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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00:00 Hey, who, what, where, I'm Dakota Fanning,
00:02 and today we're going behind the looks.
00:04 (upbeat music)
00:07 Uptown Girls is, and I think even more so
00:14 as the years go by, has become like a very comforting movie
00:19 to a lot of girls and women.
00:21 I played a character named Ray,
00:23 and Brittany Murphy, who I loved very dearly,
00:26 played my nanny.
00:28 And the costumes for both of our characters
00:30 were a huge part of telling the story.
00:33 For her character, it was about like the free spirit,
00:37 kind of childlike playfulness of Molly.
00:40 And then for Ray, it was kind of the uptight hypochondriac,
00:45 like a little girl who was sort of scared of everything
00:49 in that scene where I do the dance performance.
00:52 That costume was really special and handmade.
00:54 It had all these little plastic dars on it
00:56 and little like crystal like teardrops.
01:00 It was supposed to signify absorbing some
01:03 of Brittany's character into my character's spirit.
01:07 I really do remember the costumes and the experience
01:10 like it was yesterday, but it was not yesterday.
01:12 It was a long time ago.
01:14 My fondest memory of working with Brittany,
01:17 there are too many to count.
01:18 She was such a gentle, fun person
01:24 who wanted to make every day special for me.
01:28 When we finished shooting and wrapped,
01:31 like my whole dressing room at the studio
01:34 was filled with balloons and felt like we,
01:37 and she got us like matching Juicy Couture,
01:41 like tracksuits with our names on them.
01:43 Like she just, every little detail was always like,
01:47 how could I make something fun for Dakota?
01:51 And I just loved her so much.
01:54 And still really, really miss her.
01:58 I Am Sam was my first movie.
02:00 I was six and I turned seven.
02:03 Michelle Pfeiffer was in that movie.
02:05 And now I'm in a show with her 20 years later,
02:08 literally to the day.
02:09 I turned 27 working with her again
02:12 after having turned seven working with her the first time.
02:15 It is such a ever present experience in my life
02:21 because it sort of started my career
02:24 and I wouldn't be where I am today without,
02:28 you know, that experience
02:30 and the writer and director, Jesse Nelson.
02:32 And there was a baby dress
02:34 that you see my character, Lucy, wearing as a baby.
02:39 So my character, Lucy, at six years old,
02:41 wears that same baby dress,
02:42 but it's now worn as a shirt
02:44 because she's grown and she's taller.
02:46 I have that dress/shirt in my house framed.
02:51 It's so little and small.
02:54 When I think about it, I think about like my little self.
02:57 In my first film, it's very special.
02:58 One of the best costumes that I've ever worn
03:01 was a handmade origami crane Halloween costume.
03:06 And it was made out of like aluminum foil.
03:08 One of those homemade things
03:10 that just like looked so special, you know,
03:12 it was one of those.
03:13 Didn't get to keep that, but I might've,
03:15 I don't know, it was tinfoil after all.
03:17 I don't know where that ended up, but it was very cute.
03:21 In "The Cat in the Hat," I play Sally,
03:23 such kind of an iconic book
03:25 and getting to work with Mike Myers.
03:27 It was a real world that was created.
03:31 Bo Welch was the director.
03:33 He's a, you know, world-renowned production designer.
03:37 And so he was very invested in the look of the film
03:41 and like the color palette.
03:42 Like everything is pretty much like
03:44 purple, green, orange, or yellow, you know?
03:45 Like that's sort of, and then the cat, you know,
03:48 is black, white, and red.
03:50 And so it was kind of all about contrast
03:52 and creating "Cat in the Hat" land.
03:56 And I wore that costume every single day
04:00 for all those seven months.
04:03 But the character Sally, like you go through different things
04:06 so sometimes it would have like purple, like slime on it,
04:10 or it would be like kind of dirty,
04:12 but you know, in "The Cat in the Hat" land,
04:14 like you're perfect in the next scene.
04:15 You know, you walk through some magic door
04:17 and you're back to your perfect self.
04:20 So there were different versions of that look
04:22 that fit whatever circumstances
04:25 the characters had found themselves in.
04:27 Girlfriends who I met like later in my life in high school,
04:31 and they were like, "When I was little,
04:33 "all I wanted was your costume from 'The Cat in the Hat.'"
04:38 "Coraline" is, I think, maybe one of my most beloved films
04:43 I've ever done by a lot of people.
04:47 The way that animation is done is it's all,
04:51 the world is built in the models.
04:53 They're moved a couple times of a second
04:55 to put it all together.
04:56 So a little model did wear my "Coraline" costume.
05:00 And I do have a model of "Coraline" in a glass box
05:04 in another room in my house.
05:06 So we're seeing a pattern here.
05:07 I voiced the character of "Coraline"
05:09 over a period of like five or six years.
05:12 I started doing it when I was like nine,
05:14 and I think it came out when I was about to turn like 15.
05:18 At one point, like my voice was like,
05:20 kinda had changed a little bit.
05:22 And I had to sort of go back to like,
05:25 a younger, like pitch my voice up a little bit
05:28 to be younger.
05:29 "Coraline" also has an iconic look,
05:31 having the kind of black hair that's,
05:34 like the blue-black hair.
05:36 And then of course the changes from like the eyes
05:39 to the button eyes and that, you know,
05:41 being a big part of the film,
05:43 getting your eyes so shut and have buttons put on your eyes.
05:47 And her yellow raincoat, you know,
05:49 she lives in like a wet place.
05:51 It's a iconic wardrobe for an animated,
05:56 but not really animated,
06:00 it's like hard to describe what "Coraline" is.
06:03 Oh, yeah, mm-hmm.
06:05 Yes, "Twilight."
06:07 I was in three of the "Twilight" films.
06:10 I played Jane, one of the Volturi vampires.
06:14 The costume over the course of the three films
06:18 would change slightly,
06:20 but the Volturi represent a very, you know,
06:23 kind of dark, sinister sect of vampire.
06:28 And so I think that the costumes
06:30 were meant to be kind of menacing
06:31 and very cloaky and high neck and lots of capes
06:35 and boots that buttoned all the way up to the knee
06:39 and sort of Baroque in a way, you know,
06:42 they're kind of stuck in a old Italian mausoleum type place
06:47 and they don't leave very often.
06:51 I also had like the Volturi like crest necklace
06:54 that we always wore.
06:55 But no, I mean, listen,
06:56 I don't think you can get further away from who I am
07:01 or any other character than playing a vampire.
07:04 So it was fun to kind of dive into the super pale,
07:10 pale skin and of course the red contact lenses
07:13 and kind of playing up the creepiness.
07:17 And I've seen some Halloween costumes
07:19 of people dressed up as Jane
07:21 and that's always like funny to see.
07:23 The "Runaways," I played Cherie Currie,
07:27 the lead singer of the "Runaways."
07:30 We got to recreate some really iconic looks of hers.
07:35 The white corset, of course,
07:37 when she performs "Cherry Bomb," "The Fishnets."
07:40 And Cherie was a young girl in a sort of man's world
07:45 and man's industry.
07:47 And the way that she took ownership of her power
07:51 was to shock and surprise,
07:53 even wear something that might make somebody uncomfortable.
07:56 And that was kind of how she survived
07:59 that sort of tough rock and roll scene.
08:02 It was also exciting to get to play
08:04 with that kind of crazy '70s makeup
08:07 and glam rock stuff and the costumes.
08:11 And I actually got to keep all the wardrobe from that film.
08:14 So I have it.
08:15 The alienist, Sarah Howard.
08:18 In the first season, she's not a detective yet,
08:20 but she is a detective in the second season.
08:22 So detective Sarah Howard.
08:25 A huge part of "The Alienist" was the world,
08:29 the costumes, the sets,
08:31 really transporting the cast and the crew back to that time.
08:36 And then, of course,
08:37 hopefully transporting the audience watching it.
08:40 For the first season,
08:41 the costume designer was Michael Kaplan,
08:43 who was like a genius and has done so many costumes
08:48 that when people think of movies,
08:50 they think of some of his costumes.
08:52 And for the second season, Rudy Mance,
08:54 who has worked with Michael a lot,
08:55 he was the costume designer.
08:56 So it was great.
08:57 It didn't feel like a huge shift.
08:59 They had the same eye for detail
09:01 and the same sensibilities.
09:02 And Michael kind of led the way for Rudy
09:04 to take over when we did the series of the second book.
09:08 If there were 70 buttons on my jacket,
09:13 they weren't facades with snaps underneath.
09:17 They were, unfortunately, some days, really 70 buttons.
09:23 But I got very good at knowing what I could take off when.
09:27 I'm like, "Are you gonna see this in this shot?"
09:29 "Nope."
09:30 "Okay, I can take these off."
09:31 You know what I mean?
09:32 Like, "Oh, I'm gonna take certain pieces off."
09:33 And then at the end of the day,
09:35 on series like that,
09:37 the person who kind of gets you dressed
09:39 and helps you get undressed in the morning and the night time
09:42 is so important.
09:43 You become so close with them.
09:44 And so I had two wonderful women for each time.
09:47 And they would say I was done
09:49 and I would be kind of disrobing
09:51 as I'm walking back to my trailer to get changed
09:55 and Dora would be behind, kind of pig.
09:58 I'd be like, "Oh, here, we can take this off."
10:00 "I can take this off."
10:00 I would do everything aside from what I needed to keep on
10:04 to not be naked in front of everybody.
10:06 But it was really hot in Budapest, Hungary.
10:09 And so it would be rough some days.
10:11 Some days were hard, but most days were great.
10:14 And it was always wonderful to see the different outfits.
10:18 The First Lady!
10:20 I play Susan Ford, the youngest child and only daughter
10:25 of President Gerald Ford and his wife, Betty Ford.
10:29 So excited about the project and to be working with Michelle
10:33 and to recreate the mother-daughter bond
10:35 between Betty and Susan.
10:37 I think it was a very formative relationship
10:39 in Betty's life.
10:41 And as I said about "I Am Sam,"
10:43 working with Michelle has been such a formative experience
10:46 in my life and getting to know her as an adult
10:49 and spend off time with her as well was such a dream.
10:54 We became very close and she's just the best.
10:59 The costume designer scene.
11:00 The looks are to a T, some photos of the Ford family.
11:04 Like every detail she recreated.
11:07 I'm so, so excited to see it in its entirety
11:11 and to see the other women's stories.
11:13 The show was filmed in three separate blocks.
11:15 So Betty was first.
11:18 So Michelle and I were filming first
11:20 and then it was Viola's Michelle Obama block
11:23 and then Jillian's Eleanor Roosevelt block at the end.
11:26 So, you know, there's so much of the show
11:28 that the people in the other blocks don't get to see.
11:31 So I can't wait to see it all woven together
11:35 and see the great, great women behind, you know,
11:40 the great men.
11:42 (gentle music)
11:44 (gentle music)
11:47 (gentle music)
11:49 (gentle music)
11:52 (gentle music)
11:55 [BLANK_AUDIO]