Jurnee Smollett | Behind The Looks | Who What Wear

Hi, I'm Jurnee Smollett, and today we're going Behind the Looks

This costume was my own, actually, or most of it is. I'm not sure about the sweater, but my mom would always

bring clothes to set and be like, she's going to wear this. So I think technically my mom is the costume designer for this

Like, I know these tights. I think these tights are for sure mine when I was a kid

I remember the feeling of working with the live audience, honestly, like going feeding off of their energy

The sound of a laughter when you said something that they thought was funny

It was just so thrilling sitcoms back in the day with live audiences

It was the closest you were going to get to like theater, right, where you feed off the audience

So that's the thing I remember the most. Eve's Bayou. Oh, yeah

OK, so one, I remember loving these pans so much. This was like the first film I did, which was a period piece

I really learned early on how period clothes are just made differently

Karen Wagner was the costume designer for Eve's Bayou and the costume designer for a show I did later on called Underground

And she is so exceptional when it comes to doing period pieces because clothes tell a story for your character

you know the way they tailored for that period the seams like everything you know this was one

of the first projects where all those things kind of I became aware of those things when it came to

the costume. Tori Roll Bounce oh my goodness oh this is fun yeah so this was about the skates

and about the 70s, another period piece I did. I had braces and period clothes and roller skates

I mean, life doesn't get better than that, right? A funny fact is I actually in real life

had braces on when I was cast as Tori. They had me remove the braces to put fake braces on

That is Hollywood, y'all. I had a lot of fun with the costume

because the 70s was just a fun period. Like, look at the colors of that

that purple and it was a lot of fun Jess Merriweather So this this is the first season that I was on Friday Night Lights I believe this is season four for the show but my first season

And I was a cheerleader. Jess eventually becomes a coach. And so my wardrobe very much so changed from cheerleader attire while watching the game to more coach attire

It was so cool to explore that arc in Jess and how she was such an outsider

She wanted to be a part of the boys club. And there was so much resistance with her with that

And so the clothes, we really try to tell the story of how she's changing and shifting

Another period piece. This time, this takes place in the 1850s. and Karen Wagner, who, as I mentioned, was a costume designer for Eve's Bayou

We reunited. And on this, you know, man, that that era and that period for costume design

It's it's so important to tell the story of Rosalie's imprisonment. she's an enslaved woman and, and she is bound to someone else. Right. And that is a part of her art

is literally is breaking free of those chains. Right. And so we look at the costume. I'm wearing

a corset underneath. I'm wearing a very thick material that is not conducive for the kind of

hot weather outside. I'm wearing a petticoat and there's several layers underneath. Pretty much

I'm bombed down. I'm layered with layers that I need to, essentially, you would want to be free of

under these circumstances. She's literally bound, right? Like women back then always wore corsets

I remember reading and researching this period and seeing corsets were made even for pregnant women

it's just so oppressive, you know, and it goes back to the oppression that Rosalie's fighting

against And so this costume eventually becomes shredded eventually becomes torn away She eventually does break free of this Again costumes the costume designer and I are always working to try to tell the story

of the character through the costume. I mean, it's an essential element

in building the character. 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. Black Canary, Birds of Prey

one of my favorite characters I've ever played. Truly. What we have here is

Canary. She's at the fun house with the girls, with the birds

and Harley. And we're about to go kick some ass, some royal ass

y'all. And so I have Harley Quinn's bat. I've shedded the suit

But one thing that's important with Black Canary are the colors. As you see, I'm in blue, yellow and black. And the belt that I'm wearing, actually, if you look really close, there is a Canary design on this belt

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

Played by one of my favorite actors, Ewan McGregor. And so if you look at her costume, it kind of mirrors his in a way

Like even the stitching on the blue pants, it was always supposed to be like a form of us trying to say like, oh, she's under his kind of under his oppression until she sheds it all off

We have to talk about Letty. Letty Lewis. Dana Pink and I are soulmates

Dana Pink was the costume designer on Lovecraft Country. 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 And here I had some images that I had shown Dana you know some shorts and stuff like this And she had this made by our amazing tailor And you know it a very simple thing but it really trying to express

Leti's buoyancy, if that makes sense, that she can't be tied down. You know, she's very comfortable

in her sexuality. She's a woman that doesn't really fit in this era, just the level of liberation

that she has. We really try to use colors and tones. You'll see red with Letty a lot. Red in

real pivotal moments oftentimes. Not always, but oftentimes you'll see red. And the sunglasses

you know. I had a lot of fun with those sunglasses. I'm not gonna lie

Yeah, Lizzie from Spiderhead. So really the idea behind Lizzie is that she is og

in a very digital world. She uses a Walkman to listen to music

She has, you know, made bracelets on her that she stacks. She wears a lot of different colors

oftentimes in tie dye, because again, she's og. She's life. She's soil

She's mother earth. The archetype was the mother with her. You're going to see colors on her

that you're not going to see on anyone else because she is really a bit of the mother nature in the film

And because she is so og, she's able to really threaten the whole system that Epnessy's building up

this synthetic version of emotions and manipulation and control. she and Jeff find a bond and a love with each other that is actually way more powerful

and potent and just incapable of controlling because it's the real thing

So with her costume, you know, in this scene, this is the dark and flock scene

Joe really wanted also the makeup. He wanted to feel that she had gone, like that the makeup was the most heaviest at this point, actually

so you'll see a heavier eye makeup here. I think that's what we got, you know