Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

A Big Handful of Hollywood

Jen: Lisa often works as a background actor on movies and TV shows, and I’m used to getting phone calls from her letting me know she’s not going to be available because she’s going to be playing a recovering nymphomaniac (in the movie Domino), a dead nun (in the TV show Angel), a hooker (in half a dozen different shows—does that mean she’s easily typecast? *snicker*).

Often Lisa will call me with just a title of a movie, and I’ll go into research mode and see what I can find out about it on the net. All for research purposes of course. We wouldn’t want Lisa to head blind onto a movie set and act like a dork in front of our favorite hottie flavor actor of the month (and yes she’s done that, but so have I, because yes, we’re just that not cool.)

About a year ago, Lisa called me to tell me she was working on another movie, but this time as a specialty costumer. Lisa’s a kick-ass designer—she made outfits she wore to several award shows including the Grammys, the SAG Awards, and several others. This time she wasn’t designing, but she was getting to work with leather, creating belts and straps for a costume.

I asked her what movie she was working on. She told me that the movie was DragonballZ, so I went on my merry way to IMDB.com to get the deets. And lo and stinking behold, one of our favorite actors of all time, the yummy James Marsters, was playing one of the main roles.

I squealed, and somehow Lisa interpreted my squeal to mean “OMG James Marsters is in that movie and he’s playing the role of Piccolo.” To which Lisa returned her own squee, “OMG, the costume I’m working on is for the character of Piccolo.”

We squealed and OMGed our way through that conversation, as we have many times before.

Lisa: Yeah, there I was, holding what almost became the crotch of the costume (It got redesigned and ultimately wasn’t used. Wait. That didn’t come out right. The costume had a crotch when all was said and done, just not the one I had been working on while on the phone with Jen!) and being all giddy. I mean, we’d actually met James Marsters before. He’s so awesome.

Unfortunately, I was too far down on the totem pole to do any of the costume fittings, but that’s okay because I was just glad to know the costume I was working on was for an actor I totally adore.

I spent a good three weeks doing nothing but cutting leather and vinyl strips to turn into the arm straps on his costume (see the circle in the above picture of James Marsters as Lord Piccolo). I am fairly certain I made enough straps for a BDSM convention. Movies don’t just use one suit. There’s the close-up suit, the action suit, the two multi-purpose spare suits, a couple of stunt suits…the extra straps and buckles in case any of the others fell apart. There were six straps per arm. And once I built the straps, I got to install them (hand sewing leather that thick is absolutely no fun!!!!) and then install the arm covers on the costume by hand as well.

It was a fantastic experience and I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Jen: This is just one more gem that’ll probably get used in a Hollywood Heat story someday. The costumer heroine having to, um, sew the crotch on the costume being worn by the hottie hero. Yeah, we could have fun with that.

If you’re interested in seeing how Hollywood—specifically stuntmen—have inspired us before, check out Driven to Distraction, available in both ebook and paperback. And for non-fiction Hollywood experiences, check out the Tales from Hollywood page on our website.