Costume design is an essential element of all your favorite shows and movies. Bryan Roberts Kopp is a 16-year veteran of bringing your favorite characters to life. He has worked as an Assistant Costume Designer for many notable projects such as Pain Hustlers with Emily Blunt and Chris Evans, The Thing About Pam with Renee Zellweger, Kidding with Jim Carrey, and Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar with Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo.
I had the chance to sit down with him and learn a bit more about the costume department, their roles, and how he got his start.
Editor’s note: This interview was edited for length and clarity.
How did you know costume design was for you? Was it always your goal or did you fall into it organically?
Bryan: Well, I didn’t know that costume design was in my future, as a kid. I didn’t know that that was a job, really. So I kind of fell into it with a stepping stone of jobs, figuring out as I went along. And then later I kind of put the pieces together.
Like, my first job, I was working at an AMC movie theater in Sarasota, Florida. And I loved that! You know, I was a junior in high school and all the friends I worked with there at the concession stand and in the box office, we all did a movie night. My supervisor also worked at a video rental house, so he had just a huge library. We would set up the films for the theater and watch all of those the Thursday night before they would premiere on Friday. Then Wednesday nights, we would go and watch, like Troma films or kind of B-movie situations.
So I kind of got an early education of cinema that I think was really the thing that triggered me to be like, “Oh, wow! This world is really something and if I could do anything with this it would be great.” And then I also got a job in retail for Structure. So I got to learn about people and customer service and dressing people. And then, it just kind of revealed itself. There is a world where I could work in film and also dress people.
With that instinct, I kind of followed my path. I went to fashion design school in New York, because I was like, “Well, what’s the next step up from retail?” I can draw and I like clothes, I like fashion. For a couple of years, I was an assistant sportswear designer for Betsey Johnson and then from there, I translated into costume design.
What was your first “Hollywood” job?
Bryan: My first costume design job was on a film called Public Enemies, directed by Michael Mann. But I wasn’t actually in the costume department. In 2008, the recession hit and we were all laid off at Betsey Johnson and I didn’t know where to go next. But a friend of mine was a film location manager in Chicago. So he was like, “Come to Chicago, I’ll get you on a film,” and I actually got a job in the extras casting department. It was a 1930s, depression-era film, so people had to fit in the costumes available from a rental house here in Los Angeles.
I was assigned to get everybody to come in for a fitting before they shot on the scene. So I was an extension of the costume department. The designer who I work with right now pretty regularly, Colleen Atwood, was the designer on that film.
So when Public Enemies wrapped, we had a liking towards each other and she invited me to move to LA. I mean, it was kind of surreal how it all unfolded. But, you know, I was just at the right place at the right time and I always offered my services. Like we would work 20 hours a day, like five days a week, even on Saturdays. And then on Sunday, she’s like, “I’m starting this new film. Do you want to spend some time on your free day and illustrate for me?” Because I could illustrate from the fashion sketching I’ve done, I would just say yes. I would show up and it would just be her and I. I was such a huge fan of her work prior, you know, Sleepy Hollow and Memoirs of a Geisha and Chicago. So it was an honor to really just get some one-on-one creative time with such a legend.
Can you briefly talk about the different responsibilities of the costume department? What is their role in pre-production, on-set during production, and post-production?
We shop! We shop and shop and shop! No, no. There are many different phases that a costume department goes through from pre-production to production itself and then post-production and it’s all divided. There’s the designer and then there’s the assistant designers and the crew members and then there’s a segment of aging & dyeing and there’s tailors and seamstresses and more.
I primarily work as an assistant costume designer, mainly with Colleen. But I’ve worked with many different other designers like Trayce Field, from 2 Broke Girls and The Comeback, and Olivia Miles, I worked on Robin Williams’s last show, The Crazy Ones with Sarah Michelle Gellar and we did the Entourage movie. So I have a group of designers that I can kind of sprinkle about to get a different variation of work, but usually, it’s pretty much the same type of outline. We start, we get the cast, and then it depends on the project. If it’s a contemporary movie as opposed to a fantastical movie. For a period fantasy like Dark Shadows, where we build a lot. We take from rental houses, like turn-of-the-century stuff, and update it with new fabrics. If it’s a contemporary show, then it’s something that could be shopped. But, if it’s like monsters or something, you have to create that too.
You see where the work needs to go with the breakdown of the scripts, and where the notes are. And then I would shop. I would source fabrics. We would source specialty costume shops to see where they could build what. Because, you know, we’re not the only job in Los Angeles. So everybody’s always swamped, you know? So it’s a lot of managing.
Once you procure a rack of curated garments for an actor, then you go and you have the fitting, put it on the board, do notes, see what we’ll change, see what’s going to be altered, and email it to the director. And then usually, fingers crossed, if there’s not too many notes from them, with the little tweaks it goes on camera. I usually get everything ready to fit the actors. Then I supervise from how it is in my hands in the fitting room to when it goes on camera. Usually, when a look goes on camera I go, “Hello! Hi. Good morning! Nice to see you. Are your pants okay? Great!” I wait until it gets established on camera and then I leave, because I have more actors that I have to shop for or pull for or fit for. And then it’s usually lather, rinse, repeat.
When it comes to the camera wrap, it’s finished. That’s when it goes into post-production and I don’t really have a lot, because my job is to design the look of a show. So once that’s done, then you know, producers don’t really want to pay to have me around. So yeah, I just move on to the next.
Which is your favorite role?
I have my favorite part that I love what I do and then I have a favorite part that I don’t do, as much. I love sourcing fabrics. I love the tactility of the weight of, like, four-ply silk compared to a heavy brocade. You know, those are the things that are all so inspiring. When you see it on a dress form. When it’s cut by the cutter fitter and tailor seamstress, it speaks to you. The fabric does. You can do illustrations and you can kind of get a mockup on a board. But, you know, when the physical nature starts to come through and you can tell just even on a form before it gets on a body, you’re like: that’s the character!
That’s my favorite part. It’s like moments, you know? And they’re all sprinkled around. You know, when you find something and you’re like, “Oh my gosh, this hat! This is the hat that so-and-so is going to wear for the whole time!” and all the people sign off on it and you’re like, “I found that!” you know what I mean?
Another thing that I love, and I would love to do more, is aging & dyeing. I love painting on fabrics and seeing what different types of media can cross onto fabrics. When you look at a project like Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. I worked on it before it actually started production. So I was on it so early with fitting, with Michael Keaton and Jenna Ortega and Catherine O’Hara and Winona Ryder. So I saw elements of it and then it went to film in the UK. When it came back, I got to dress it on mannequins for promotional events. It’s so interesting to see the way that they paint the silk for Beetlejuice’s moss makeup for his face, it also stains the silk on the jacket. Or on Monica Bellucci’s black wedding dress, there’s all this textural aging and the plastics and painting and stuff that just really makes things really 3D. I would love to just set up my garage and go to town, you know?
When you’re working as a team, who comes up with the ideas? Does the head designer dictate what they want and the assistants sketch it out or is it a collaboration?
Well, different designers work in different ways. When I work with a designer, and I’ve been very lucky to have a long-term relationship with the select few designers that I usually rotate between; we have a shorthand. So, there’s a lot of freedom that comes with that. When you start off as an assistant designer, you listen to the designer who calls the shots. You want to be respectful and you get them everything that they ask for.
But then I also say I like to have three “wild cards”. So the more that you do that, to bring that in to show you that you have some idea that they may not have thought of, that is gold when it comes to working with an assistant designer and a designer. I found that it’s also something that’s gotten me farther, in that the trust is there. So when the designer is doing like three jobs at once, it helps them. Like, if I’m assigned to one job and the designer comes in and she wants to handle just these specific characters and there’s a long list of other cast that are minor players, then sometimes, if I’m very lucky, I get to be in charge of those types of people. You know, I fit them, we discuss, it’s a collaboration. Obviously, I get the approvals for how they should look. We do tear sheets. We do collages for inspiration boards. And that’s a template to follow. So if all the stars align, then I get to have somewhat free rein with parameters.
Do you prefer designing for real-life stories like The Thing About Pam, where you have to follow a set of fashion parameters like time period or location? Or would you rather have the imaginative freedom of a fantastical story like Snow White and the Huntsman?
It’s truly a gift, I think, to have different projects that come up. Like, you start with one period fantasy movie and then you go on to a contemporary-real show. They all have their different ways of working. And usually, if it’s not with the same people, which you hope that it is, but if it’s with new people, there’s always new ways to figure out how to work together.
And I like mixing it up. I like spending time, like working with these people for Specialty-Made and then, you know, if you do another job and it’s a little bit more barebones, then that’s also a gift, too, because you get to source out your own things. A lot of times, for contemporary it is shopping. So a lot of that stuff is available and they can go faster and that type of project is good to kind of like turn and burn and then you’ve got another one. So you can get that ebb and flow. The variety is something that I think is a really good aspect to get used to.
You’ve worked on everything from commercials and music videos to TV series and movies. Can you talk about the differences in workflow?
Television shows, sitcoms, episodic, music videos, and commercials, all have a charm in themselves of how they all work. I think that the main difference between all of them is who you report to.
For a film, it’s usually the director and you’re like, “Okay, great, this is wonderful!” You know, it’s a collaboration. You collaborate with the art department, with the production designer and then the props people. It’s truly like a collaboration of the heads of creativity, which is great.
For episodic television, if you’re not on a well-run machine, you know like Yellowstone or something, or if you’re starting off on like a pilot, there’s every writer that you have to go through. And you have the producers you have to make happy. You’ve got the actors you have to make happy. Like, you know, it’s a gambit. It’s like The Amazing Race to get something on camera. And then as far as commercials, you’re getting notes from clients and commercials are so short, it’s like a day of fitting and then it’s a day of shooting and then you’re done.
You have to be keen on rolling with whatever people are asking for at the moment. So it’s truly like the constitution of who you are as a designer. It speaks to all these different layers of who you have to deal with. You learn what’s easy for you to handle and what’s something that you should just say, “I’m sorry, I’m unavailable.”
What do you do when the director throws you a curveball like “In next week’s episode, Dean’s going to wear Lederhosen!”
Well hopefully, it’s within normal business working hours that these requests come in! Sometimes that doesn’t happen when your first scene of the day is at 4:45 am. I worked on the pilot of What We Do in the Shadows with Taika Waititi and Jemaine Clement. And it was for the first scene, where Guillermo’s dusting off Nandor and he’s in like an Ottoman, full metal suit of armor and, you know, we need this now! It wasn’t discussed before. It’s all just kind of like making it up and you have to, you know, assess the situation. What can you go out and physically get right now? Because these requests do happen and you always just have to be on your toes.
It could be a look that you and the director and the actor have finalized and it could be already established. And they get the actor on camera and the director is like, “Oh no, I want a different shirt.” And you say respectfully, “Oh, well, this is continuity. It has to match.” And sometimes they will say, “Oh yeah, that’s right, I’m sorry, I forgot.” Or they’ll be, “I don’t care.” And after you die a little bit inside you go, “Great!” And then you try to figure out in your head as you’re, like, running to the trailer to get a different top “How does this happen? Is there a way that they could have changed their shirt that makes sense?” and then it does, then you’re like, phew! “Oh gosh, that worked out!” And you saved the day! And everybody on set loves you for it.
Do you have a favorite look you designed or a job you’re most proud of?
Yeah, the job that I’m most proud of is my first film that I designed. It was called Aporia, directed by Jared Moshe. Starring a friend of mine, Judy Greer, Edi Gathegi, and Payman Maadi. It was a very small, intimate cast. It’s a psychological thriller with a little bit of sci-fi in it.
It was really great because I’ve worked with Judy on five projects now and we have a shorthand. She’s really down for anything. But, the subtlety of everybody’s wardrobe shifted with the little sci-fi events that occurred. If you haven’t seen it, it’s on Netflix! It’s very subliminal. And to play with those little subliminal things that change, you know, you could watch it and then not notice something. But then watch it a second time or a third time and you’d notice other different little shifts.
Similarly to that kind of mentality, I worked on a show called Kidding with Michel Gondry, who was the director for the first season. He also did Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and he is very, you know, surreal and artistic. He comes from the music video world and album covers that kind of make you think in different ways. And that was definitely really cool. To really go there. To really think in fantastical terms to get on the same wavelength as him. I think that was a gift.
And then, another thing! I mean, there are so many because they’re so different. Colleen and I, just did a David LaChapelle music video for an artist named Daphne Guinness, who is a tried and true marvel in the fashion world who’s also a musical artist. It was called Volcano and it was based on the movie Eyes of Laura Mars with Faye Dunaway in the 70s. It’s very campy and fun and so LaChapelle and it was fun from beginning to end. It was just a blast!
What advice can you give to someone trying to break into the industry today?
The best advice that I would give to somebody starting in the costume world is if you’re on a job, check-in and always ask if there’s anything more you can do. The more times that you repeat this question to the people in charge, the more is revealed about what you are able to do and what you offer to the creative team.
Everybody always loves to hear that someone has an interest beyond the tasks at hand and when those are done, and you clock out. I’ve always been the person to offer and it’s always appreciated when other people ask that question.
