Dakota Fanning | Behind The Looks | Who What Wear
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.
Transcript
00:00Hey, who, what, where, I'm Dakota Fanning,
00:02and today we're going behind the looks.
00:04["Uptown Girls"]
00:10Uptown Girls is, and I think even more so
00:14as the years go by, has become a very comforting movie
00:19to a lot of girls and women.
00:22I played a character named Ray,
00:23and Brittany Murphy, who I loved very dearly,
00:26played 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 a 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 crystal teardrops.
01:00It was supposed to signify absorbing some
01:03of Brittany's character into my character's spirit.
01:07I really do remember the costumes
01:09and the experience like it was yesterday,
01:11but it was not yesterday, it 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
01:24who wanted to make every day special for me.
01:28When we finished shooting and wrapped,
01:31my whole dressing room at the studio
01:34was filled with balloons.
01:38She got us matching Juicy Couture tracksuits
01:42with our names on them.
01:45Every little detail was always like,
01:47how could I make something fun for Dakota?
01:51And I just loved her so much
01:54and still really, really 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
02:05and now I'm in a show with her 20 years later,
02:08literally to the day.
02:09I turned 27 working with her again
02:12after having turned seven working with her the first time.
02:15It is such a ever-present experience in my life.
02:21Because it sort of started my career
02:24and I wouldn't be where I am today
02:27without that experience
02:29and the writer and director Jesse Nelson.
02:32There was a baby dress
02:34that you see my character Lucy wearing as a baby.
02:38So my character Lucy at six years old
02:41wears that same baby dress,
02:42but it's now worn as a shirt
02:44because she's grown and she's taller.
02:46I have that dress slash shirt in my house
02:52framed, it's so little and small.
02:54When I think about it, I think about my little self
02:56in my first film, it's very special.
02:58One of the best costumes that I've ever worn
03:01was a handmade origami crane Halloween costume
03:06and it was made out of aluminum foil.
03:08One of those homemade things that just looked so special,
03:11you know, it was one of those.
03:12Didn't get to keep that, but I might've,
03:15I don't know, it was tinfoil after all.
03:17I don't know where that ended up,
03:19but it was very cute.
03:21In The Cat in the Hat, I play Sally,
03:23such kind of an iconic book
03:25and getting to work with Mike Myers.
03:27It was a real world that was created.
03:31Bo 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
03:41and like the color palette,
03:42like everything is pretty much like
03:44purple, green, orange, or yellow,
03:45you know, like that sort of,
03:46and then the cat, you know, is black, white, and red
03:50and so it was kind of all about contrast
03:52and creating Cat in the Hat land
03:56and I wore that costume every single day
04:01for almost seven months,
04:03but the character Sally, like,
04:04you go through different things.
04:06So sometimes it would have like purple,
04:09like slime on it or it would be like kind of dirty,
04:12but you know, in The Cat in the Hat land,
04:14like you're perfect in the next scene.
04:16You know, you walk through some magic door
04:17and you're back to your perfect self.
04:20So there were different versions of that look
04:22that fit whatever circumstances
04:25the characters had found themselves in.
04:28Girlfriends who I met like later in my life in high school
04:31and they were like, when I was little,
04:33all I wanted was your costume from The Cat in the Hat.
04:38Coraline is, I think,
04:41maybe one of my most beloved films I've ever done
04:46and it's made by a lot of people.
04:49The way that animation is done is it's all,
04:53the world is built and the models,
04:55they're moved a couple times of a second
04:57to put it all together.
04:59So a little model did wear my Coraline costume
05:02and I do have a model of Coraline in a glass box
05:06in another room in my house.
05:08So we're seeing a pattern here.
05:09I voiced the character of Coraline
05:11over a period of like five or six years
05:14and I think it came out when I was about to turn like 15.
05:18At one point, my voice was like,
05:20kinda had changed a little bit
05:22and I had to sort of go back to like young,
05:26like pitch my voice up a little bit to be younger.
05:28Coraline also has an iconic look
05:31having the kind of black hair
05:34that's like the blue black hair
05:36and then of course the changes from like the eyes
05:39to the button eyes and that, you know,
05:41being a big part of the film,
05:43getting your eyes sewn shut
05:45and have buttons put on your eyes.
05:47And her yellow raincoat, you know,
05:49she lives in like a wet place.
05:51It's a iconic wardrobe for an animated
05:58but not really animated,
06:00it's like hard to describe what Coraline is.
06:03Oh, yeah, mm-hmm.
06:05Yes, Twilight.
06:07I was in three of the Twilight films.
06:10I played Jane, one of the Volturi vampires.
06:14The costume over the course of the three films
06:18would change slightly,
06:20but the Volturi represent a very, you know,
06:23kind of dark, sinister sect of vampire.
06:28And so I think that the costumes
06:30were meant to be kind of menacing
06:31and very cloaky and high neck
06:34and lots of capes and boots
06:37that buttoned all the way up to the knee
06:39and sort of baroque in a way.
06:42You know, they're kind of stuck
06:43in a old Italian mausoleum type place.
06:48And they don't leave very often.
06:51I also had like the Volturi like crest necklace
06:54that we always wore.
06:55But no, I mean, listen,
06:56I don't think you can get further away
06:58from who I am or any other character
07:02than playing a vampire.
07:05So it was fun to kind of dive in
07:08into the super pale, pale skin.
07:11And of course the red contact lenses
07:13and kind of playing up the creepiness.
07:17And I've seen some Halloween costumes
07:19of people dressed up as Jane.
07:21And that's always like funny to see.
07:23The Runaways, I played Cherie Currie,
07:27the lead singer of the Runaways.
07:30We got to recreate some really iconic looks of hers.
07:36The white corset, of course,
07:37when she performs Cherry Bomb, the fishnets.
07:40And Cherie was a young girl
07:42in a sort of man's world and man's industry.
07:47And she, the way that she took ownership
07:50of her power was to shock and surprise.
07:53Even wear something that might make somebody uncomfortable.
07:56And that was kind of how she survived
07:59that sort of tough rock and roll scene.
08:02It was also exciting to get to play
08:04with that kind of crazy seventies makeup
08:07and glam rock stuff and the costumes.
08:11And I actually got to keep all the wardrobe from that film.
08:14So I have it.
08:15The Alienist, Sarah Howard.
08:18In the first season, she's not a detective yet,
08:20but she is a detective in the second season.
08:22So Detective Sarah Howard,
08:25a huge part of the Alienist was the world,
08:29the costumes, the sets,
08:31really transporting the cast and the crew back to that time.
08:36And then of course,
08:37hopefully transporting the audience watching it.
08:41For the first season,
08:41the costume designer was Michael Kaplan,
08:43who was like a genius and has done so many costumes
08:49that when people think of movies,
08:50they think of some of his costumes.
08:52And for the second season,
08:53Rudy 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 had the same eye for detail and the same sensibilities.
09:02And Michael kind of led the way for Rudy to take over
09:05when we did the series of the second book.
09:08If there were 70 buttons on my jacket,
09:13they weren't facades with snaps underneath.
09:17They were unfortunately some days really 70 buttons.
09:23But I got very good at knowing what I could take off when.
09:27I'm like, are you gonna see this in this shot?
09:29Nope. Okay, I can take these off.
09:31You know what I mean?
09:31Like, oh, I'm gonna take certain pieces off.
09:33And then at the end of the day,
09:35on series like that,
09:37the person who kind of gets you dressed
09:39and helps you get undressed in the morning and the night time
09:42is so important.
09:43You become so close with them.
09:44And so I had two wonderful women for each time.
09:47And they would say I was done
09:49and I would be kind of disrobing
09:51as I'm walking back to my trailer to get changed.
09:55And Dora would be behind kind of picking it up.
09:58I'd be like, oh, here, we can take this off.
10:00I can take this off.
10:01I would do everything aside from like
10:02what I needed to keep on to not be naked
10:04in front of everybody.
10:06But it was like really hot in Budapest, Hungary.
10:09And so it would be rough some days.
10:11Some days were hard, but most days were great.
10:14And it was always wonderful to see the different outfits.
10:18The first lady!
10:20I play Susan Ford,
10:22the youngest child and only daughter
10:25of President Gerald Ford and his wife, Betty Ford.
10:29So excited about the project
10:31and to be working with Michelle
10:33and to recreate the mother-daughter bond
10:35between Betty and Susan.
10:37I think it was a very formative relationship
10:39in Betty's life.
10:40And as I said about I Am Sam,
10:43working with Michelle has been such a formative experience
10:46in my life and getting to know her as an adult
10:49and spend, you know, off time with her as well
10:52was such a dream.
10:54We became very close and she's just,
10:57she's just the best.
10:59The costume designer scene.
11:01The looks are to a T, some photos of the Ford family.
11:04Like every detail she recreated.
11:07I'm so, so excited to see it in its entirety
11:11and to see the other women's stories.
11:13The show was filmed in three separate blocks.
11:15So Betty was first.
11:18So Michelle and I were filming first.
11:20And then it was Viola's Michelle Obama block
11:23and then Jillian's Eleanor Roosevelt block at the end.
11:26So, you know, there's so much of the show
11:28that the people in the other blocks don't get to see.
11:31So I can't wait to see it all woven together
11:35and see the great, great women behind, you know,
11:41the great men.