What’s an instance of one thing that you just and your group did the place you went the additional mile, even realizing full properly that there was a very good probability that most individuals won’t discover just a little element in a fancy dress?

Okay. I will inform you one thing. We had developed this photograph album of the Wallach celebration of issues that we liked. There’s a {photograph} from the ’20s that Damien liked, I liked, and it is this man standing in a full, spherical hen costume. In truth, for those who attain out, I’ll ship you the photograph. [Note: Mary did send me the photo after our conversation, but since I could not track down who owns the rights to the image, I don’t have the ability to embed it here. But you can Google “vintage chicken man costume,” and it’s the first thing that pops up in the search results.] I stated to Damien, “Would not this be superior on the Wallach celebration?” He was like, “Yeah.” We’re becoming and it is at first of the capturing schedule, and so this factor of this hen costume is simply hanging over my head. “How am I going to do that?” However I wished to do it so badly. We simply began chipping away at it.

The distressing artist, Sarah Brown, she’s additionally a specialty costumer — tremendous gifted artist, as had been my total crew; I’d not have been capable of accomplish this film with out them — I began speaking to her about this. I used to be like, “Would you be up for engaged on a few weekends? We’ll come and sculpt the bottom and we’ll plot out the feathers.” She was sport. She took three of her weekends. She acquired paid, however nonetheless, that need to do one thing inventive and create one thing you will have by no means created earlier than and attempt to drawback clear up. “How are we going to make this costume within the spherical?” It isn’t like a mascot. It isn’t the soft ones that you just put on at a soccer sport. It was made with actual feathers.

It was simply that form of intense collaboration and need to perform one thing as a result of all of us knew this was a loopy formidable mission. For me, I do not find out about all people else, I used to be similar to, “Is that this ever going to occur once more for me? Or is that this ever going to occur? When’s the subsequent time you are going to have the ability to work on a movie like this?” I really feel like my crew, the those who I selected and that had been my companions on this, all had that feeling of, “We all know this can be a very particular film and we’re going to get away all of the stops.”

Individuals had been exhausted, however nobody ever was like, “Ugh.” Everybody was like, “Okay!” Simply adrenaline and caffeine. It was just like the film itself: Simply carry on persevering and making it occur. Actually, I believe you see that hen — It took her in all probability at the very least 100 man-hours. All the feathers had been positioned by hand. And also you sense him, and I really feel such as you see him, form of, nevertheless it’s not just like the digital camera remains to be on this hen. It needed to be a sure man as a result of he could not be claustrophobic and the Covid and all of that, however that is simply an instance. There are such a lot of costumes like that. Even on the Wallach celebration, the place a lot time and vitality was spent on a singular single costume and the digital camera simply — whoosh — flies over it. I needed to watch the film in sluggish movement. In truth, I believe that is the place I noticed the hen, as a result of I used to be capable of pause. I used to be like, “Oh, there he’s.”

However someplace in Paramount’s photograph assortment, they did a photograph session whereas we had been filming the Wallach celebration, the place they’d all of the company on the Wallach celebration go on a [white background] that was arrange proper exterior of the set. Individuals took pictures, and I made Damien get into the hen costume, and there is a photograph. There’s an entire set of pictures with he and Olivia, his spouse, who’s additionally the producer, standing facet by facet, and Damien’s within the hen costume as a result of I used to be like, “Nicely, you bought to put on this factor!” And he did, reluctantly.

“Babylon” is now accessible on Digital, and is about to hit 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD on March 21, 2023.