Ellen Mirojnick, Award Winning Costume Designer
How do people see you?
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 189: Ellen Mirojnick
Here’s a question. In the movie of your life, which part do you want to play?
I’m Charles Day. I work with creative and innovative companies. I coach their leaders to help them maximize their impact and grow their business. To help them succeed where leadership has its greatest impact. The intersection of strategy and humanity.
This week’s guest is the award winning costume designer, Ellen Mirojnick. During her career she’s worked with directing greats, from Steven Soderbergh, to Ridley and Tony Scott, to Oliver Stone.
She’s the reason the name Gordon Gekko immediately conjures an image in our mind, and why Bridgerton swept millions of viewers off their feet.
Ellen turns costumes into characters. How she does that is worth thinking about for every leader.
“And I wanted to make the Gordon Gekko character because he had to be so seductive. Had to emanate as a self-made man. Had to emanate as the prince of darkness. But actually, you had to be drawn in by him, by an image that would reach everybody's heartbeat and strike a note. So I really kind of felt that I had to combine the Prince of Wales and Cary Grant.”
Over the last few months on this podcast, we’ve been talking a lot about empathetic, sensitive leadership. About building trust and displaying vulnerability.
Not any of which are words to attach to Gordon Gekko.
Gordon Gekko was greedy, immoral, self-obsessed. Labels that fit some of today’s leaders but are probably not descriptions that you aspire to, if you’re listening to this podcast.
Which brings up the all important question. How do you want to be described?
Each of us play multiple roles in our lives. In every relationship, we have to decide which parts of ourselves we bring center stage and which we move into the wings.
Which personality traits, which characteristics, which areas of expertise should be prominent, and which should take a back seat in that moment.
In our private lives, there’s - usually - more forgiveness and more latitude. But in our leadership roles, when we are confused or inconsistent about how we show up, we run the risk of being misunderstood or, worse, misrepresented. And the consequence of that inconsistency is an erosion of trust and confidence from everyone around you.
The best leaders are clear about the attributes they want to be known for, and then turn them into a character that shows up, consistently, every day.
Strategic, empathetic, ambitious, risk-taking, disruptive, loyal, creative, sensitive, rule-breaking. The choices are yours.
And as long as they are true to who you really are, you’ll have the foundations of a leadership character that can draw people with you on the journey, and will have people remember the impact that you made long after the final credits have rolled.
Here’s Ellen Mirojnick.
Charles: (03:09)
Ellen, welcome to Fearless. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Ellen Mirojnick: (03:13)
Thank you for having me Charles, I'm so excited to be here.
Charles: (03:17)
When did creativity first show up in your life? When were you first conscious of creativity as a force or a thing in your life?
Ellen Mirojnick: (03:24)
When I was a little child, two years old. It's a strange story, but I started to draw and paint when I was two years old. I was born with very poor sight, I would say almost blind, except at that time I was able to have glasses, patches, things to help me see. Fortunately my mom knew that I was not quite like all the others in the family, or not quite like little girls were supposed to be at that time. And didn't interfere, but encouraged, whatever she could do to help me.
Actually, I wanted so much to become a painter in my life, and I painted and painted and painted, I went to The High School of Music and Art, I went to the School of Visual Arts ‘til I was thrown out. I went to Parson School of Design ‘til I was thrown out, all of which, because I became very rebellious, truthfully.
Charles: (04:33)
Painting is a very individual art form, obviously, and can be a very isolated and lonely one. Did that affect your personality as you grew up? Were you a loner?
Ellen Mirojnick: (04:44)
I was not a loner in the sense of not liking socialization. I loved socialization, but loved my alone time. And so I still, to this day, love my alone time. I always go on a deep dive, and I didn't understand it as a child, but I explore it continually when faced with a new challenge. But as a child, growing up as a painter, it was the only way to express myself. I came from a background that was perfectly normal, perfectly regular. There was nothing exceptional behind it and so on, I never thought it was a hindrance or any of that sort, I always had friends. I always felt that I was different and didn't necessarily know how to place that at that time ‘til The High school of Music and Art, ‘til going to college and being amongst other artists of many different disciplines. But I really, really loved just diving into my means of creativity.
Charles: (06:02)
You got into the costume design world almost by accident, right?
Ellen Mirojnick: (06:07)
Well, I literally fell into it. I went to visit my husband who was working at that time on a very, very well budget movie called The French Quarter in New Orleans. It was, I would call it, a soft porn movie at that time. It starred Virginia Mayo, who was an older… She was a contract player at Warner Brothers from the golden days of Hollywood, and a bunch of girls… It took place in Storyville, in New Orleans. It was a period piece, and they didn't have a costume designer.
So, I was visiting and the director said, "Would you be the costume designer?” And it was a light bulb flash went off. I said, "Of course.” I didn't know anything. I didn't know how to be a costume designer, I didn't know what that meant, I didn't know, frankly, anything at all.
And I went to Brooks Van Holland at that time, which was a costume company in New York. We rented, I think, maybe, I don't know, $20,000 worth of costumes. I think that might have been the budget. It took place in 1912. So Google wasn't an option in those days, only in the New York Public Library's picture collection and other libraries where you could actually do research on what did that look like? What was 1912 in New Orleans about? So this was before the movie that Louis Malle did, Pretty Baby, but not about Pretty Baby. It was a murder mystery. But took place in New Orleans in a house of ill repute.
Charles: (08:09)
And how long before you realized you were good at this?
Ellen Mirojnick: (08:13)
I would say it must have been about 10 minutes. I really thought so. No, no, no. That's really being brazen of me to say that like that. But no, I realized, I wouldn't take it into consideration, was I good or bad? That's better put. I'm mean, I thought, "Well, I could do this. I can't really sew, I can't really be a wardrobe person because that involves taking care of the costumes and the talent on the set. But I actually, I could design and create the characters very quickly." I would say it was really quickly that I realized that I could be a member of a team and actually put all of this together in a very, very quick manner. The challenge, of course, was in, can you tell a story? And can you tell a story through creating the costumes that the characters would inhabit?
Charles: (09:25)
And did you realize instinctively that you were designing costumes for characters, as opposed to designing costumes for just purely an aesthetic?
Ellen Mirojnick: (09:33)
Yes. Yes. That's what I did. But aesthetically, it was finding a balance between the aesthetic place and the storytelling place. But actually understanding that they are part of the same. And to use your understanding of story to be able to bring a life, and create tools for the actors and the characters to inhabit.
Charles: (10:04)
So for instance, the look of Wall Street, which you were responsible for. When you were costuming Michael Douglas for Gordon Gekko, you were conscious of the kind of character that that was about and how the costume then would portray that?
Ellen Mirojnick: (10:17)
Yes.
Charles: (10:18)
Talk to us a little bit about the process you go through for something like that.
Ellen Mirojnick: (10:21)
Well, in costume design, particularly for film, because each medium is different, particularly at that time, each medium was different. They're now merging, with the exception of live theater. But at that time, the time of Wall Street, when I was offered the job, others would say to me, "Why do you want to do a movie with men in suits?" This is kind of like, "It's only men in suits. Why do you want to do that?" And I was quite taken aback by that because I didn't view it as just men in suits. I viewed it as a story of money, power, and greed. And it needed to have a level of seduction that the audience would be able to relate to. So that was the overall feel of it.
And when the process begins, it always begins with the text and what the text has to say. And also, of course, who the writer and the director would be and what that vision is. So designing costumes is a part of a huge collaboration for what the result will be on screen. I don't go into a room and say, "Oh, what will I create today without anybody's input?" But Oliver Stone, at that time, he didn't have a huge amount of creative costume conversation with me. So I was left to, how would I design Gordon Gekko? How would I design the world of Wall Street? I had worked with Michael Douglas on Fatal Attraction just a few months before. And so I knew him, but that character didn't necessarily resonate with Gordon Gekko. It was totally different.
Gordon Gekko was a man unto himself. Self-made and a power broker beyond all power brokers. So how did I really see him? And because it's the movies, and the movies that I have always been inspired by were movies of the thirties and the forties and the fifties and so on. So the knowledge of character and what those worlds looked like always influenced how I saw things at that particular time. And I wanted to make the Gordon Gekko character because he had to be so seductive. Had to emanate as a self-made man. Had to emanate as the prince of darkness. But actually, you had to be drawn in by him, by an image that would reach everybody's heartbeat and strike a note. So I really kind of felt that I had to combine the Prince of Wales and Cary Grant. And how was I going to do that?
But we were eventually able to create it. And Michael was absolutely thrilled because it really gave him the tools that he needed to become Gordon Gekko and not just a man in a suit. It wasn't about red suspenders of Ivan Boesky at that time. It wasn't about a yellow power tie. It was about a world that was this world that we as an audience didn't really… we weren't part of. It was quite different at that time. Little did we know, of course, in the creation of this character, and of course the movie, that Gordon Gekko would become an iconic image.
That to this day is just, it's extraordinary, because… I think, Charles, what's really important is that we don't set out, in creating characters and images of those characters and costumes of these characters, we don't set out to make iconic images. If that's what you do, you fail. You can't do that. It really does have to strike a chord that actually, I feel, reaches the audience or a member of the audience's heart. And it has to resonate. And then that becomes the impetus to become an iconic image.
But everyone, as a result, wanted to be him. I once got a call from a fashion reporter from the LA Times. I think about a couple of weeks after the movie was released. And she said, "How did you create an image that all men wanted to follow? There are 30-year-olds that just want to follow this villain. Everybody's hair is slicked back. They have white collar shirts on and suits." And this was Los Angeles. It wasn't even New York. And they followed the villain. The villain was the hero. So I found that contradiction, frankly, very, very interesting. And to this day I still find it interesting.
Charles: (16:00)
I'm struck by the fact that, for you to be able to be successful, you have to really understand and appreciate the director's vision. What's the story that the director wants to tell? For the duration of a film, I think directors are essentially the CEO of a creative company, aren't they? They've built these hopefully remarkable teams with talented people. They're building towards a vision. They have a deliverable, they have a budget, all of those things. What are the qualities that you've seen that the best directors bring to creating the environment that allows people like you to create iconic characters like Gordon Gekko?
Ellen Mirojnick: (16:36)
I've seen vision, purpose, a point of view. And I think that there are a lot of directors that have two different paths. One, well, they'll all have a vision and a point of view. Some will have an aesthetic path. They'll know exactly what the whole will become. Others might not have that, and are interested in putting members of the team together that will offer another point of view or will add to the point of view aesthetically. And I find, frankly, that in thinking about it now, the directors that are writers at the same time, and producers possibly, they might not know what the aesthetic needs to be. They'll have an idea, but they're not aesthetically inclined necessarily. So what will happen is you will have to use your expertise in how to encourage them and teach them how to be able to see.
It's not only the costume designer that has that task. A lot will, of course, lie in the hands of the cinematographer and the production designer, who create the worlds normally. And we are all part of it. And sometimes, those writer/directors are very, “Yes, no. I don't like that. Show me more, show me more, show me more.” Whereby the aesthetic director can communicate their point of view in a matter of a few images or likes and so on. It is the directors that actually bring together teams that rely on your expertise, or want you to perform in a way that brings the level of collaboration and vision to its highest level, that are the best to work with, obviously. And actually, for the most part, for the most fun to be around.
I've always said, as well, is that when we go to work on a film, it is as if we're starting a corporation, and we all, actually, are CEOs of each branch that we work in. You have to immediately, in five seconds, put together the strongest teams that you possibly can put together, and have a very passionate and purposeful point of view that inspires others to be able to raise their level of creativity to the highest point, and deliver in 30 seconds. We might be together for six months, but in that first month, that first three weeks, we have to move as if we've been in sync for years. That starts at the top, and it goes all the way down to the last category that you would think. Everyone has that responsibility to rise to that occasion, accept the role, be responsible for all that's created as a head of the department, and serving the bigger picture.
Now, there are some times that producers and directors will be at odds. In my field, we wear a lot of hats. We're the psychiatrist and we're the designer and we're the mother and the father, and all of those other things that an analyst might actually have to study, but that's part of our job. One of the things that I have been a really huge proponent of, over the course of my career, and actually really in the recent past even more so, is that communication is something that they don't teach in school. They do not teach it in design school, and they do not teach it in many schools, frankly. Communicating is the most important element besides your talent. But communicating requires listening, as well. You must listen to all of those heads of the above-the-line, to really understand what they are trying to say, what they might say in opposition to one another, and what they might say behind your back. Not about you, but to an actor, to a studio, because that's the third voice, if it is, is the studio, because the studio might be saying something, the producer might be saying something, the director, and you might stand in the middle of all of that. It is your job to understand that, find a common denominator, and be able to translate that and transmute that into a costume and a point of view that they're all saying, but they don't know. And make everybody understand that this is the way forward, and not that it should be three different parts and everybody is not getting along.
Charles: (22:44)
Which directors that you worked with did the best job of creating that collaborative atmosphere?
Ellen Mirojnick: (22:49)
I'm fortunate. I've had a lot. I'm real fortunate about that. In the very beginning, Adrian Lyne. Actually I used to call it the Brit school. I love the British school so very, very much. Every single one of the British directors I've ever worked with, I think that they're just brilliant. But they were all aesthetic directors. They were all aesthetic directors, whether it was Adrian Lyne, Ridley Scott. Of course we've seen that Ridley has gone on. Tony Scott, who was quite different than his brother, but a joy to be with. Oliver was a great director.
A man by the name of Michael Gracey, who I did The Greatest Showman with recently, he really was a force behind keeping a creative team tight and being able to communicate his vision, in opposition to the studio, I might add. That was something to behold, but we did it. I'm now working with Chris Nolan, who loves his creative team, the creative team, but he is the example of a writer/director/producer who is on a single path to a bigger picture. When you work with somebody like Chris, immediately you have to get in line. You have to understand his tone, what he's looking for, what his vision is, his likes and dislikes. Paul Verhoeven was great.
Beyond, number one, Steven Soderbergh. I just absolutely love Steven. What Steven does, Steven hires you because he trusts you. He wants to be able to trust you. Trust is a very, very important element. When he hires you, he expects you to do your job and do it. He doesn't want to be involved. He has set forth what he wants, and he's a multihyphenate. He's not only the director. He's the producer, he's the sometimes co-writer, he shoots the film and edits it. He doesn't have really time to be in the same lane as the other directors I might have mentioned. And there are many more, but Steven is beyond genius. He knows what he wants, he communicates it, and you follow forth in a way that is just so comfortable because he allows you to do your job.
Steven is very, very clear, okay, but all you have to do is do your job. When he says he's ready to shoot at 8:15, you have to be ready to shoot at 8:15, all actors. We were doing The Knick, and there's a scene in the first season of The Knick when he brings the Chinese girls from the opium den to the hospital to experiment. The scene opens and they're in the hospital room, and they're naked, and he and another doctor are doing the experiments. The second part of the scene is that they leave the hospital to get into the carriage, and it's broad daylight.
My team and myself had the longest, the most struggled, struggling ... what are we going to put on them? We struggled and struggled and struggled with this. What are we going to put on them? We brought these two girls back time and time again to try different costumes. The costumes were never really right. We really knew that they weren't right. I had to ask Steven, what did he have in mind. Steven doesn't necessarily like to have conversation during the time that he is shooting, but I waited ‘til after lunch one day.
I said, "Steven, I have to ask you a question. When the girls leave the hospital and Clive walks them to the buggy, what do you think they should wear? I'm confused." He just looked at me clear in the eye and he said, "Coats." I went, "Oh, that’s a good idea." He said, "Possibly black coats." I went, "Thank you so very, very much." It was like the sun opened and the sunshine just flared all over the place. I was so happy. It was so obvious. It was like, "That's Steven." I feel blessed to be able to have worked with all of these directors, but I feel blessed to continue collaborations with Steven.
Charles: (28:09)
When you get a brief from Steven, for instance, what does that look and sound like?
Ellen Mirojnick: (28:15)
What it looks like is the material, the script. We'll have a conversation, and with Steven, it's usually a brief conversation. We have a film that's coming out called Kimi in February. That conversation was very much about... it was a COVID conversation about a girl that basically has not gone out for two years and has become paranoid to go out, and what happens to her. For the first time, we had a conversation about, well, is she a Target girl, meaning her clothes or her non-clothing type clothes come from Target. He said, "You know, I'm not really very specific about what I'm looking for, but just think about what it's like to be in the house for two years." I go off and do that.
Then, depending on the actress and depending on what the production designer has in mind, I'll take that into consideration, what type of environment she'll live in. It's the environment, it's the physical world, and it's how he plans to shoot it that actually will inform what that brief actually becomes in a more three-dimensional way, and then I'll go forth. In the case of Zoe Kravitz, she added a new element, and she said, "I'm going to have blue hair. I decided I'm going to have blue hair. You decide basically everything else."
Charles: (30:05)
What are the characteristics you look for when you're putting your teams together for a project?
Ellen Mirojnick: (30:10)
I look for members that will bring their own talent to the table, or not afraid of delegation, not afraid to be able to stand on their own two feet. They are the members of the team. I, of course, look at a resume, or try to, but I also do hire people that are new and very... They want so very much to be part of a team, to create.
The ability for me to go forth and lead the team, and be the head of the department, and be the head of the team, is also dependent on trust, and that... Sometimes, there's great people to hire, but you know that the team that you need for a particular project, it won't work. Unfortunately, you do make choices down the line. Of course, it's much easier when you work with people that you have had experience with, and they know your rhythm. And we all fall into a rhythm that's pretty easy to work on your feet, make quick decisions, and not be upset if their choice is not necessarily accepted in that moment.
But I look for truth, and commitment, and willing to take responsibility, to work within the group, and bring the group to its highest potential continually, and also maybe do multiple different functions within my group.
Charles: (32:08)
And how do you lead?
Ellen Mirojnick: (32:11)
I lead by having a passionate purpose, being committed to that purpose, but at the same time, being open to my own curiosity and others, with full imagination, for that spark of magic that will light us all up. And with that, I only know that that is possible by staying open to all of the dimensions of that purpose and all of the dimensions of my passion in bringing people together, knowing that they can trust me to be the singular voice, and be protective, and encourage everyone's creativity, and be the inspiration within my department or amongst the people that I am going to be in partnership with for an intense period of time, and make sure that they understand and are fully committed to bringing their best, but also being open to new possibilities.
I have always encouraged others to greatness, and to really rise above whatever they never thought possible. And I like to encourage others to really, really rise. And that in itself brings more curiosity and passion into my life, which then continues to allow the team and myself to move on up in what the possibilities are. And my curiosity, one day, I hope is never the death of me, but it continues to grow, and grow, and grow. And I think that without curiosity, life is flat.
Charles: (34:30)
Has that curiosity ever made you make a mistake that you'd look back and think, "Oh gosh, how did I allow that to happen?"
Ellen Mirojnick: (34:37)
Yes, curiosity has sometimes led me on a path that was not necessarily the right one at that time, but I think that that is something that is meant to be. Curiosity is the key to life, I feel. Wherever that has led, even if it was not the greatest decision of all, it was absolutely necessary, because the next decision was maybe something...
All right, there's one... This I could say, this I could say, is that I thought my curiosity about a show that I did last two years ago, Bridgerton, was a mistake. Although I was thrilled with what I was actually able to do in creating a world and creating all of what Bridgerton was, I didn't necessarily think it was the right choice after being involved, because of other elements. But as a result, it wasn't the wrong choice. It gave me the opportunity to... It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, actually. It was a mistake that I thought... I thought that mistake was going to affect a lot that was going to happen after the release, but it wasn't. It was the biggest surprise, I think, of my entire career, simply because we were so focused in creating this world that hadn't been looked at through the lens that we created, and we didn't know if it was going to be acceptable.
It was so opposite from a period drama, but we knew what we were doing from the get-go. We knew what the brief was from the get-go. I thought that people would laugh, they would ridicule the interpretation or the reinterpretation of the Regency period, they wouldn't get it. And it inspired the world. It was a great choice, and one that took us by total surprise as a result. And that was a perfect storm as an end result, being able to inspire the world, which was hugely inspiring to me, that people got such joy from being able to invest in a world they didn't know, in our moments of darkness.
Charles: (37:44)
What did you take away from that?
Ellen Mirojnick: (37:47)
I took away the biggest bundle of happiness that I actually could have ever received. It was sheer joy. It was sheer joy. And the element of surprise brought such riches to my life and my team's life. And honestly, Charles, if you can inspire that many people in the world in one fell swoop with the work that you create, that's heavenly. That's heavenly, if you can inspire one person on the other side of the world, or next door, to be able to see just a little differently, feel something a little differently by the worlds that you create, the characters that make up the world, and in Bridgerton's case, Bridgerton, I had the great fortune of being the first one to create the world on the team.
That was really very... I was fortunate about that, because we laid the groundwork and what it was going to look like, and then subsequently, what we needed to do. But I did think that we would get ridiculed. That, I have to say as an end, after it was all said and done, I said, "Well, I don't know if it's going to be acceptable. I don't know. I mean, we've really gone to the other end of the spectrum," but as a result, the joy was blissful.
Charles: (39:29)
And what are you afraid of?
Ellen Mirojnick: (39:32)
I'm afraid of being afraid. I think being afraid scares me, and I don't want to be afraid. I want to see in a new way, as opposed to fear. Fear is too claustrophobic to me.
Charles: (40:04)
Ellen, I want to thank you for coming on today. Your work speaks for itself, but I'm so grateful to you for coming on and giving your work a voice, and for the impact that you’ve had. And it's just been a pleasure meeting you today.
Ellen Mirojnick: (40:15)
Oh, such a pleasure, Charles. This has been just such a joy, such a big, big joy. I applaud you and the work that you do. It's wonderful.
Charles: (40:25)
That’s very kind.
Ellen Mirojnick: (40:26)
I love your series.
Charles: (40:27)
Thank you so much.
Ellen Mirojnick: (40:28)
My pleasure.
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