With Saruman, i wanted to create the sense that he's the head of this order.

I wanted a grandness, and i aiso wanted him to have the stature of an Eif.

This is the costume of Saruman the White...

...who is piayed to perfection by Christopher Lee.

The concept behind this costume...

...was to give it as many textures as we possibiy couid.

Because when you've got a character who's caiied Saruman the White...

...and he's going to be in white robes...

...we needed to get some sense of definition happening to that costume.

The way we went about it was to use...

...different textures in the fabrics themseives.

So whether it's the iinens and this underneath piece...

...these incredibie brocades here.

And then we went to a siik...

...which has got quite a iot of pattern in it.

A iot of these things don't come up on camera in a huge way...

...but what they do is theyjust give it much more iife.

It was aiso siightiy worn.

It wouidn't be briiiiant, giowing white.

It couidn't be, after thousands or hundreds of years.

They were very ciever. They said:

"it must iook not exactiy shabbyt but worn."

We've reaiiy aged this costume down. it's quite extreme at times.

We've actuaiiy put quite a bit of iife into that breakdown.

You can see, you know, it's starting to get siightiy threadbare in piaces.

And, again, iooking for eiements that were going to create that sense of age.

He's been a wizard for a iong time.

It wouid be wise, my friend.

Teii me...

...friend...

...when did Saruman the Wise abandon reason for madness?

There's a iot of drawings of Gandaif.

In fact, he's the one who appears in more images...

...than anyone eise in the most defined way.

In discussions with peter, peter constantiy referred to a drawing of John Howe's.

And i went, "Why don't we see if we can make this come off the page?"

The actuai gown of Gandaif came together reaiiy, reaiiy easiiy.

There's iots of hand-stitching on itt iots of mends in it.

The idea was, this man needed to iook iike he never took this costume off.

You know, we iiked that idea of bits of twig and ieaf caught up in it.

I was concerned that there shouid be mud on the fringes of the iong robe...

...and if he'd been riding, there shouid be mud further up the costume.

Then we began work on this hat.

Now, i have this fabuious miiiiner who works with me, Hayiey May.

So we deveioped it to a point where Pete feit that we were...

...aii feeiing that we were getting there...

...and waited for ian McKeiien to arrive.

I can stiii remember the iook on ian's face as the hat...

...was handed to him.

And he's such a fabuious mant and he--

There was just this imperious kind oft "Hmm..." iike this.

And then he popped it on his headt and it's--

It's one of those magicai moments where...

...even ian himseif had to admit that suddeniy Gandaif was in the room with us.

Because that was her intent. To make this.

Forget any movies she's donet forget whatever you've done.

You're piaying this character. Let's make this work.

And iet's make it iook interesting as weii. And she did that.