Throughout a career that spans over thirty years, Hollywood costume designer Rita Ryack has dressed some of the most celebrated names on the big and small screens. In Casino, she decked out Sharon Stone and Robert De Niro in seventies-era Sin City finery, fit John Travolta in a series of house dresses for Hairspray, and turned Mike Myers into a striped top hat wearing feline in The Cat and the Hat.
This summer, her leading man is more animated than usual as it was her duty to turn the brilliantly funny Hank Azaria into Saturday morning cartoons’ most notorious super villain, Gargamel in The Smurfs movie. We recently spoke to Rita and got the skinny on working with little blue CGI characters, time travel shopping, and acid-washed jeans in music videos.
The Smurfs is a live-action movie with animation worked in 3-D. Is this your first 3-D movie and did you have to take any special considerations knowing the film would be worked in this medium?
In any film, you have to consider the body in three dimensions. You never know where the camera will be, so you have to be very careful about every detail. It is interesting, though, to think about what silhouettes will have 3D impact- how a garment will move, what details will come forward. we have to be careful about hanging bits, like ribbons , fringes, and fur, which require additional digital attention.
How familiar were you with the Smurfs before the project and what kind of research was involved? Did you have to watch many old episodes of the series?
To be honest, I’m not of the Smurfs generation. But I did enjoy watching some old episodes. I particularly like the original books on which the series was based. The drawing has great energy. I’ve done films based on illustrations before- it’s difficult to capture that energy in three dimensions!
As the designer, were there any kind of challenges working with animated characters who weren’t actual living beings on set? Or was that mostly an issue for the actors who had to talk to invisible creatures?
It’s more an issue for the actors. For the Smurfs, I chose fabrics to scan for surfacing- applying color and texture to the Smurfs’ clothes. But I didn’t design anything too different from the cartoon, except new dresses for Smurfette, including a dance dress.
Your credits include Charlotte’s Web, Cat in the Hat, The Grinch, and now Smurfs. What is the appeal of working on films where a great portion of the audience is children?
I think I can channel children’s vision pretty easily, never having grown out of childhood.. It’s fun to give children things to discover. I have so many indelible memories of costumes that I saw in theatre and movies when I was a kid. Maybe I can give kids iconic costumes to fantasize about, the way I did- I will never forget “wicked queen” in Snow White. Not every dress in Gone with the Wind, nor West Side Story. The first time I went to the theatre, I was four years’ old. We saw Oklahoma, and the thing that made the greatest impression was the costumes. The actors were wearing clothes that turned them into DIFFERENT PEOPLE. MAGIC!!!!
You have done a lot of stage work, what are some of the differences/ limitations between stage costumes and those for film (for instance, adjusting for quick-changes for the stage or camera close-ups in film)
You’re creating characters in both mediums, so the process is pretty much the same. Costume designers are story tellers- it’s the most important part of the job. Lately, we’re adjusting to HD . For the stage, you see the whole actor all the time, and the silhouette is critical- like long shots in film. In both cases, the clothes have to tell the audience who the characters are the minute they enter, even if the understanding is subliminal. In film, the visual interest is often shoulders up, so what’s around the face is what usually fills 2/3 of the frame.
Your first movie was After Hours, was it a bit intimidating working with Scorsese on your film debut?
A little, at first. But Scorsese was very approachable and very funny, and we had a great time. and it led to Cape Fear and Casino, two of my favorite films.
It was through Martin Scorsese that you ended up costuming Michael Jackson’s “Bad” since he directed that as well. Michael’s outfit in that video became incredibly iconic.
That video was also beyond fun. I confess that Michael brought his own costume, he was into buckles. We wanted to give the dancers the b-boy, bicycle messenger look, which was very tough at the time. Acid wash jeans debuted in that video- they hadn’t been brought to the market yet. I loved dressing the 9 minute black and white film at the beginning of the video, which features a young Wesley Snipes. I don’t think everyone has seen that movie- it explains the concept of the dance, and is hyper realistic.
If you got to use that machine for a day, where would you head for a shopping spree?
I think I’d take the time machine to the Dior atelier in the late 40’s/early 50’s. I do some drooling over the New Look shape- which Marc Jacobs has brought back for Louis Vuitton. Women will have waists again! I love the hourglass- so feminine and strong.