“For us, (the jacket) was very powerful because it embodied the feeling of the night, the armored warrior, the outsider, the rebel,” she says. “I particularly liked the armored aspect, the chain mail, because it also reflected what his character was going through. I wanted to make Charles appear a little larger than life – which was difficult, because Charles is almost godlike in his existence.”
Whittaker remembers the commotion on set that day when the actor showed up in the jacket. “I said to Nick, ‘It’s a little bit Elvis, isn’t it? And I also mentioned George Michael,'” laughs Whittaker. “I don’t know why that came to my mind.”
Courtesy of Neon
Whittaker and Refn have been close collaborators for decades, even as far back as the 1996 cult classic. pusher. Over the years, he has developed a creative shorthand. “We don’t particularly talk that often,” she says. “A lot of it is really spontaneous. I knew we were dealing with a kind of space-retro feel. I knew we were also in a kind of giallo world in some ways – and they were often very big with beautiful ’70s fashion references, so I wanted to use some of that.”
Melton remembers being amazed by the authenticity of every detail. “Even if you didn’t see my military dog tags under the shirts or clothes, everything I wore from head to toe — even the underwear and socks — were what GIs wore in the ’40s and ’50s,” he says.
Despite being in the business for over a decade, the actor still has widespread enthusiasm for the work of costume designers. “There’s such a spiritual element to clothes,” says Melton. “There’s something that happens with what we wear – an expression of ourselves within ourselves.” She remembers being nervous because of the costumes matrix In childhood. “Trinity’s leather suit, the glasses that Neo wears in those black trench coats, Morpheus and his black leather jacket – the costume design on that was fantastic.”
