It’s hard to pin an aesthetic polyglot like Paul Feig down on the particular influences that came into play when he was building the world of his latest film, The School for Good and Evil. “Since the movie is such a melting pot of cultures representing fairy tales from all over the world, I didn’t want one group or era or region overrepresented,” he tells Tudum. “I wanted a total mishmash of references with a modern bent.” In addition to the lavish sets being built from the ground up, nearly every stitch and brushstroke you see on-screen was created in bespoke fashion for the film. This included more than 800 costumes with custom shoes and jewelry for the entire ensemble of actors. Here, the famously natty director outlines just a few of his key inspirations.
“The look of the school was definitely the most important thing, and I wanted to stay away from doing anything very gothic. When I was in Budapest in 2014 doing Spy, I really became enamored with Art Nouveau. I loved how that architectural style is so over-the-top, beautiful and overflowing with curves and flourishes. My production designer, Andy Nicholson, looked at a lot of German Art Nouveau architecture for the Good school, and then for the School for Evil there’s more of that dripping Gaudí feel. I wanted the School for Good to look very dry and the School for Evil to look wet.”
“I particularly love Sophie’s bedroom because it’s just very almost like stalactites, even if there’s obviously a little bit of gothic in there, but it was really wanting to create our own slightly disturbing H.R. Giger-esque [vibe], but not so disturbing that it’s off-putting for our audience, so that was really fun.”
“In the book, Charlize’s character, Lady Lesso, is very Morticia Addams with a flowing black dress. I wasn’t interested in that and Charlize definitely wasn’t interested in that either. Charlize always liked the way that I’m buttoned up in my own personal style, so there was a lot of traditional British tailoring in her character’s look, and [costume designer] Renée Kalfus took that idea and ran with it — all that double-breasted stuff with giant lapels and that flowing coat. It’s very British tailoring meets Italian fit with a little bit of American Ralph Lauren and a nod to the ’30s and ’40s thrown into the mix. I’m what they call in the tailoring world a ‘wrinkle chaser.’ I go back for fittings over and over and go, ‘I’m seeing a buckle here or a pucker there.’ I want it perfect.”
“[Hair and makeup designer] Lisa Tomblin presented several crazy hairstyles and runway looks from the past and punk-rock stuff, which they used for other characters. But Kerry Washington’s wig was based on Beyoncé’s hair, and Charlize created a look for herself that’s based on a vintage Karen Elson angular cut and curly locks. We were looking at a lot of Helmut Newton photos of very severe models, and Charlize sent me a bunch of pictures of Karen and said, ‘I’d love to be a redhead. I’ve never played a redhead before.’ And then she and Adir Abergel, her amazing hair guy, put that wig together. Charlize did her own makeup for the movie, too. Every morning, she’d be in her makeup trailer doing her makeup. She really loved the silhouette that model had, and I was absolutely thrilled with it because everything needs to be a little severe and, not otherworldly, but just out of the ordinary.”
“[Composer] Teddy Shapiro and I have worked on so many things together, and the deal I’ve always had with him is to start composing when we’re still in prep to figure out what our theme is. I wanted it to be orchestral and operatic, and I also wanted to put modern music in the movie to fit the tone of the action that’s going on. I’m very specific about where I put music and careful about where it’s going to ruin things and where it could set the wrong tone. We used the Subways’ ‘Rock & Roll Queen’ during the Tedros fight, because that’s the kind of show-off that he is. He’s clearly not a rock-and-roll queen, but I don’t care. A lot of people get hung up on lyrics — I really don’t. I used Sam Ryder’s ‘Space Man’ at the end, and people were very confused by why there’s a song about astronauts there, but it’s so powerful and the movement of it is so celebratory that it just makes me very happy. And Billie Eilish’s ‘You Should See Me in a Crown’ had that badass total rebellion thing going on.”
