Exodus Costume Designer Talks Inspiration, Sigourney Weaver's Cut Role And Joel Edgerton's Gold Underwear

Yahoo Movies spoke to Oscar-winning and Exodus costume designer about the inspirations behind her costumes and Joel Edgerton's gold underwear.

Yahoo Movies: What specific things did you use for inspiration for Exodus?

Janty Yates: We did a huge, huge amount of research working mainly out of the British Museum and, obviously, a lot online. There is a huge amount of wall paintings and hieroglyphics and an enormous amount of information from the pyramids and from a lot of the temples.

There was also a huge amount from Tutankhamen. Although it wasn’t the exact same time period I got hugely inspired by that.

Did you take any design cues from the 10 Commandments?

No, because that was the 1960s and everything was bright colours and a lot of excitement about man-made fabrics. Plastic had just come in and it was wonderful at the time, but it’s not our cup of tea, really.

How historically accurate are the costumes?

The [costume] that Moses wears, we took from a wall painting. The gold outfit that Ramses wears came from research. There were a lot of liberties taken with it though. We researched the granny out of it so that we could twist it.

How much influence does Ridley Scott have on the costumes? Does he interfere, help or let you have free reign?

He has a huge amount of influence. He’s very inspirational and he comes up with the most wonderful ideas. For example, in Gladiator, he came up with the whole idea of tiger helmets based on a French fireman’s helmet. He’s an amazing visual director.

I just take his ideas and take the credit!

Did any actor have any specific costume demands?

Sigourney [Weaver] wanted to develop her persona once the Pharaoh’s city had died and Ramses took over. She felt that she would be the power behind the throne. She felt that she would be the one that would be very controlling. So she thought she would have a much richer, more out-there ensembles.

You’ll be able to see all that in the director’s cut. I think Ridley’s problem was that he was absolutely torn because he would have made the perfect film for three and a half hours.

Talk us through Joel Edgerton’s gold underwear. How did that come about?

He was gilded from top to bottom, but we only made a gold jock strap just in case for fights. He didn’t have a whole range of gold underwear per see.

Do you ever take inspiration from mainstream fashion?

Mainstream fashion designers usually take inspiration from our films.

I know after Gladiator there was a huge gladiatorial fashion trend and I think things do go that way. You can think back to Bonnie & Clyde and even more recently with Banana Republic doing a lot of collaborations with designers.

I’ve used Philip Treacy and Shaun Barratt who made Sigourney [Weavers] amazing headdresses.

Mainstream fashion doesn’t really work the way film does because we need it now and we need eight of them.

You won an Oscar for your participation on Gladiator – another Ridley Scott classic – what do you think made those costumes so iconic to land such a prestigious award?

Nobody had done any work like that for a good 25 years since Spartacus. And we brought a very modern spin to it. The armour was exceptionally beautiful in every case. We made every single item all totally new.

We drenched the palace in richness and I just don’t think it had been done for so long. We were appealing to a different demographic and a different generation.

What can you tell us about your new film, The Martian?

Well, I can tell you that were possibly going to use the NASA design [for space suits] until we researched it. The Mars space suit looks just like Buzz Lightyear. It’s called Z1. And then I heard from another space centre that they were developing a Z2. When I showed them both to Ridley we just laughed and threw them out. Essentially they were impractical and really very ugly.

So we started from scratch and we have created an entirely new space suit on the lines that on Mars you need a circuit suit to work on which is helmeted and suited and booted basically. Then we will also develop and EDA, which is what everyone calls the doughboy suit, you know the padded white suit, for the end part of the script.

Exodus: Gods And Kings is released in the UK on 26 December.