Entering the fourth season of “The righteous gems,” Costume designer Christina Flannery did not know that this year would be the show’s Swan song -or maybe more accurate, after section 8, its street song. Series creator and star Danny McBride Hold that information near the chest during the prep process, but Flannery told IndieWire to know if there would be more “gems” or not.
When the show had come to the Civil War opening Season 4Not to say anything about the troubled production process of “Teenjuus” and Elis (John Goodman) equally worried retirement, there was no bucket list left for the costume design team. The challenge and joy of designing for ”The righteous gems“Is it that there has been a maximalist from the beginning. Finding new degrees of colorful suits, flowing gowns and animal pressure jumpsuits supported the show’s tone from the beginning, but has increasingly become part of HBO The comedy of the series in its own right.
Flannery, who picked up costume designer Baton from Sarah Trost in Season 3, credits a collaborative opening unit, as much as the constantly varied and funny scenarios provided by the authors, by helping her and her team find “the righteous gemstones” fits it, well, fit. By focusing on the artists – what can be fun for them or giving them comedy tools to play with – the costume department never gets lost in a sea of ruffled collar and furry costumes. But they also know that absolutely everything, in terms of clothing, is on the table to try.
That balance has helped Flannery find a shade in showing the ridiculous ego, says, by Kelvin’s (Adam Devine) sequin suit, while using the silver sparkling to start their output figures at the top Christ after this year’s competition. Flannery sat with IndieWire to unpack, or maybe to finally unpack, the best of “the righteous gems” Sunday best.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Indiewire: Was there anything left on your bin list for the show and entered the last season? How do you think about covering the work on a comedy that is this lively and large?
Flannery: I didn’t know it was last season because Danny didn’t tell anyone. It has always been this mysterious thing that happens to “gemstones”, and we just never know anything. But because of Season 3 and how much Danny let me run it, I said, “Fuck it, Let’s Pressing it surface even more,” Do you know?
Danny just throws shit at me and Richard (A. Webb, Production Designer). When I got the script for the section on civil war, I was like, “I thought you said it would be a cooler this season?!” “But everything I want to do, I have to do, and I have money and support to do it, and the crew. So, (we) shoot for the stars.
With the civil war section, for example, like a costume designer, I really love dirty things. There is this movie, “All Quiet on the Western Front”, and I feel it was one of the references I used to make sure we went dirty. These people wear the same clothes forever. So we only had one station laid out and we all struck, everyone was dirty from covering (all actors) from top to toe with dirt.
And Bradley (Cooper), he’s a badass. He wanted to drive it very much and get super dirty too.
You push it, what direction it means and with contemporary clothes as well. Knowing the characters as well as you do now, how does it help you to accentuate what happens to them through their clothes?
You take what the story is. For example, with Baby Billy (Walton Goggins), he had an interesting story that was different from last season, and every season before, really. I feel he has changed a bit. So with him who specifically became a director and all this, I wanted to lean into that gross star star from the 70s for his vibe. And the work just continues to push it.
As, especially with Judy (Edi Patterson), you always check in (to find) the stunned element in her. She has an outfit this season that looks about “Pretty Pretty Princess” met the Versace J-LO dress. She tries to be sexy, but she can’t pull it off.
All the gemstones senses of greatness are fantastic and do not really match what happens. It’s a great way to think about their fashion.
We just try to stay in that world, but then follow the stories as they walk. As with BJ (Tim Baltz), his story in season 4 is so different, and how do we do that work? Everyone is stylized, but how do we remove him because he is in a wheelchair now? It was one of the season’s more complicated challenges was this question about how we come back a bit? How do we take him down a bit? That’s how we think about it.
You know, to spend so much time developing even more of these strange, special buildings that set us apart from most show I see – I haven’t seen much of this.
Certainly not on a comedy budget.
Of course, there will be a show that will be, like “Holy Shit, this lady is far too far.” But my hope is that people will see my work and (be more open) to give strange shit to the table that you normally couldn’t.
Just learning to deal with doing everything at the same time and jumping from the civil war, which is crazy, to Teletonen, which is also crazy, and making 500 million suits on top of it, you know, jumps over all the time really puts you for success. I get into my next show, and I don’t think I will ever encounter a show that was as challenging and over-the-top as “Gemstones.” So my hope is that it has given me a lot of growth as a designer, and I’m a little more confident in myself.
As Danny allows me to blow it up and go crazy this season, everything just depends on what we do. But something that was very important to me – I am Queer myself and only see Keefe (Tony Cavalero) and Kelvin actually does something that is so amazing. I (thought of) Siegfried and Roy, leaned into the crazy shit, but also closed the chapter about them. When we started early, it was really important to find out what they would wear and how to make that story such a powerful, fantastic thing.
I think we are all in the show, and frankly, viewers too, we are like, “Finally, man!” We have been waiting for these two to be out and have this thing called prism, where we had to do ridiculous suits and so many things you don’t even see behind the scenes. You see pieces and pieces, but there is so much that goes into this show, and we are just very lucky that you get an excerpt from it. But it takes days and days with fittings and lots and lots of shopping and just lots of efforts to get the little pops (from the background).
But that’s how it works in movies, do you know? You never know what will actually do it on the screen, but you have to create a whole world.
“The Judaous Gemstones” season final will be broadcast on May 4 at Max.
