Jurnee Smollett discusses a few of her past roles, including her time on the original Full House, her iconic part in Eve's Bayou, and her involvement in Spiderhead
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00:00Hi, I'm Jurnee Smollett,
00:02and today we're going behind the looks.
00:08This costume was my own, actually,
00:10or most of it is.
00:12I'm not sure about the sweater,
00:13but my mom would always bring clothes to set
00:17and be like, she's gonna wear this.
00:18So, I think technically my mom is the costume designer.
00:23Like, I know these tights.
00:25I think these tights are for sure mine when I was a kid.
00:28I remember the feeling of working
00:30with the live audience, honestly.
00:31Like, going, feeding off of their energy.
00:34The sound of a laughter when you said something
00:37that they thought was funny.
00:38It was just so thrilling.
00:40Sitcoms back in the day with live audiences,
00:42it was the closest you were gonna get to, like, theater,
00:45right, where you feed off the audience.
00:47So, that's the thing I remember the most.
00:49Eve's Bayou, ah, yeah.
00:52Okay, so, one, I remember loving these pants so much.
00:57This was, like, the first film I did,
00:59which was a period piece.
01:01I really learned early on how period clothes
01:05are just made differently.
01:07Karen Wagner was the costume designer for Eve's Bayou
01:10and the costume designer for a show I did later on
01:14called Underground.
01:15And she is so exceptional when it comes
01:18to doing period pieces,
01:19because clothes tell a story for your character.
01:23You know, the way they're tailored for that period,
01:27the seams, like, everything, you know.
01:29This was one of the first projects
01:31where all those things kind of,
01:33I became aware of those things when it came to the costume.
01:39Tori, Roll Bounce, oh my goodness.
01:41Oh, this is fun.
01:42Yeah, so, this was about the skates.
01:46And about the 70s, another period piece I did.
01:50I had braces and period clothes and roller skates.
01:53I mean, life doesn't get better than that, right?
01:55And funny fact is, I actually in real life had braces
01:59on when I was cast as Tori.
02:02They had me remove the braces to put fake braces on.
02:05That is Hollywood, y'all.
02:08I had a lot of fun with the costumes
02:11because the 70s was just a fun period.
02:13Like, look at the colors of that.
02:14That purple, and it was a lot of fun.
02:17Jess, Merryweather.
02:19So, this is the first season
02:21that I was on Friday Night Lights.
02:22I believe this is season four for the show,
02:25but my first season.
02:27And I was a cheerleader.
02:28Jess eventually becomes a coach.
02:31And so, my wardrobe very much so changed
02:35from cheerleader attire while watching the game
02:39to more coach attire, which was,
02:41it was so cool to explore that arc in Jess
02:46and how, you know, she was such an outsider.
02:49She wanted to be a part of the boys' club
02:51and there was so much resistance with her with that.
02:56And so, the clothes, we really tried to tell the story
03:00of how she's changing and shifting.
03:03Another period piece.
03:04This time, this takes place in the 1850s.
03:08And Karen Wagner, who, as I mentioned,
03:12was the costume designer for Eve's Bayou, we reunited.
03:15And on this, you know, man, that air
03:21and that period for costume design,
03:25it's so important to tell the story
03:28of Rosalie's imprisonment.
03:33She's an enslaved woman
03:35and she is bound to someone else, right?
03:39And that is a part of her arc is literally,
03:41is breaking free of those chains, right?
03:46And so, when you look at the costume,
03:48I'm wearing a corset underneath.
03:51I'm wearing very thick material
03:54that is not conducive for the kind of hot weather outside.
03:58I'm wearing a petticoat
04:00and there's several layers underneath.
04:02Pretty much, I'm bombed down.
04:04I'm layered with layers that I need to,
04:09essentially, you would want to be free of
04:11under these circumstances.
04:13She's literally bound, right?
04:15Like, women back then always wore corsets.
04:19I remember reading and researching this period
04:21and seeing corsets were made even for pregnant women.
04:24It's just so oppressive, you know?
04:26And it goes back to the oppression
04:30that Rosalie's fighting against.
04:31And so, this costume eventually becomes shredded,
04:36eventually becomes torn away.
04:37She eventually does break free of this.
04:40Again, costumes, the costume designer and I
04:44are always working to try to tell the story
04:47of the character through the costume.
04:50I mean, it's an essential element in building the character.
04:55I don't know that I talk much about that,
04:57but yes, costume design in general
05:00is one of the most important elements
05:02of building your character.
05:04Black Canary, Birds of Prey,
05:06one of my favorite characters I've ever played, truly.
05:10What we have here is Canary.
05:15She's at the fun house with the girls,
05:17with the birds and Harley.
05:20And we're about to go kick some ass, some royal ass, y'all.
05:26And so, I have Harley Quinn's bat.
05:31I've shedded the suit jacket.
05:36But one thing that's important with Black Canary
05:38are the colors.
05:39As you see, I'm in blue, yellow, and black.
05:44And the belt that I'm wearing,
05:46actually, if you look really close,
05:48there is a Canary design on this belt.
05:53In designing this, one of the things about Canary's arc
05:59is that she's under the oppression, you could say,
06:03the grip of Roman,
06:07played by one of my favorite actors, Ewan McGregor.
06:13And so, if you look at her costume,
06:16it kind of mirrors his, in a way.
06:19Like, even the stitching on the blue pants,
06:22it was always supposed to be like a form
06:25of us trying to say, like,
06:26oh, she's under his kind of, under his oppression,
06:31until she sheds it all off.
06:34We have to talk about Leti, Leti fucking Lewis.
06:36Dana Pink and I are soulmates.
06:41Dana Pink was the costume designer on Lovecraft Country,
06:45and we just had a filled day
06:47in just sending images back and forth
06:50and really trying to build the character out of Leti
06:54through her costume.
06:55And here, I had some images that I had shown Dana,
07:00you know, some shorts and stuff like this.
07:03And she had this made by our amazing tailor.
07:06And, you know, it's a very simple thing,
07:10but it's really trying to express Leti's buoyancy,
07:13if that makes sense.
07:15That she can't be tied down, you know.
07:17She's very comfortable in her sexuality.
07:19She's a woman that doesn't really fit in this era,
07:21just the level of liberation that she has.
07:24We really tried to use colors and tones.
07:26You'll see red with Leti a lot,
07:29red in real pivotal moments, oftentimes.
07:31Not always, but oftentimes you'll see red.
07:33And the sunglasses, you know.
07:36I had a lot of fun with those sunglasses, I'm not gonna lie.
07:41Yeah, Lizzie from Spiderhead.
07:44So really the idea behind Lizzie is that she is analog
07:51in a very digital world.
07:53She uses a Walkman to listen to music.
07:56She has, you know, made bracelets on her
08:01that she stacks.
08:03She wears a lot of different colors,
08:06oftentimes in tie-dye, because again, she's analog.
08:10She's life, she's soil, she's mother earth.
08:13The archetype was the mother with her.
08:16You're gonna see colors on her
08:17that you're not gonna see on anyone else
08:19because she is really a bit of the mother nature
08:25in the film.
08:26And because she is so analog,
08:28she's able to really threaten the whole system
08:33that Ebenezer is building up.
08:35This synthetic version of emotions
08:37and manipulation and control.
08:40She and Jeff find a bond and a love with each other
08:44that is actually way more powerful and potent
08:49and just incapable of controlling
08:51because it's the real thing.
08:52So with her costume, you know, in this scene,
08:56this is the dark and flock scene,
08:58Joe really wanted also the makeup.
09:00He wanted to feel that she had gone,
09:06like that the makeup was the most heaviest
09:08at this point, actually.
09:09So you'll see a heavier eye makeup here.
09:11I think that's what we got, you know.