Alison Stewart: You are listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Costume designer Janty Yates won an Academy Award in 2001 for her work on Gladiator. Now she's nominated again for Gladiator II alongside fellow costume designer David Crossman. Janty and Dave split the work for this epic tale of vengeance and scheming in ancient Rome. Janty worked on the costumes for Roman civilians including Denzel Washington's beautiful robes, and Dave worked on the military costumes, which meant making many, many suits of Roman armor. Janty and Dave are both nominated for best costume design, and we spoke to them as part of our Big Picture series. That's when we speak to people who worked behind the camera to make movie magic in 2024. I began our conversation by asking David Crossman how his experience working on the Ridley Scott film Napoleon helped him prepare for this project.
David Crossman: I think Gladiator II, weirdly, was a bit easier than Napoleon, to be honest. It was kind of less complex. Janty and I, we worked together for a long time for like 20 years, we've known each other for a long time. I've done a few Ridley Scott films, so I know. I know roughly how it all kind of works on. On his films. I think. really, for us, it was more of a logistical race against time, really, to get lots of armor ready. Whenever you're doing an armor film, it's always about just time and trying to get everything done in time and into a certain place in time. It's all of that alongside what you have to do for the actors and so.
Alison Stewart: Janty, you won an Oscar for your work on Gladiator. What was it like to return to this world and these characters all these years later?
Janty Yates: Well, it was very exciting. We were told, actually, while we were doing Napoleon, so I was like, "Oh, it's really going to happen." [chuckles] I dove back into research, because it was 24 years ago and the brain's not as it was, and had to, as usual, research the hell out of it, but it was very exciting. With Connie, for example, she's hardly changed in 24 years. She's still six foot, she still has amazing bone structure, she still has got a body to die for.
We went a little bit haute couture on her to start with, and we cut a lot of costume, and we fitted it. Neither she liked it, nor did Ridley, nor did I, [chuckles] so we went back to the original, the original feel of her look. Denzel was a complete unknown, and he'd asked for a couple of garments to just practice with at home. I hadn't really realized what he meant by that, but his way of handling his costumes was so much part of his act. Not his act, of his persona.
He was always just swinging his toga over his shoulder in a nonchalant way and marching off. I just thought, "My God, this man really works at it." The twins, they were just mad. They were like my sons. I love them to bits. We just put gold on gold on gold and then some more gold.
Alison Stewart: Fred Hechinger is a friend of mine since he was a little, little boy, so that was quite a joy to see him play a crazy emperor. [laughs]
Janty Yates: Crazy. Beyond crazy. Ridley's brief for them was Johnny Rotten.
Alison Stewart: That's genius. Oh, that makes me want to watch it again. Dave, when you're thinking about the costuming and the army, how much of the original Gladiator did you look at initially?
David Crossman: [laughs] I gave it another look. I'm well aware of Gladiator. It's been with me for 20 years. People always think that I did it with-- that I worked on it with Janty, and I'd say, "No, I didn't do Gladiator." No. I was aware of it. Obviously I wanted to do a bit of my own thing. Then I think the thing that ties most of the first film with the Praetorian guards, we kind of gave them a kind of 20-year makeover.
We made lots of the Roman army in New Zealand, and then we remade Paul Mescal's mini journey of his Numidian armor going all the way to Maximus's armor, which we remade. We found the-- a set of the original Maximus armor, scanned it, and then made a version for Paul. I'd say the difference was this time we had an Italian leather maker called Giampaolo Grassi who did a lot of the armor work in-house, so it kind of we blended traditional and modern techniques together, I think. We had a bit of time to do that. There were slight differences in the approach, I suppose, and the time. I suppose we know a bit more than we did, say, 20 years ago about certain things.
Alison Stewart: Janty, on Gladiator you had both military and civilian costumes, that was your responsibility, and this time you had Dave to help out. What was most valuable to you about that collaboration?
Janty Yates: Everything. I adore working with Dave, and I do for the rest of my life. He takes, for example, all my military which I did before, he's taken it and enhanced it so brilliantly that it's unrecognizable. Also, I only had 15 gladiators to design, actually, that fought Russel, and He had about 150. They constantly were making padded shoulders, padded arms, padded knickers, you name it. They were just making so many different varieties, so they could dress. You always need 200 if you're dressing 150. It was a huge feat what he did.
Alison Stewart: I'm speaking with costume designers Janty Yates and Dave Crossman. They are nominated for an Oscar for their work on Gladiator II. Janty, I want to ask you more about Denzel's costumes. Aside from the robes, the gorgeous robes, he is loaded down with jewelry. He's got him on the rings, he's got earrings, he's got big necklaces. How did you decide to have him wear so much jewelry?
Janty Yates: Well, again, looking at the reference that Ridley gave us, they were very, very ornate, the paintings. Actually, we dressed Denzel down. I was astonished that he'd wear the earrings because I never thought he would. He seemed to want a lot more jewelry than I'd ever anticipated, so it was kind of a joint venture but not really because he, in the end, is the one that puts them on in his trailer without any interference. He'd just appear looking magnificent. [chuckles]
Alison Stewart: When we first meet Lucius, he's a soldier in North Africa. This is the Paul Mescal character. During that time, what would he have worn and what would his wife have worn? She was a soldier as well.
David Crossman: We tried to do the contrast between the might of the Roman army. They've got the most technically advanced armor. There they are, they've all the money. Then Paul's Numidian armor is just a very cheap woven leather, hand hewn look. The most basic under tunic underneath the skirt. Then a very round primitive piece of metal on his chest for very basic protection.
His wife wears an, actually, a kind of half breastplate, and that's because Ridley wanted to-- he kept looking at his wife how he wanted to dress her. Then he wanted to emulate from the first Gladiator some of the women in the arena on the chariots, when they're being killed by Russell. We did a version of that cuirass for her. Then she's got a basic helmet. She's a sharpshooter, an archer, so in a way, she's more elite than Paul is in some ways.
Paul was a primitive look that was based on a Pasolini film. Ridley had seen something. He was quite excited by this pale armor, so it started off very pale. It got slightly darker as we wove it, but it was all woven in house, and we made about nine sets of it. Then he develops on, so he goes into a slave tunic and then into his gladiator look, which is kind of a nod to the first film, it's the language of the first film, the [sound cut] cuirass. Then, eventually, into the Maximus cuirass after that.
Alison Stewart: Janty, let's talk about the emperors, the twin emperors. They have this almost white face they wear.
Janty Yates: Yes, and bright orange hair. It's all Ridley, and it was all from Johnny Rotten. That's not only the characters they were-- base themselves on, but that he wanted their look to be that, in a Roman style-y.
Alison Stewart: It's interesting, though. They're unstable, they're a little scary in some parts. How did you want to communicate their fearsomeness, their scariness through their costumes?
Janty Yates: Well, to be honest, I was leaving that up to them because I wanted more on more, and more layers and more this, so that they would be quite intimidating in their actual appearance or their characters. They would be in the brightest colors or the most jewels or the most gold. Just greeting Pedro on the steps, these hysterical emperors in gold on gold cuirasses, which Dave very kindly did for me. They looked magnificent. [chuckles] I thought they looked hysterically funny.
Alison Stewart: Dave. General Acacius, played by Pedro Pascal, has this awesome armor, and it's pretty cool. You mentioned it earlier. It's got sort of the head of Medusa is right in the middle. Why Medusa?
David Crossman: It was a commonly used symbol. It was a kind of heroic symbol. We overdid it on the snakes a bit, I think. [chuckling] We had a lot more snakes to begin with and then there was a snake reduction process as we looked on the breastplate.
[laughter]
They were definitely exaggerated just so they extended more. They were crawling all over the chest. That was the idea. It's meant to invoke fear in his enemies. Yes, we did look at it for a long time.
Alison Stewart: Janty, that was really interesting. You said at the beginning of the interview that you wanted to evolve Lucilla's, Connie Nielsen's, outfits, but that you said, "No, we have to go back to the beginning." Why did the haute couture, why didn't it work?
Janty Yates: It was too plain, in actual fact. We were taking Madame Grès, we were doing all sorts of lovely Yves Saint Laurent early work. Lovely single tubes that were like shoulderless and with an inbuilt cloak. [clears throat] Really, Connie wanted more. I looked at her, and I thought she looked beautiful, but basically, we needed those drapes. We needed a drape from the head, a drape from the hips, a drape from the shoulder. [laughs] You name it, we draped it. Everybody was happy then.
Alison Stewart: That was my conversation with costume designers Janty Yates and David Crossman. They are Oscar nominated for their work on Gladiator II. That's All Of It for today. Don't forget to check out our All Of It Oscar bingo card. Head to our Instagram @allofitwnyc. Until then, I appreciate you listening, and I appreciate you, and I will meet you back here next time.