We had 1500 extras I had to create their look and make sure they were as Ridley had visualised, for the armies we had eighty actors; some of which had up to eight changes, we had something like two hundred special extras that had one line or were going to be characters.
It’s just a lot of running around you are there at 5am to get everybody dressed then basically you are monitoring the costumes every hour of the day, then scenes will change so you are running to get the new brief and running back again, so I’, on set all of the time.
- What about the costume for Marion she is a very strong woman this time around?
I loved doing Marion because we were making her look as if, basically they had had money ten years ago and then they had no money coming in and all of it was spent on the estate, so we made this beautiful woman look like peasants and that was quite a challenge.
Cate brings her own fabulous elegance to everything, she and I had worked before on Charlotte Gray, but she is a joy to dress.
We designed her armour to make her look feminine and yet masculine at the same time and that was probably the biggest challenge.
- On a movie of this scale, such as Robin Hood, Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven what are the major challenges that you face?
I think the armies and ascertaining the armies and getting them fixed because you design and army and then it had to go into major production because, of course, you are talking about up to 1500 uniforms and so ascertaining every kind of detail, even the crest, have to go to India to have the golden bullion put on and once they are set you can carry on with everything else.
Also every single actor you have to give 150% as they come through the door and sometimes they are cast quite late so that is another big challenge, it takes eight week to make a knight’s armour because there are about twenty eight different components and everything is hand made, everything has to be aged and distressed, there’s leather work, all of the chain mail has to be tailor made, everything just needs a huge amount of detail.
- You won an Oscar back in 2001 for Gladiator so what was the first thing that went through your mind?
‘Oh my God!’ (laughs) I was dumb-struck because I never thought that I would get it but I was so pleased because it was a huge team effort there was so much talent that deserved it, it was just the person with the name on it.
- Finally what’s next for you?
At the moment I am considering various options and I will make my mind up in the next month or so.
Robin Hood is out on DVD and Blu-Ray now.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in Robin Hood