Jurnee Smollett discusses a few of her past roles, including her time on the original Full House, her iconic part in Eve's Bayou, and her involvement in Spiderhead
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00:00 Hi, I'm Jerni Smollett, and today we're going behind the looks.
00:04 This costume was my own, actually, or most of it is.
00:12 I'm not sure about the sweater, but my mom would always bring clothes to set
00:17 and be like, "She's gonna wear this."
00:19 So I think technically my mom is the costume designer for this.
00:23 Like, I know these tights. I think these tights are for sure mine when I was a kid.
00:28 I remember the feeling of working with the live audience, honestly.
00:31 Like, going, feeding off of their energy.
00:34 The sound of a laughter when you said something that they thought was funny.
00:38 It was just so thrilling.
00:40 Sitcoms back in the day with live audiences, it was the closest you were gonna get to, like, theater.
00:45 Right? Where you feed off the audience.
00:47 So that's the thing I remember the most.
00:49 Yves Bayou. Ah. Yeah.
00:52 Okay, so, one, I remember loving these pants so much.
00:57 This was, like, the first film I did which was a period piece.
01:01 I really learned early on how period clothes are just made differently.
01:07 Karen Wagner was the costume designer for Yves Bayou
01:11 and the costume designer for a show I did later on called Underground.
01:15 And she is so exceptional when it comes to doing period pieces
01:20 because clothes tell a story for your character.
01:23 You know, the way they're tailored for that period.
01:27 The seams, like, everything, you know.
01:30 This was one of the first projects where all those things kind of,
01:34 I became aware of those things when it came to the costume.
01:37 [laughs]
01:39 Tori, Roll Bounce. Oh my goodness. Oh, this is fun.
01:42 Yeah, so, this was about the skates.
01:46 And about the '70s, another period piece I did.
01:50 I had braces and period clothes and roller skates.
01:53 I mean, life doesn't get better than that, right?
01:55 And a funny fact is I actually in real life had braces on when I was cast as Tori.
02:01 They had me remove the braces to put fake braces on.
02:05 That is Hollywood, y'all.
02:08 I had a lot of fun with the costumes because the '70s was just a fun period.
02:13 Like, look at the colors of that. That purple and it was a lot of fun.
02:17 Jess, Meriwether.
02:20 So, this is the first season that I was on Friday Night Lights.
02:23 I believe this is season four for the show, but my first season.
02:27 And I was a cheerleader.
02:29 Jess eventually becomes a coach.
02:32 And so, my wardrobe very much so changed from cheerleader attire
02:38 while watching the game to more coach attire, which was--
02:41 It was so cool to explore that arc in Jess and how, you know, she was such an outsider.
02:50 She wanted to be a part of the boys club, and there was so much resistance with her with that.
02:56 And so, the clothes, we really tried to tell the story of how she's changing and shifting.
03:03 Another period piece.
03:05 This time, this takes place in the 1850s.
03:09 And Karen Wagner, who, as I mentioned, was the costume designer for "Eves Bayou," we reunited.
03:15 And on this, you know, man, that era and that period for costume design,
03:25 it's so important to tell the story of Rosalie's imprisonment.
03:33 She's an enslaved woman, and she is bound to someone else, right?
03:39 And that is-- A part of her arc is literally-- is breaking free of those chains, right?
03:46 And so, you look at the costume.
03:49 I'm wearing a corset underneath.
03:51 I'm wearing very thick material that is not conducive for the kind of hot weather outside.
03:59 I'm wearing a petticoat, and there's several layers underneath.
04:02 Pretty much, I'm bombed down.
04:05 I'm layered with layers that I need to--
04:09 Essentially, you would want to be free of under these circumstances.
04:13 She's literally bound, right?
04:16 Like, women back then always wore corsets.
04:19 I remember reading and researching this period and seeing corsets were made even for pregnant women.
04:25 It's just so oppressive, you know?
04:27 It goes back to the oppression that Rosalie's fighting against.
04:32 And so, this costume eventually becomes shredded, eventually becomes torn away.
04:38 She eventually does break free of this.
04:41 Again, costumes-- The costume designer and I are always working to try to tell the story of the character through the costume.
04:50 I mean, it's an essential element in building the character.
04:56 I don't know that I talk much about that, but yes, costume design in general is one of the most important elements of building your character.
05:04 Black Canary, Birds of Prey-- One of my favorite characters I've ever played, truly.
05:11 What we have here is Canary.
05:15 She's at the funhouse with the girls, with the birds and Harley.
05:21 And we're about to go kick some ass, some royal ass, y'all.
05:27 And so, I have Harley Quinn's bat.
05:32 I've shedded the suit jacket.
05:37 But one thing that's important with Black Canary are the colors.
05:40 As you see, I'm in blue, yellow, and black.
05:44 And the belt that I'm wearing-- Actually, if you look really close, there is a Canary design on this belt.
05:53 In designing this, one of the things about Canary's arc is that she's under the oppression, you could say, the grip of Roman.
06:06 Played by one of my favorite actors, Eva McGregor.
06:13 And so, if you look at her costume, it kind of mirrors his, in a way.
06:20 Even the stitching on the blue pants, it was always supposed to be a form of us trying to say, "Oh, she's under his oppression," until she sheds it all off.
06:33 We have to talk about Leti. Leti fucking Lewis.
06:36 Dana Pink and I are soulmates.
06:41 Dana Pink was the costume designer on Lovecraft Country.
06:45 And we just had a field day in just sending images back and forth and really trying to build the character out of Leti through her costume.
06:56 And here, I had some images that I had shown Dana.
07:00 Some shorts and stuff like this.
07:03 And she had this made by our amazing tailor.
07:07 And, you know, it's a very simple thing, but it's really trying to express Leti's buoyancy, if that makes sense.
07:15 That she can't be tied down, you know.
07:17 She's very comfortable in her sexuality.
07:19 She's a woman that doesn't really fit in this era, just the level of liberation that she has.
07:24 We really tried to use colors and tones.
07:26 You'll see red with Leti a lot.
07:29 Red in real pivotal moments, oftentimes.
07:31 Not always, but oftentimes you'll see red.
07:34 And the sunglasses, you know.
07:37 I had a lot of fun with those sunglasses, I'm not going to lie.
07:42 Yeah, Lizzie from Spiderhead.
07:45 So really the idea behind Lizzie is that she is analog in a very digital world.
07:53 She uses a Walkman to listen to music.
07:56 She has, you know, made bracelets on her that she stacks.
08:03 She wears a lot of different colors, oftentimes in tie-dye.
08:07 Because, again, she's analog.
08:10 She's life.
08:11 She's soil.
08:12 She's Mother Earth.
08:13 The archetype was the mother with her.
08:16 You're going to see colors on her that you're not going to see on anyone else.
08:19 Because she is really a bit of the Mother Nature in the film.
08:26 And because she is so analog, she's able to really threaten the whole system that Ebenezer's building up.
08:35 This synthetic version of emotions and manipulation and control.
08:40 She and Jeff find a bond and a love with each other that is actually way more powerful and potent.
08:49 And just incapable of controlling because it's the real thing.
08:52 So with her costume, you know, in this scene, this is the darkened flock scene,
08:58 Joe really wanted also the makeup.
09:00 He wanted to feel that she had gone, like the makeup was the most heaviest at this point, actually.
09:09 So you'll see a heavier eye makeup here.
09:11 I think that's what we got, you know.
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