00:00 He was like, "Man, I feel like you should be in flat shoes."
00:02 And I was like, "No, I'm the shortest one.
00:03 "I wanna be in heels."
00:05 And so we compromised and we found a way
00:07 to incorporate the heels in the battle
00:09 so that I could lose them and be safe, but still look hot.
00:13 Hi, Glamour.
00:14 I'm Lupita Nyong'o,
00:15 and today I'll be breaking down some of my movie looks.
00:19 (upbeat music)
00:21 Us, 2019.
00:26 This is a film by Jordan Peele.
00:28 The costume process was a lot of fun.
00:32 I played two characters, Adelaide and Red,
00:34 and they are polar opposites of each other,
00:37 but they're also of each other.
00:38 And if you haven't seen the film by now,
00:39 that's your own problem,
00:41 because I'm gonna spoil it for you.
00:43 They actually switch sides.
00:45 One of the things that I talked about with Kim
00:47 is that if Adelaide is really Red,
00:49 then there's a sense of escaping her life underground.
00:53 And so she would probably want to avoid
00:56 everything related to down there,
00:59 especially the color Red.
01:00 And so her costume was deliberately neutral.
01:04 She would wanna blend in.
01:05 She wouldn't wanna call attention to herself
01:07 because she has this deep, dark secret.
01:09 And then for Red,
01:10 obviously she's wearing the red jumpsuit
01:12 that is a uniform of the people underground.
01:15 And her hair, of course, down there,
01:17 there's no hair salons,
01:18 so she needed to have hair that was just unkempt.
01:21 Once we had the hair on, we were still like,
01:23 what can make her more menacing?
01:25 'Cause I still looked like I was just having a bad hair day.
01:28 We came up with this idea of bleaching out the eyebrows
01:33 so that they were less prominent.
01:34 And when we did that, it just completely changed my face.
01:39 And then also, Tim and I had the idea
01:42 of getting a mouth guard
01:44 that would change the posture of my mouth.
01:47 So I had Invisalign in there
01:50 that changed how I held my mouth.
01:52 A Quiet Place Day One, 2024.
01:56 In this film, the key costume was the sweater.
02:01 It was inspired by a James Baldwin picture
02:05 that Bex, the costume designer, showed me.
02:08 The color was just exquisite,
02:10 and I believe these were handmade.
02:13 It was so comfortable that I got myself one
02:16 at the end of the shoot.
02:17 This film is all about remaining quiet to survive.
02:21 And so we really had to think about that
02:23 when we were picking the costumes.
02:26 They needed to be comfortable,
02:27 they needed to be as quiet as possible.
02:30 And also, there's a cat,
02:31 and so it needed to be a fabric
02:33 that the cat would like to be around.
02:35 I was very nervous about that
02:37 because at the start of this film,
02:38 I didn't know much about cats at all.
02:41 My first relationship with a cat was in this film.
02:44 It's because of this film
02:46 that I ended up getting myself a cat.
02:48 "Black Panther," 2018.
02:51 Ruth Carter, I mean, Ruth Carter is not a joke.
02:55 She really goes full throttle.
03:00 What I really appreciated about this costume process
03:04 is that Ruth had done so much research.
03:07 She really wanted to pay homage
03:09 to the cultures of the continent,
03:11 which are so varied and so distinct.
03:14 Just going into her room for the first fitting
03:17 and seeing all the mood boards,
03:20 oh my God, the images, the textures, the colors,
03:23 it was a sight for sore eyes.
03:25 And so beautiful, and my little African heart
03:28 just like, it was like, just so happy.
03:31 And I may have wept a little
03:33 because I was just like,
03:34 I can't believe where I'm from
03:36 is being handled with so much grace and respect.
03:41 Of course, there's the Dora Milaje costume,
03:44 which is just so fabulous, honestly.
03:46 I love wearing that costume, even though Nakia doesn't.
03:49 I love it, I mean, it's just so badass.
03:51 And we wanted to get away from the history
03:54 of female superhero characters looking sexy
03:57 and completely inappropriate for battle.
04:00 With this costume, you can believe
04:02 that these people are armored for battle.
04:05 Then the Bantu knots, again, here it's about practicality.
04:10 What looks good, but what is practical?
04:11 Like, what would a woman in battle have on her head?
04:14 I absolutely love the casino costume as well.
04:17 I remember this battle about my shoes
04:19 'cause I really wanted high heels.
04:20 And Brian is really interested in practicality and safety.
04:25 And so he was like, man,
04:27 I feel like you should be in flat shoes.
04:28 And I was like, no, I'm the shortest one,
04:30 I wanna be in heels.
04:32 And so we compromised and we found a way
04:34 to incorporate the heels in the battle
04:36 so that I could lose them and be safe, but still look hot.
04:40 Black Panther Wakanda Forever 2022.
04:43 What a thing to go back to this movie after so long
04:46 and knowing what happened in between them,
04:51 losing Chadwick Boseman.
04:54 That really, really informed everything about this movie.
04:58 We were thinking about what would show the passage of time
05:02 and a change of priorities.
05:05 Locks felt right.
05:07 The locks were a way to show the passage of time
05:10 and a woman with other priorities than combing her hair.
05:14 And I loved wearing the Mexican disguise.
05:17 I mean, being Mexican myself,
05:18 I know there's not many of us African Mexicans.
05:21 I liked the idea that she would just lean
05:23 into the clothing from over there.
05:25 And then the typical undercover look in movies
05:29 is to put on glasses.
05:31 So we did that.
05:33 Going underwater with a wig is a special kind of thing,
05:37 but they actually had to make a special wig
05:39 for the underwater scenes.
05:41 There's a lot of secrets in how that stuff was shot,
05:43 but it was helpful that there was one wig rigged
05:47 for the underwater.
05:48 I had done some really intense training,
05:51 holding my breath underwater for lengthy periods of time,
05:55 carrying weights underwater.
05:56 I could handle the weight of my hair
05:58 by the time we were shooting it.
06:00 It was actually much lighter than the 25 pounds
06:03 that I've been carrying underwater.
06:05 Little Monsters 2019.
06:08 I loved working on this movie.
06:10 I absolutely adored working on this movie.
06:12 It was so irreverent and sweet
06:15 and just so much fun to do.
06:18 I got to play a ukulele for the first time.
06:20 I got to work with kindergartners, which was a lot.
06:22 And then I had to work with animals and blood.
06:24 All those things, nobody's supposed to do them
06:27 all in one movie.
06:28 Miss Caroline is supposed to be the symbol of sunshine
06:30 for her kindergartners.
06:31 Of course she'd wear yellow.
06:33 Leon went through great pains of finding
06:36 all sorts of yellow dresses that I tried on
06:39 and none of them really, really worked.
06:41 It was either there was something wrong with the cut
06:43 or the pattern wasn't that very interesting
06:45 or the texture.
06:47 So Leon actually made this fabric from scratch.
06:52 He designed the pattern on it, the flowers on it,
06:57 and everything.
06:58 I believe there must've been about seven dresses,
07:01 seven stages of the dress,
07:03 but that was what was so great.
07:04 He made the textile and so he could just multiply it.
07:09 The blood was very gooey, I have to say.
07:12 Very, very gooey.
07:13 It's everywhere.
07:14 Again, this was one of those things where at lunchtime
07:16 you're just like, why?
07:18 Why?
07:20 Star Wars, The Force Awakens, 2015.
07:25 I played Maz Kanata.
07:26 I was wearing this CGI motion capture suit.
07:31 Those things are not fun.
07:32 I cannot lie to you.
07:34 Ooh, these things are not fun.
07:35 Not only are you wearing this suit,
07:37 but then now they come and they stick these Velcro things
07:40 on you, these dots.
07:41 They had to painstakingly put each one
07:44 and they had to be exactly the same distance
07:47 as they were the day before.
07:49 And then these things, these things in front of me are lights
07:54 so whenever I walked onto set,
07:57 all eyes were on me because I was lit.
08:00 Oh my God.
08:02 I think what I learned from doing this
08:04 is how important costume is in getting you to feel
08:08 like your character.
08:10 And here, it wasn't just that I wasn't in costume,
08:12 I was playing someone like half my height.
08:14 It was really cool to see her animated
08:17 once the movie was done 'cause obviously
08:20 when I was doing it, I was just like,
08:22 listen, I don't know what I'm doing.
08:24 I hope it works.
08:25 Andy Serkis is the king of motion capture
08:29 and it was so great to have him in this movie
08:32 because I was able to go to him for advice
08:34 on how to do this thing.
08:36 The physicality of it was really interesting to me
08:39 and how often do you get to play someone
08:41 outside your own body?
08:43 So those were the things that appealed to me
08:45 about playing Maz.
08:46 How did Maz get Luke Skywalker's lightsaber?
08:51 Your guess is as good as mine.
08:54 (laughs)
08:58 Thanks, Glamour.
08:59 It's been so much fun reviewing some of my looks with you.
09:02 (upbeat music)
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