Paul Tazewell is over the rainbow after winning the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Costume Design for his work on the recent Wicked movie.
“Floating,” an emotional Tazewell told Broadway Direct over the phone from the car the next morning on his way to the Santa Barbara Film Festival, where he’s also being honored. “I haven’t come down. It’s a huge week for me.”
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Tazewell’s work on Wicked, which includes a pink bubble dress for Ariana Grande’s opening Glinda look that took 225 hours to hand-bead, continues to receive critical acclaim. The days draw nearer as Tazewell prepares for the Oscars on Sunday, March 2.
“It’s been 35 years of a career. It’s all built up to this moment,” he says.
Wicked marks his second Academy Award nomination, after Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story in 2022. Tazewell also holds an Emmy Award for his costumes on NBC’s The Wiz Live! and a Tony Award for his costumes on Hamilton, one of three current Broadway shows that showcase his work. The other two musicals are MJ at the Neil Simon Theatre and Death Becomes Her at the Lunt-Fontanne.
Tazewell breaks down some of his looks — inspiration to execution — from Wicked and Death Becomes Her for Broadway Direct.
How does a costume designer prepare for what to wear at the Oscars?
It’s a little daunting because there are certain expectations. There are some costume designers who don’t hold that as a priority as far as what they wear. They put all their energy into the people they are dressing, which makes sense. For me, I am working with fashionistas like Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. I want to set a tone for how I represent myself that is in keeping with their level. Sometimes it’s just me alone. Sometimes I’m asking for a little bit of help from an eye from outside of myself. It is always good, so that I can get a sense of what an objective opinion would be.
You worked with Cynthia on the movie Harriet, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. How do you think your relationship working on that movie helped with the design for Wicked?
It was invaluable. I’m balancing the ideas that are generated specific to the character and how the director wants to tell the story. It’s imperative to fold in the actor who’s playing the role and what their point of view is. With Harriet, I had the opportunity to work very closely with Cynthia, to get to know her and realize how important fashion is for her. Not that it directly related to the clothing that I was putting her in for Harriet, just because of the character. But I think that there is a certain care and specificity that she’s always looking for, how she represents herself day to day and how she represents a character. To have Cynthia’s feedback is so very important. My intention is to help her create a visual for what Elphaba will be so that she can then bring that persona to life.
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You’ve talked about how Kristin Chenoweth’s and Idina Menzel’s costumes as the surprise Goddesses were a quick race to the finish. Can you talk more about what that experience was like?
I think that the adrenaline of having much less time to develop what the idea was going to be made for creative energy being pushed into the process. Thankfully, much of the other clothing and what we were going to have at that point, we had either seen and filmed. The idea was born from Nathan Crowley’s design for the set. The challenge was to figure out how we create “a theatrical-level presentation” that is already in a fantasy world. Emerald City is already an unreal space with an unreal community. Nathan decided to tap into the pop-up-book idea that is created at the very beginning of the film when Elphaba is charmed by the idea of the Wizard. I went with the idea as if they were pages of a book that flip. That’s where you have those multilayers of sheer fabric that make up their dresses. With Kristin, it was more of the sunset, and Idina more of the sun. That was how those elements were colored. Then, choose the fabric that will operate in the right way, that won’t wrinkle and will stay flat when it’s moving. It actually does move, like flipping pages in a book. Then, when can we get Kristin and Idina in a fitting room? I think I ended up having to fly back to New York to fit Idina. Kristin, I fit most of her things in the U.K. a few weeks before we were shooting.
You’ve made a Dorothy costume for Wicked and Death Becomes Her. Also, let’s not forget a Dorothy costume for The Wiz! Live.
It just happens as a coincidence, how one thing overlaps another. I guess it speaks to how significant the icons of The Wizard of Oz have fit into our culture as well.
That costume that you’re speaking of is part of this series of quick changes that Megan Hilty [who plays Madeline Ashton] has to do for the number “For the Gaze.” It’s also kind of a wink at Broadway shows. Many audiences of Broadway shows happen to be gay men. Some of the icons that are used, Dorothy happens to be one. It was really a send-up of all of those icons who have been embraced kind of by the gay community.
Do you think that the Dorothy costume you designed for Megan Hilty has any similarity to what you designed for Dorothy in Wicked: For Good?
We know what the suggestion is of what we’re seeing, and that is what’s really important or you won’t get the joke. But I also think that you have to respect that the original design was to be what it is: the pure image of Judy Garland as Dorothy. Neither of the dresses that I created for Dorothy is a re-creation of that dress. Both of them have been changed because of licensing and for legal reasons as well. The silhouette that we have for Megan’s dress emphasizes certain things and has a different quality on a different scale than what I’ve used for Dorothy in Wicked.
Tell me about those gorgeous purple velour leotards the ensemble wears in Death Becomes Her.
That opening number where you’re introduced to what we call “the immortals,” the whole ensemble that is surrounding Viola [Michelle Williams], is representing everyone who has taken youth serum. The only way that I could imagine is to show off the physique of these beautiful dancers, but it needs to be done in a tasteful way. The idea of the purple was inspired by the vial and also Viola and that color of violet. Then, figuring out how to create swirling shapes on the body where some areas are revealing flesh. Others are just kind of very judiciously covering up what we need to. I was well aware of what we wanted to feature and what we didn’t want to feature. I want for [the dancers] to feel as comfortable and as beautiful as possible in the costume. The way that they were created was we had a full unitard that didn’t have any cutout at all. I went in and drew the shapes directly on their bodysuit while they were wearing it. I could tell them what was going to be flesh tone, what was going to be the purple velvet.
What are some secrets of any of the costumes that Megan Hilty or Jennifer Simard [Helen Sharp] wears?
Their final sparkly costumes are each purple. The shape of Megan’s neckline — that’s suggestive of her twisted neck. It’s kind of asymmetrical, and it kind of swirls around her neck. The same for Jen Simard, where the hole from the red dress translates on this dress, and there’s a red explosion right at her torso. Both of those carry that whole theme of what’s happened to their body into the design of the dress.
You’ve got Wicked and three hit Broadway shows. You’re becoming a cultural phenomenon.
The overlap of ideas, it’s never intentional. But there are things that I learned from one experience to the other. It seems natural to me that one experience would affect how I designed the next thing. I can say that about Hamilton. I definitely can say that about Wicked. I’m just delighted that everybody is enjoying what I’ve done, and that I’ve created a world for both Wicked and for Death Becomes Her that audiences are pulled into and really want to be a part of.