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Costume fitting awkwardness


Phil Rhodes

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Hi,

 

I posted this to a casting list full of actors in London to get their opinion, but if anyone's got any experience in this area, thoughts would be more than welcome.

 

I'm in the process of narrowing down the last three actresses for a part which will involve wearing a close-fitting costume. Everyone involved is OK with this, but fairly obviously part of the requirement is that the person involved needs have the kind of body shape that'll look good in the proposed outfit. I feel that I need to be able to appraise this before making a final decision which will involve costs of several hundred pounds.

 

Obviously, this causes some awkwardness. I can hardly go to these prospective people and demand a swimsuit shot; equally I can't ask them to wear something revealing for a casting session - I could ensure that there were enough (female) people present that it was completely above board, but I'm just not that tacky!

 

So - what do list members think I should do here? What's the best way to approach this issue? I don't think I'm being tremendously unreasonable in wanting to confirm that everyone's going to look OK before going ahead, and I wouldn't want to put someone in the position of wearing somethnig that didn't look good on them anyway, but how can I sort this out without causing offence?

 

Phil

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I think you can certainly explain the nature of the job and request that the actresses come with either a one-piece swimsuit or body stocking that they can change into or wear under their clothes. And asking for measurements and snapping a polaroid is perfectly acceptable and professional behavior.

 

I did a feature last summer that involved the actresses appearing in underwear in a few scenes. One day the production forwarded me the Costume Designer's photos of the women in their outfits to make sure they would work with my photographic plans. As I started looking through the.jpegs I felt like I was on some internet porn site. Had to make sure I deleted that folder from the computer before the wife got suspicious!

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