This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Vanity Fair: This was the gag of the night. Whose idea was it?
This was all Meg and Paul, and the most Jimmy and Kayla [Downs and Stalter’s characters in Hacks, respectively] thing ever. My text thread with them, I was just cackling every day because I felt like I was guest starring on Hacks. And I was not the intern, but I was the first assistant, executive assistant to Kayla [laughs].
When did you first hear about this?
Babe, I heard this in December, basically Christmas Eve! This was a holiday miracle. I think I got a gentle inquiry from Meg on the 23rd about this. She and Paul had this idea to replicate this look for the Critics Choice Awards, and I loved it so much. Of course, I was terrified because the timing was psychotic, as this time of the year people don’t want to work on anything anymore.
Still, I started to put some feelers out to see who was in town, since I was staying in Los Angeles and laying very low. This was actually a very complicated endeavor. Even though we live in a movie city, it’s the holidays and there’s the logistical issues, but it was such a fun thing to try to pull off. My main thing is that it had to be intentional, there had to be so much nuance behind it for it to not look janky.
How did you actually pull it off?
I have the utmost respect for costume designers and film people, which I am not. I’m a stylist. I thought of having a designer do this, as I know people who work with leather, but again, it was the timing as people were not in town. I ended up reaching out on Last Looks, which is a platform we use for stylists, tailors, etc. After asking, I got feedback from a costume designer, Erica D. Schwartz. We chatted on the phone, and then put together a proposal. I showed it to Meg and Paul. I also had an idea of having another designer do this in vinyl, which would have been the more abracadabra version of this. Once they saw the ideas they were like, “Let’s go hard and replicate the entire thing.”
Erica then assembled a fantastic team. Everything was built from the ground up. We 3D printed buttons, painted the shoes, I painted Meg’s nails to match, and secured actual Chrome Hearts jewelry from a rental place I work with. The rings and the bracelet were real, the necklace was completely fabricated. Marissa Soto, Heather Vandergriff, and Kristen Carr were the costume and bags makers, and Robin Gurney was our costumes painter. It truly takes a village!
Amazing. How long did it take you to do this?
Well, our first fitting was on Friday right after the holiday to make sure everything fit and that everything was dyed right and figuring out all the details. Meg and I also had to chat about the glam perspective, because it is definitely cosplay, but it still needs to be fab and feel embodied. We had prints out of every single detail of Timmy and Kylie: How they were holding each other, we practiced the poses. Everything!
José Criales-Unzueta
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