One only has to go as far as the trailers to realize the sheer scope of work for Costume Designer Avery Plewes in Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillet’s Scream VI. A packed New York City subway on Halloween, filled with dense crowds in Halloween costumes, ensured that Avery had her hands full during production. And that’s only for one extended, thrilling sequence.
Bloody Disgusting spoke with Plewes about her work on the film, including designing for legacy characters like Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) and the surprising ways she paid tribute to Wes Craven. For starters, Plewes deferred to the expert regarding Gale’s look in this sequel.
“Courteney knows Gale better than any of us,” Plewes states. “She’s very collaborative and receptive, but I’m like, you’re the Gale expert. I am a guest here, and I will bring my ideas to the table, and we will make you look as fabulous as possible. But no one trumps Courteney Cox with knowledge of Gale. Gale Weathers is an icon. I love the research element of my job, no matter what project I’m working on. I rewatched all of the movies once I started, and then I looked at many articles online about her style, the details of her past clothing, and the through line is bright. That was Courteney’s note; Gale is bright. She’s always bright.
“There were a couple of times when Gale wore brown and white, but when you think of Gale Weathers, you think of bright. I knew she needed a reporting outfit, and then she needed a semi-casual, off-duty outfit and then a workout look. I don’t think she’s ever had anything like that before, if I remember correctly.”
Courteney Cox (“Gale Weathers”) stars in Paramount Pictures and Spyglass Media Group’s “Scream VI.”
Plewes continues, “Looking at her past looks reminded me of this designer named Christopher John Rogers, who I love. He’s a New York-based designer with bright, beautiful, colorful, joy-filled work. I had contacted him, or his team, for another project, and it just didn’t work out. So I was like, ‘you know what? I’m just going to email them. Maybe they’ll be down.’ They were like, ‘Christopher’s super into the idea. He thinks it’s cool.’ He FedExed swatches. I sent them to Courteney. She picked the blue, and we FedExed some samples of suits for her to try on. We did fittings via Zoom because of COVID with Iva Taylor in LA. My approach was just bright, vivid Gale Weathers colors. She’s such a classic character now; if an action figure were to be created out of what her costume is, you could recognize it, and that was my approach for Gale. She could be an action figure. So that was my Gale approach.”
Gale’s costumes also doubled as detailed tributes to the late Wes Craven.
“Courteney Cox actually has a signet ring with a W on it for Wes and Weathers,” Plewes reveals. “I think the Wes Craven of it all is very important to us in maintaining and respecting his legacy. I wanted it to feel like he was always with us in the costumes as far as I can control.”
Plewes also shared her approach to designing costumes for the Core Four: Sam (Melissa Barrera), Tara (Jenna Ortega), Chad (Mason Gooding), and Mindy (Jasmin Savoy Brown).
“I wanted it to feel like a continuation, but they’re all older,” Plewes tells Bloody Disgusting. “They’re living in New York. Mindy, the franchise is all about legacy. So there are a lot of little components to her costumes that referenced the queer legacy of New York City, which I thought was important because New York is such, ironically, a safe space for queer people. So for Mindy, this is where she met Anika [Devyn Nekoda]. She’s finding herself and her power; I wanted her costumes to reflect that. Chad is still the lovely sweet jock, and so obviously, he has his school merch, but just his new school. Tara is again a continuation. We carried along through the baby pink that Emily Gunshor had established in the last one as Tara’s color. Then Sam, she’s like our Linda Hamilton, and so there was a utilitarian aspect that was established in the last one with her. So again, the bomber is that’s actually a bomber jacket from an army surplus store that we recut to feel more like Sam’s size and shape.”
Of course, Plewes is most proud of her impressive work in the subway sequence.
She breaks it down, “The subway, I was obsessed with to probably an annoying degree. Halloween was my favorite holiday growing up, to the point where I would have multiple costumes because I’d tell my mom I didn’t want to wear them anymore so I could make a new one. This movie got to the point where my costume supervisor, the person who tracks the money, was like, ‘You have to stop coming up with Halloween costume ideas because you literally don’t have the number of bodies to dress with the ideas you have.’ I was a little kid all over again, literally.
“So yeah, the subway, I was just so excited about. The museum too. I feel like the museum is Michele [Laliberte], the production designer’s firstborn, and the subway is my firstborn. They had a lot of ideas, like we should have on Jenna’s subway car the Babadook, because she references it in the last movie. Then I wanted Shaun of the Dead on Mindy’s train because she and Mindy bond over horror films, and Kirby watches Shaun of the Dead in four.”
Plewes continues, “The subway, the amount of care and detail that we put into picking what went on there, not only horror films but also iconic New Yorkers. We went through all of Wes Craven’s films and picked some distinct costumes, other important films, classic horror films everyone knows and loves, and newer films. There’s Midsommar on there. But yeah, we had so much fun, and I was in heaven the day we shot that film.
“I made T-shirts for my entire team, and I made them wear them so that I could identify people. Oh, and I made sure we had drag queens. That was another thing. It was very, very important if we’re filming a New York subway scene, there has got to be drag queens there because it is not Halloween in New York without drag queens.”
Scream VI is now playing in theaters nationwide.
The post How ‘Scream VI’ Costume Designer Paid Tribute to Wes Craven Through the Film’s Costumes [Interview] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.