BWW Profile: Colleen Atwood Oscar-Nominated Stage and Screen Costume Designer

"It's a real collaboration with the people you're working with. Collaboration between me and the actors, me and the director, and me and the story that needs to be told through the costumes. When you're a costume designer it's not about you, it's about what you do. There's just no room for it to be about you in that process. And I think that's why costume designers tend to avoid the limelight. There's a reason we're behind the camera - usually it's because you really don't want to be in front of it. It's so rewarding when I see the film come to life, how the costumes and designs I've invented help create a wonderful fantasy world that people can enjoy." - Colleen Atwood in an interview with Citizens of Humanity.

Are you a betting man or woman? Roll the dice with me. I wager that if you try to list Colleen Atwood's accomplishments in one breath, you'll turn blue in the face. On the count of three, take a deep breath and go. Gambling with your health is the only way to live. One. Two. Three. Begin asphyxiation!

This year the Academy has nominated the legendary costume designer for Best Costume Design again. Like the rest of the world, they were amazed when Atwood's long time collaborator director Rob Marshall unveiled his film "Into the Woods" and revealed Atwood's stunning, intricate costumes created for the motion picture, an adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's Tony Award-winning Broadway musical by the same name.

Are you still alive? Good, let's continue.

Currently, she has over 60 credits as a costume designer for film, an eponymous line of handbags with designs featuring her customary attention to detail, and an Emmy for her work on the 2006 television special "Tony Bennett: An American Classic." She has also worked with the San Francisco Ballet, and the Royal Ballet with choreographer with Alexei Ratmansky. And just recently at the Middleburg Film Festival, described as the high-end boutique of film festivals by RogerEbert.com contributer Susan Wloszczyna, she was honored as the festival's Distinguished Costume Designer.

I can see you're breathless. Pick yourself up off the floor so you and I together can learn a little bit more about the genius designer.

Atwood grew up in the small farming town Yakima, Washington. She married while still in high school, and had her first daughter, Tracy, at 17. By 21, she was a divorced, single mom. It was only when her daughter finished high school that Atwood moved to New York to begin her film career. Late bloomers, take note.

In 1980, Atwood moved to New York with only $800. Her first substantial gig was completely by chance. She met someone whose mother was designing sets for "Ragtime" and scored a job as production assistant to Patrizia von Brandenstein, the first woman to win an Academy Award for production design.

After years of hard work and struggling, Atwood worked her way up. While in New York, she collaborated with Jonathan Demme on several films including "The Silence of the Lambs," where she designed the iconic mask and orange jumpsuit, "Philadelphia," and "Beloved."
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She moved to Los Angeles in 1990. There she got her biggest of big breaks and met director Tim Burton, another long-time collaborator, through a mutual acquaintance. For over two decades, Burton and Atwood have worked together to create gems like "Alice in Wonderland," "Big Fish," "Edward Scissorhands," and "Sweeney Todd."

How does she do it? Like most successful artists, Atwood is reticent to talk about her process. In an interview with The New York Times, Atwood says, "It's so personal. It's not really anything you can share when you talk about it. It's like blah, blah, blah. It doesn't really mean anything. The process just kind of happens in the room, in the fitting, rather than in your head."

She puts her pants on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us. She starts her process by reading the script. She then works closely with the director to understand and begin to realize his or her vision. She follows her discussion with the director with research, she hunts high and low for inspired and inspiring fabrics, more research, creates sketches, oversees a team of expert cutters and sewers, then works and reworks costumes based on the actors' and director's needs. The process can take a total of eight months, but the result is worth it - breathtaking, multi-faceted, unique costumes at your service. Service being the operative word. Atwood's costumes serve the story not the designer. Her edict: "No matter what you're doing, you're serving the story."

Next up for the prolific costumer is the "Alice in Wonderland" sequel, "Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass," Tim Burton's "Miss Peregrin's Home for Peculiar Children," and the sequel to "Snow White and The Huntsman," "The Huntsman."

You can find out if Ms. Atwood wins again on Feb. 22 when the 87th Academy Awards airs on ABC. Be sure to visit BWW TV for live coverage of the ceremony.

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