Costume Designers Sammy Sheldon and Ivo Ceveney discuss designing the high-tech costumes of Marvel's "Ant-Man" in a new interview! Read more about creating the costumes and
buy tickets now to see "Ant-Man" in theaters July 17.
In "Ant-Man," Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) must leave his criminal past behind and unleash the hero within to master the astonishing abilities of the Ant-Man suit! Originally designed by Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), the suit grants the wearer the power to shrink while maintaining strength. Using the Ant-Man suit, Scott must prevent Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) from unleashing the power of the Yellowjacket suit upon the world!
Hank designed the Ant-Man suit decades before Scott found it, so the suit needed a retro feel while also fitting a present day setting. Sheldon explained the process of designing something high-tech that would also look functional. “There’s a nostalgic feel to this suit, which will become clear in the film. It’s meant to look high-tech for its time,” describes Sheldon. “This was great to develop because one of the main things about this suit is that it’s meant to look totally functional. This is developed for its purpose. We had to make something that looks like it really does work. Everything does light up, and it’s all totally functional.”
In addition to making the suit feel high-tech, the costume designers also drew the look of it from nature. “Certainly for creating the fabrics and the textures, we looked at all kinds of [insect] eyes, legs, colors, and color textures,” explains Sheldon.
Those colors and textures proved to be one of the toughest things about designing the suit. “One of the big challenges in this suit was how to differentiate between the surface of the suit and the surface of the red,” admits Sheldon. “We wanted to create something that had an insect-like quality. The red is taken from an insect’s eyes, so we created a fabric by layering effects onto it so that when the lights are on it, it has depth.”
The Yellowjacket suit utilized similar shrinking technology, but with Darren creating it in present day, the designers approached its look differently. “The Yellowjacket has to be created in a very different way. [The Ant-Man suit] is a nostalgic ‘60s suit," details Sheldon. “The Yellowjacket suit is meant to be on the other end of the spectrum, so it’s a totally high-tech version. We had to create a suit for the actor that is similar to a motion capture suit with all the yellow panels on it. We’ve created parts of the hardware because the majority of the suit is meant to be an exoskeleton and quite hard.”
The high-tech design of Yellowjacket resulted in some advantages for the actors. “This was a lot easier because of the way it’s built,” Coveney confesses. “You can do it all in one piece and also, because it doesn’t have to fit on an actor, everything becomes a little bit easier. The minute you’re not having to worry about the actor’s comfort, it becomes easier.”
After all the time spent designing an outfit to fit an actor, last minute changes on-set can result in modifications to accommodate filming. “All of these belts fasten in the back,” Conveney recalls. “It’s all magically hidden. But then, of course, they needed one shot where it’s fastened in the front. Then they just came to me on set and said, ‘Have you fixed that belt?’ I said, ‘Well, no, because you said you were going to give me warning.’ [They replied,] ‘Well, this is your warning. We’re filming in 20 minutes,’” laughs the designer.
Putting a lot of work into a costume and having to say goodbye to your work can be tough. However, when asked if they’d ever consider keeping a souvenir from the set, Sheldon laughs, “Uh-uh, no way. I want to work again."
