S3 Ep2: The Wardrobe Department, Tina Nigro, Bebe Ferro, Catherine "Fletch" Incaprera, and Amanda Johnson

[00:00:15] Welcome to Homicide Life On The Set, a podcast about the Emmy Award winning television show, Homicide Life On The Street, with myself, Chris Carr, and Susan Ingram. On this episode, we're joined by Tina, Bebe, Fletch, and Amanda from the Wardrobe Department.

[00:01:07] Hello everybody, welcome to Homicide Life On The Set. Susan, how are you? Hey, good, good, good. Great to be back. We're still, we're getting deep into our third season here. Yep. And really excited to talk to four of the women from the Wardrobe Department. Yeah, so we have Tina, Bebe, Amanda, and Fletch, and they're, as you're saying, from the Wardrobe Department. And it's a really wide-ranging conversation. We've got some great little anecdotes about working the actors, a little bit about the sort of philosophy behind the costumes,

[00:01:36] and also just about the sort of reality of working in the Wardrobe Department, especially in the 90s, prior to Amazon, eBay, or even computers, really, or mobile phones. So it's quite an interesting little adventure. And anybody who obviously has an interest in filmmaking and maybe wants to go into wardrobe, this is definitely one for you, just to give you an idea of what it used to be like. And there's still some elements of it now. But yeah, it's a really cool little time capsule.

[00:02:05] Yeah. And how different for them working on this show was from any other traditional television or film they did. Mm-hmm. And like you said, pre-digital. So how they had to get in round-up costumes was really great stories. And also, as usual, I love everybody's origin stories. It can be really heartening for people that might be wanting to get into the film business that,

[00:02:29] you know, you don't necessarily need a film degree. Working on a set, working on anything you can get your hands on is a great way to get in. Totally. So anybody who wants to catch up with the show but doesn't want to subscribe to Peacock, there are still a few ways you can watch the show. So in the US, you've got Charge TV, is that right? Yes. Charge!TV, which is at WatchCharge.com. And if you happen to miss their special ChargeCon,

[00:02:59] which was a number of interviews with co-creator Tom Fontana about his favorite episodes, you can still catch those at WatchCharge.com. Go to their schedule and go down to ChargeCon, Charge, C-O-N. And you can catch all those favorite episodes of Tom's and the clips where he's talking about the making of those episodes.

[00:03:26] And in the UK, it's still available on Now TV and Sky. But unfortunately, there's nowhere free to stream Homicide in the UK. However, I did discover that Charge TV, you can stream off that. So if you're in the UK, if you go to Charge TV, you might well be able to watch the show from the UK. So fans of Humicide might be interested in Tom Fontana's more recent show,

[00:03:50] Muncie Spade. So in the UK, it is now available for free on a service called You. And that service is owned by a channel called Dave that's very popular for comedy. So You is their kind of offshoot of Dave. So you can watch comedy shows, crime shows. There's a lot of stuff on there. And Muncie Spade is now available for free to watch on there. So I've been catching up on it. I'm three episodes in. It's set in Bezos, France, which is where Richard Belzer used to have a house,

[00:04:18] which apparently was thanks to Hulk Hogan, because Hulk Hogan apparently punched Richard and Richard sued him. What? I don't think I know that story. Yeah, that's the story. Yes, apparently that's the story behind how he got a house in Bezos in France. Wow. So there we are. And I'm still waiting to see whether or not Richard Belzer will make an appearance in the show in the background,

[00:04:45] because he was alive when they were filming it. But I can't guarantee he's actually in the show. But I haven't seen him credited or mentioned, so he might not be. But I like to think he was there in spirit because they were filming just down the road from where he had a house. And you did mention that one of the homicide, I think he's been on, was on more than once, Dean Winter. Yeah, Dean Winter makes an appearance as a Brooklyn priest. So there are a few familiar faces popping up in the show and Clive Owen plays Sam Spade.

[00:05:14] So it's all about Sam Spade and his life after leaving San Francisco. And he ends up in post-war, post-World War II, France. And it's very interesting. So I'm enjoying it. So I hope you all do too. Just a quick note, unfortunately, due to technical issues, we lost Fletch towards the end of this conversation. She very kindly pre-recorded some answers, which I've inserted into the episode. So let's get to it. So this is the wardrobe department. And I hope you enjoy the episode. And we will catch you on the other side.

[00:06:00] Hey, hey, everybody. So today we have an awesome group from the wardrobe and costume department, including Tina Nigro, who was the costume designer. Bebe Ferro, who was a lot of you guys had had multiple titles. So wardrobe supervisors, costumers, also people that worked on set with the actors.

[00:06:24] And we also have Catherine Incaprera, whose nickname is Fletch. So we'll probably be calling her Fletch through the interview. And also Amanda Johnson, who worked in the wardrobe department and now works as a fashion designer and has her own fashion studio in Florida.

[00:06:43] So also want to mention there was like total more than a dozen people over the seven episodes, seven seasons of Homicide that worked in the wardrobe department, including multiple costume designers and all kinds of wardrobe and costume people that worked on and off the set. But we usually try to get on the people that did the most episodes, which is why we have it.

[00:07:09] This, of course, we also can't have 15 people talking to 15 people at a time. So happy to have everybody with us today. And so I guess we'll just start off with our normal question where we talk to everybody about how they got into the film business and then how they sort of filtered down to deciding they wanted to do wardrobe. So, Tina, why don't you start off?

[00:07:31] I also want to mention everybody has the most amazing resumes and the stuff that you all have worked on since Homicide is just it's so much fun for me to look at and see what everybody's been doing for the past 30 years. So, Tina, why don't you start off? What's your background and how did how did you get into film and then eventually on to Homicide and and and decided to focus on wardrobe? I started I was a fashion designer first and my uncle was Jim Finnerty.

[00:08:02] Oh, right. I knew there was a connection. I couldn't remember. So I had done some pilots for Tom before as a costume designer in between being a fashion designer. And then they needed somebody to come to Baltimore. And so they asked me to come and I said, sure, why not? And I did. And then. So that's how I ended up there. OK. And you started right off with the first season, correct? No. Oh, OK.

[00:08:31] Well, I think I tried to figure this out. I think because Van was the costume designer first. OK. And I think I started when. Because I think Homicide started and there was only like four episodes. Like it was like a short season. Like they just did a couple of episodes. And then maybe there's a second season that wasn't a full season. I came on when it was when it came into a full season, I think.

[00:09:01] So I don't know if that was the second season or the third season. Roland did the second season. Roland did. OK. I wondered. Yeah. Because on here. Yeah. And because. Yeah. So the first season was nine episodes and the second was super truncated four episodes. And then the third season started with our full 22, 23. Yeah. So. OK. Cool. Cool. So, Beeb. Yeah. How about you? How did you get into the business? That's a great question. You know, Beeb's the local Baltimore gal too. So.

[00:09:31] So, yeah. How did you start off and then end up in wardrobe? Yeah. So I graduated from college and started working full time at the computer store where I worked as the assistant to the sales manager. And then he and I branched off, opened up our own place. It wasn't making any money. And he had a mortgage and a kid and, you know, alimony to pay. I didn't. So I just went back to my lifeguarding job. I'm going to get there eventually. I was teaching swimming lessons and I was teaching Deb Dalton's kids how to swim.

[00:10:00] And she was working in the film business. Deb was also in wardrobe. Yeah. She worked in props and costumes back then. And she called me up one day and she said, hey, you've been on sets before and you want to work on a movie tomorrow? I was like, yeah, sure. I'll work on a movie tomorrow. And then that was Major League Two. So that was my first movie. I got into the union my second day of work because the union came in and said this position is a union position.

[00:10:29] And if you want to join the union, you can stay working here. And so that's how I became a wardrobe person. And I've never done anything else. Right. And was homicide the next thing you worked on? Yeah. Probably the next thing I day played for Deb and Mara when they needed somebody additional for heavy background days or if they needed to take a day off. And that's Mara. Well, Mara. We called her Majarowicz. Majarowicz.

[00:10:58] And she was also in the wardrobe department for many seasons on homicide. Yep. Cool. So, Amanda, what was your connection and how did you get into costume and wardrobe? And what was the homicide connection? I grew up from Baltimore originally. And I grew up with Greer Yeaton and Brooke Yeaton.

[00:11:25] Greer was my best girlfriend in preschool. And Greer is actually Pat Moran's daughter. And so from a very early preschool, I started really spending all my time with that family and grew up around the film world.

[00:11:48] Even though I had my own sort of sights, I always knew I wanted to be an artist. And I went to school for the arts. And then I went on to college in Boston and studied portrait painting and worked very hard to be, you know, a fine artist.

[00:12:12] My mother, my actual mother, was a couture seamstress. And my dad is an interior designer. So I kind of grew up in the arts. And when I graduated from college, I tried to stay in Boston as long as I could before I realized I needed to get like a real job.

[00:12:37] And I moved back to Baltimore and there was an opening in the wardrobe department. And I interviewed with Tina and she and I hit it off. And that's all she wrote. I grew up thinking I'm never going to get involved in film because I saw how hard everybody worked.

[00:13:05] And I was like, I'm not going to do that. And that's not what happened. I ended up coming in the back door and working with Tina. And that was, you know, even though I grew up on the sets, like the first set I had ever seen was Polyester with John Waters. And I used to watch Van do Divine's makeup. Oh, wow. So it was all very much a part of me.

[00:13:33] I just was so defiant for so long and just thought, I'm not going to do what everybody else does. And here I am. Wow. What a great, you know, I always love to hear when people started out with John Waters because John was such a terrific director for the crew. You know, he knew every, you know, he knew everyone. He knew all our names. He's just really a terrific director.

[00:13:58] And I always think about, you know, all the directors I've worked with and he and Gary Marshall and a couple other people sort of flow to the top. But to be able to start out with him, what a great way to start in the business because, you know, you sort of start at the top of that trickle down of having a great, really nice, compassionate leader that makes you want to be on a crew, right? It makes you want to be on a crew when you have directors like that. So that's a great place to start.

[00:14:26] So if you could each also go through and sort of explain for the audience the different titles and what your job entailed. Because there's so many different parts of wardrobe and costume on a television show from being, you know, on the truck and from designing the clothes and being on the truck, but then also dealing every day with hands on the actors. And also, and we'll start with Tina.

[00:14:54] Also, I'd love to hear about in pre-production how you decide. And obviously a lot of this was decided before you got there, but you could tell me from, you know, your other experiences how it's decided to show the personality of the characters, which I think is really super interesting, through how you're going to dress them and what they're going to wear. Obviously, on Homicide, there was a very iconic, you know, Meldrick Lewis had his hat and G had the Italian suits.

[00:15:24] So, Tina, do you want to talk a little bit about that, that connection of creating characters through the wardrobe, but also just what your job entailed sort of on a day-to-day basis? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I usually read the script and have conversations with the writers and producers and where they're thinking the character is.

[00:15:51] And then I start to do research and make boards and collect images of things. And then I start to, it also helps when you know who the actor is.

[00:16:07] Sometimes you're making characters and you don't know who the actor is, which is a lot harder for me because it definitely, who the actor is definitely plays a part in how the person's going to look. Except if it's like period, I think is a different thing. But when it's, you know, when it's modern day.

[00:16:35] So, and then I gather photos and research and I come up with like concept boards and then I start to have conversations with the actors. Explain for the audience what a concept board is because I think that's really interesting. There was a really good behind the scenes documentary about the new Frankenstein film, the Guillermo del Toro Frankenstein film. And they showed, they did a really nice section with the wardrobe people and showed those concept boards.

[00:17:02] So, could you just talk about what that is for people? Yeah. I start to gather images. It could be anything from shoes to like a certain aesthetic for homicide. After I came on, it was like me creating the younger, you know, like Callie and Reed and those kind of guys. So, it was like Reed came from the fire.

[00:17:27] He had a fire background and I think he used to wear like a metal that was like his shield thing. So, I just start to collect different images of what, you know, and it's not necessarily the specific pair of pants. But it's like the type of, you know, look. Is he worn out? Is everything pristine?

[00:17:55] And I just gather photos and make it into boards and then present it. And then we, in our meetings, pick and choose. And, you know, oh, this is a great image. And, you know, let's go this way or whatever. And that's how. And it's just collecting images.

[00:18:17] And it could be from everything from, you know, old actors and to like stuff I find in catalogs. Hmm. Tina, I did have a question because in interviewing Tony Lewis, the Terry Stivers character, we talked a lot about her wardrobe. And it's really interesting because we have to, we go back and we're re-watching a lot of things. She had a real like color theme.

[00:18:47] Yes. She was very much in the autumns and the oranges and browns. And how does that, how does, is that something that comes from the top? Is that something that comes from you? I thought that was really interesting for her. Usually from me, I definitely see people in colors. Like I, when I do characters, they definitely have a specific color theme to them.

[00:19:12] And I just feel like with her, you know, she was, you know, an African-American young girl that, but it also was, how do I phrase this? It was a show for NBC. So people couldn't be too, um. Oh, interesting. Like ethnic. NBC didn't want her to be too ethnic. Yes. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I was trying to word it, you know.

[00:19:42] No, that's fine. Yeah, that's fine. I mean, she talked about how they, they, they kept changing her hair because NBC had issues with her hair. And I'm like, what? And it obviously was some vision they had of not too ethnic, apparently. Interesting. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:19:57] So, um, you know, so to me, those kind of colors and that richness is, is, was a way for me to portray that without being, um, I guess on the nose and, and, and not having the network realize what was happening. Right, right. Interesting. But she kept her puka shells for a while, right? She did. That was great. Yeah. Um, so let's bounce back to Fletch.

[00:20:26] Um, we went through everybody's, uh, background. So what, what, what did you start off as? What's your background and how did you get interested in focusing on wardrobe and what was your path or connection to get on to homicide? Had that happen? Ooh. All five questions at once. Um, I guess I love to, I know I'm like, oh, I hope I can say all this really quickly. Um, so yeah, I just, uh, fell into it.

[00:20:53] I majored in film in college and, um, I love to shop. So for, I had a friend that was a costume designer a million years ago who, um, hired me for a TV series that was filmed in Virginia Beach, Virginia. And so I mainly, um, worked a lot in Virginia. I had never been to Baltimore. I was on a period television series called Tad where the costume designer was friends with, um, Jimmy.

[00:21:21] And, um, it was at the end of the show and she goes, what are you going to do? I go, I don't know what I'm going to do. She goes, well, my friend, he works on this show in, in Baltimore. Do you want me to like give him a call and, and see like if he's got anything on this TV series he works on? And I go, well, yeah. And so, um, she did that and then I reached out to, he, you know, we got connected and he had said, this is great timing because we're going to have a whole new costume department.

[00:21:50] And, um, so I, I, he said, you know, would you like to be the costume supervisor? And I go, yeah, that'd be great. So, um, I came up, uh, to Baltimore and not ever having been there at all, it was like a really great experience for me. And I tell you, this team, um, is amazing. Our costume department, like what we did with the amount of people we have, which is like four folks, like it was unbelievable.

[00:22:19] You know, and the experience, like the experience really helped me in my career further. Um, you know, it was just like this huge family. It was the best experience ever. Like I, Amanda and Tina, I just can't believe what you guys did, how you did it so quickly. Cause it was seven day, seven day episodes, um, seven day shoot episodes. And then us, you know, Bebe and I like, you know, like on set dealing with all the crazies, uh, you know, every day.

[00:22:49] It was a fabulous experience for us. And, you know, it was like family. It was like incredible. Like I just can't, cause now like costumes, like there's like, it's a department of like 15 people. I mean, you can't, there's like, I don't know, maybe in college, college little feature films or something. Like they have four people, but nowadays you've got a, got a coordinator. You have a, you know, three people on set, you know, key in the office.

[00:23:14] You have just so many people that it, you know, it takes to do what we, us little gang of four did, which is amazing. Cause like the show looks great. It's timeless, you know, just like such an exceptional experience. And, and I can't, you know, thank Tina and Amanda and Bebe for, you know, just being such a great team. It was awesome. So that's my story. Yeah, because I said there were like 15 people in wardrobe on the show.

[00:23:43] At any one time, it was only the small crew. You're small, four people. And that throughout the seven seasons, there were more people coming in and out. And so what season did you start on, Fletch? Do you remember? Oh my gosh. I don't even remember. Bebe, do you remember? It's been so long ago. I think you started on, on, I think it was three. Yeah, it was three. Was it three? Okay. Sorry. Season three. Yeah. Cause I was, I, I was additional 94, 95.

[00:24:11] I was a costumer 95 to 98 and then supervisor 98, 99. So that must've been season three that you were supervising, I think. So let's, so let's switch back to you, Bebe. So Tina was talking about what, what her job as a designer is. So Bebe, what, tell us what your, you know, you just mentioned a number of titles. Yeah. What you came in as, what you worked up to and what those jobs are for people that have no clue. Like me, I was on the set. I was, keep saying this through almost every episode. I'm on the set.

[00:24:38] I don't know what anybody else does except for the guys on the set with me, you know? Sure. I, so I started as an additional when I would come in here and there as a day player. I wasn't on the regular crew. And that would just entail filling in whatever gaps. It was Mara and Deb at the time, whatever they couldn't be handling, whether it was dressing background or keeping an eye on the background when we were shooting.

[00:25:04] And did they start, Mara and Deb started, started probably, they were on season one and two then. Yeah, they were. Yeah. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. But, you know, we, you know, I would help them set the rooms or wrap the rooms typically. And as a costumer, your main job is on set, you know, being the set costumer, keeping track of the continuity, taking the Polaroids, making sure that if they walk in the room and take

[00:25:32] off their coat and they put it on that hook, then every time on that line, they got to put that thing on that hook. And that's where you really have to focus. And we had our little teeny tiny TVs watching the little screens, making sure they were doing the same thing every time. In between setups when lighting changed. You know, you'd run back down to the truck and what needed to be done on the truck. Did a shirt need to be ironed? Or did somebody's room need to be switched out?

[00:26:00] Taking a costume out that they had just changed from or setting a new costume for the actor to go into after the next scene. And then supervising, it's, I mean, we all kind of, we covered each other all the time. You know, we weren't always just on set. Sometimes we would switch and be like, I need a break. There's, you know, I'm dying up here on set. And so we would switch and go back into the truck. And you'd prepare for the next day.

[00:26:27] That's a lot of the costume supervisor's job was preparing for what was coming, making sure we had, let's say we were going to have firefighters on the next episode. Let's make sure we have those firefighter costumes in the truck. Or working with the designer or the design team to make sure we pulled outfits for each person for that next episode. And we had everything on the truck that we needed. And then once those costumes were in the truck, they needed to be seamed out. You know, shoelaces needed to be put in shoes.

[00:26:59] All kind, you know, all the little detail things. Fletch, you can probably help. No, it was a lot. I remember what we did too. Yeah. So how are you working? And Fletch, you can talk about your titles and what you did. And in that, talk about what, so if you only have a crew of four or so, and we've talked about this with other departments, and people probably don't understand this who are watching a TV show.

[00:27:26] There's a week of prep going on while you're shooting, and then a week of post-production going on after you're shooting. Well, I mean, after that episode is done, while you're shooting this episode. So how are you guys juggling looking at the script and going through and seeing what you need while you have all this daily work to do on the set, in the truck, with that day's episode happening?

[00:27:50] Well, like nowadays, it would, you know, a supervisor would be, it is like prepping for the next episode while the actual, you know, show is filming. And then that's when they have like, you know, set people on set and, you know, people in the office, key in the office. But we, you know, it was, again, it was a small little family of four that did,

[00:28:18] had, wore many hats that, you know, we just made it work. It was just such a great thing, you know, I would be on the truck like prepping for the next episode. But then also there, like while we're shooting, you know, like either on set, giving Beeb a little bit of a relax, you know, to come back, but she's still working. She's just not on set. She just, you know, we're, would switch out and, you know, prepping for the next day.

[00:28:47] And, and then also looking forward for the, you know, in the next episode, like doing a continuity book, but the continuity book was all handwritten. So that was time consuming. Nowadays you have sync on set and you can input everything really quickly. Well, somewhat quickly. And then, but handwriting the old days and like with Polaroid, like our continuity pictures were expensive because they're on Polaroid.

[00:29:12] So, so that, that was something that we did back in the old days. And, and then I can't even imagine like Tina and Amanda, like shopping and, and the tailoring and the, the fittings. And it just like, it just, it's incredible that like, you know, at the end of every episode, they would roll these like racks and racks of clothes that we'd put onto the truck for the next episode.

[00:29:39] And then, you know, they'd go back and they'd start prepping for, I mean, we were go, go, go, go, go. But we were all happy. It was like a lot of fun. It was just like this great group of people that like, it's rare to find that nowadays on any show you work on. It's just, it just was something about that crew that just is amazing. And just, you know, it was a great experience.

[00:30:02] Amanda and I, in our little room up, up near the ramp, there was that little window that stared directly across to Cooper's where everybody at the end of the episode would be drinking their ass off. And Amanda and I would be up there pulling off tags and just like doing whatever we had to do to prep for the next day because it started a new episode.

[00:30:29] And we, you know, and every once in a while somebody may like run us over a beer or something, you know, but it was like we were always like, what the fuckers? Always working. Yeah. Yeah. At the end of the episode, it was like not a good time for you guys. That's for sure. You know, and the design part, it's hard because we, you know, I get a script. I'm prepping while we're shooting.

[00:30:57] So I need to be on set to establish, but yet I still have to like be shopping or do fittings or whatever. So there's a lot of logistics and scheduling that has to happen to try and make that work so that, you know, the design team can be in two places sometimes at once, you know, sometimes it works out. And that's why it's important to have a strong team and people that have your back because there are days when I can't get to set to establish

[00:31:25] because I'm fitting an actor that, you know, is coming in at whatever time. And so I need to trust my supervisors, my costumers, you know what I mean? My people to be my eyes, to see that for me and to make sure that they're going to look the way I, you know, the way that I want them to look. So it's, yeah. Right. Yeah. And that was the days before digital. Exactly. So we couldn't even send you a picture of something. You just had to completely trust us.

[00:31:54] Like now, exactly. Now, you know, they send me, they'll have, you know, they'll send me a photo on my phone. But then, I mean, I remember having pagers. Yep. We would, you know, we would like drug dealers. And I'd be in the mall waiting for actors and get their phone and then calling them and hoping they were home. But usually they were partying because they just got a gig, you know, and like standing by the mall phone waiting so I can get their sizes.

[00:32:24] Right. So that I could shop for them, you know, because they were going to work the next day or the day after. Yeah. Oh, wow. So let me, I want to jump back real quick and then I want Amanda, I want to talk to Amanda. Just for the listeners, the Polaroid, when you talk about continuity, the Polaroids were, and I imagine this was a pretty big job. You have, you know, you have this fairly huge group of actors that are often all on this, when we're on the set, we're on the squadron set, all on the set together.

[00:32:52] But when the actors come up, just for the listeners so they know, wardrobe would have to take Polaroids of everybody at the beginning of every scene. So they knew who was in that scene and what they were wearing and in what way they were wearing that. Um, cause like maybe they ran in off the street and their scarf's half off when they come up, they run up into the squadron.

[00:33:15] So for people, so they had to establish and take photographs before every scene of every actor and what they're wearing. And, um, and like you just said, Polaroids not, doesn't go into the computer and get shot down to Tina. You know, it's all physical, all handheld, all hand, all that kind of stuff is crazy. So Amanda, I want you to talk about what your titles were and what you did.

[00:33:40] But I also want to say when I first contacted everybody, I first contacted Tina and Beeb and Fletch. And Tina said, you have to have Amanda on cause I could have never done this job without Amanda. So I would love to talk about that relationship between the two of you and what, and what that was, Amanda. What, what, what was your, you know, like right-hand woman, I think was how she described you.

[00:34:02] First of all, you have to know, um, that Tina is such a humble designer and, um, you don't always see that, um, in the movie business. She is, she tends to be, sorry, Tina, I'm going to talk about you like you're not here. Thank you. Very. I'm glad my camera's not working. Um, she's very, um, she's quiet.

[00:34:30] She, I think to be a good designer, you have to be very observant. And I think that, um, you have to be a good listener. And she was able, and I was, I've been able to see this in hindsight more than I was able to see it when I was in it.

[00:34:47] And working with other designers, um, I think part of her gift is being able to ride the line between the director, the writers, the actor, and the network. Um, and I think that that really, and her own intuition as an artist of, of how she visually sees the character being played.

[00:35:14] And how she can give them the best clothing props to be able to carry out their job as the actor in the role. Mm-hmm. And so, that in itself is, like, pretty amazing. Um, and she's also, was so good with everyone. Like, all the actors, um, fittings are, like, a huge part of what we do in, in the wardrobe.

[00:35:42] We would, like, um, get the, by phone, you know, they would cast someone, sometimes days before they played, which always was crazy. So, Tina and I would read the scripts. Tina would interpret, right? And, and another amazing thing that I learned, I think the best thing that I learned, was that she does homeless, um, so well.

[00:36:11] Um, Tina, like, when we first used to just drive in the cars together, so whether we were going to, like, a shopping mall. We didn't always go to shopping malls. We went to, like, East Point Avenue. Or, um, she would be, like, look at the people on the street, you know? And I never really noticed the people on the street. And she was, like, this is where I get my inspiration.

[00:36:39] And so, still today, I look at the people on the street. She would be, like, look how he has one pants leg rolled and the other one down. Or look at the different layers. Like, he's wearing stripes with, you know, with plaid. Or, um, a lot of times you can't just buy homeless clothes. You know, you can't just go to a thrift store. You have to be able to buy five of something because it's, it's shot out of sequence.

[00:37:08] So, you have to have, like, five of the same shirt and five of the same jeans. And that in itself, I don't, I hope that it's easier now with Amazon or, like, but we didn't do a whole lot of, like, online shopping. So, you couldn't just add five to your cart. You would, like, go somewhere and buy the three pairs they had. And then you'd go to the other side of town to buy the other two that they had.

[00:37:37] And sometimes you were buying a large. And sometimes you were buying a medium. And you just had to hope that it would work out. And then if it didn't work out, you had to return everything. And, and then, so that's a whole other aspect. So, um, while Tina, like, I think was a master at handling all the different things, right?

[00:38:02] And then Beave and Fletch were, like, really unbelievable with dealing with the actors and, and everybody on set. Tina and I, I sometimes felt like we're, like, I especially felt like I was, like, invisible a lot. Because you never saw me.

[00:38:20] I mean, I would basically show, I, you know, I was never on set unless I was there to drop something off or to pick up dirty laundry at the end of a shoot day or to drop off clean laundry in the beginning of the day. Um, and there's always, like, this, this thing where it's either you're billed as the costume designer's assistant or the assistant designer. And I have always been an assistant designer.

[00:38:50] I don't know that I'm the costume designer's assistant. It just was a way, I think, for the union or to figure out how to pay you differently, right? Like, one made certain money and one made the other money. I think I made the lower money, but I wanted the, you know, I was like, did all the stuff, you know? Um, and Tina taught me, like, no, you don't just take a white shirt and take it, the tags off and put it in the line. Like, you have to tech it.

[00:39:19] And I'd be like, what's teching mean? And she's like, you got to dye it with, like, a little bit of gray, you know? And so people think, I think they think we just go shopping and we just put something on the line and then it's ready to roll. But Tina always was like, it's got to look like it belongs to somebody. It's got to look like it's been in their closet. It can't.

[00:39:44] And so now I always look at shows and movies and I'm like, they pulled the tags right off of that and threw it right on the actor. So I don't know if that answers any questions, but I mean, when I think back and I'm like, it was four of us, it's pretty amazing.

[00:40:06] We had a lot of day players who came and helped, like, you know, when we would have, like, a lot of police or a lot of background. And the crazy thing is, like, Tina also did, you know, background. It's not just, like, Maine. And Beeb and Fletch also had their hands in doing all the background. I will say, I know this about Beeb. She is, like, a uniform specialist.

[00:40:37] And that's a really important thing to have been on the cop shows. And I also got to, like, I would go to the quartermasters and I would pick up the right stripes or the right patches or the right, what is it, scrambled eggs, they called it on the hats. And I was always, like, Beeb was like, nope, that's not right. You got to get this one.

[00:41:07] Or, you know, in the beginning, I was always having to go back to wherever, like, there'd be multiple trips. I'll never forget when we were addressing James Earl Jones. I had to get, he wore suspenders. And I can't tell you how many times I went back to the store because I bought the wrong suspenders. Like, and I had to get the buttons. And anyway, I was very green when I started.

[00:41:35] And these women taught me how to do it. And I'm forever grateful to have been included. Let's, I'm going to jump up to Beeb and Fletch who were on the set all the time. Tina and Amanda talked about how their jobs were, like, constantly prepping post-production, pre-production. But you guys were on the set every day dealing with the actors. Do you want to give us a sort of feel for, like, what now?

[00:41:57] Obviously, we always talk about there was never a typical day on Homicide because you might start at 7 a.m. on Monday and then start at 5 p.m. on Friday. And, you know, you're working all days. You're working nights. You're on the set. You're on the street, whatever. But what, so when you came in in the morning and got your coffee and got on the truck, what was your day like? And how was it dealing with and dressing actors and lots of them all with different personalities? Do you want to give us a sort of feel for that?

[00:42:27] I mean, the best part was, you know, the PA comes to the truck first and gets your breakfast order from Jimmy's around the corner. And you get to get a Scrapple sandwich. And that was, like, the best way to start the day. Yes. And we'd, you know, you might see 10 cast numbers in the first scene. And the night before, we would have pulled all those costumes into a certain area. But you just double check it before you leave the truck with the costume. Make sure the shoes are there or the socks there.

[00:42:58] The jewelry. Because sometimes they might wear the same earrings through different costumes throughout the show. And then we would start by putting the costumes into the trailer. And there was a certain way that you would lay the costumes out. And I learned really the hard way one time that you don't put shoes in an actor's trailer without the shoelaces in the shoes. I was in the truck. And the door flies open.

[00:43:27] And Belzer's standing there. A Belzer story. And he throws the shoes at me. And he says, next time, put the fucking laces in them. And I was like, oh, my God. And I, you know, really quickly put the laces in them. And I was like, you know what? Screw this guy. And I went down his trailer and knocked on the door. I opened the door. And I threw the shoes. And I said, next time, say please. Slammed the door and walked away. So that's how, I mean, and when you deal with them like that and you give them back what they give you, they're like, oh, I guess I can't mess with this one as much as I thought I could.

[00:43:57] And you do get that kind of respect from them, I guess. But we, I mean, for the most part, they were all amazing and lovely. Huh? And like. Somebody said, huh? I said, for the most part, Tina. Some of them. Who is going to tell the story? That's what I want to know. Yeah. We've got stories. Trust me. I've got a Belzer story.

[00:44:24] There was one actor, there was an actor who we weren't allowed to look at for a period of time. Oh, yes. And I tell you what, it's pretty hard to do continuity when you can't look at one of the main actors. Yeah. Where is? Yeah. Because he. Yeah. Because he doesn't like the whole department. Well, I can tell you one thing. All the other baby boys were just great. They, you know, they were like. They were lovely.

[00:44:50] Andre and, you know, Kyle and Clark, they were just the most amazing people to work with. The girls were great, too. Belzer, though, I will tell this story. He, we were on a busy street. His trailer was across the street. And he flung open his dressing room. And he threw out this belt. He goes, I don't like this. And he, and it just went boom, right in the street. People driving right over it. I was like, oh, dude, what, what's up?

[00:45:19] But he, he was, you know, once you had him in a, he had a few bad days, but he just, they were all like family, you know. And you, and with the boys, you had to treat them like they were babies in order to get them to hang up their clothes right so that things weren't crazy at the end of the night. Because we wanted to go home, too. I remember that Clark was like one of the best, most organized guys. He always had everything hung back up.

[00:45:45] But on his last day of shooting, one of the seasons, I went into his trailer to get all his clothes out. And he had everything everywhere. It was like all over the place. He had his hat up on this fan. He had like things just everywhere as just a joke, I guess, to say I've been a good boy all year. But now I'm going to be a bad boy. The one thing I have to say is that, that like, because we would shoot, and I'm sure

[00:46:10] you all remember this, we would shoot winter in the summer and summer in the winter. Yes. And somehow it was the wardrobe and the costume department. Yes. Like, it was our, like, we made that decision. Like, I'm sorry you have to wear an overcoat. I didn't write that it was snowing and it's fucking July. Like, go take that up with somebody else that gets paid a lot more money than I do. You know? Yeah. Cry me a river.

[00:46:39] You know, and so that was like, we would always have to come up with like, who didn't have shirt sleeves underneath their trench coat. We would cut the sleeves off their suit jackets and stuff so that they, you know, weren't. Wow. Cooler, but looked like it was winter, you know? And it was, that was. Yeah. You still had the sweaters. Definitely, that was the biggest struggle in one of the biggest struggles that I had on the show

[00:47:06] because then they would also like, take pictures of themselves dressed full winter with like, blooming flowers behind them. And I'm like, this is not like, if it was up to me, you'd be in shorts and a t-shirt. Like, this has nothing to do with me or my department. Right. Go talk to Tom Fontana and the network. Yeah.

[00:47:28] And because it was such a big ensemble cast, we didn't have like four, five semis with 10 dressing rooms. So did you have to hopscotch them between dress? How did you get them all dressed if we were all on, you know, let's say it was a squad room scene where everybody's there. Are people sharing, sharing? How did you get them all dressed if we didn't have 10? No, uh-uh. They were two bangers.

[00:47:58] I think they were two bangers, right? And they had the big truck that all the day players would go in. Um, you know, the honey wagon. Not one of those guys like had their own like fancy schmancy, you know, like Tom Cruise like truck or anything dressing trailer. They all were in two bangers. So did they have to wait their turn to wait by turn to go get dressed? No, they had it. Everybody had their own room. They came in, right? They did. Really? Wow. Okay.

[00:48:27] Yeah, they all had their own rooms. Everybody had their own. Yeah. But they switched around. They didn't always have the same one. Yeah, the same one. Yeah. So once you get everybody dressed and get everybody on the set, and you know, it also was a little different from other TV shows I worked on. Other TV shows I worked on, you come in at seven, there'd be a rehearsal, there'd be lighting, there'd be all this time, right? And this show you are expected to be, have the camera not on the set.

[00:48:55] You know, the camera is expected to be on the set at call time, not a half an hour after, not like get on the truck and put the camera together at call time. You're supposed to be on the set. But so did that push you guys, you know, because you had to have everybody dressed and ready for rehearsal? And then did you have much time after rehearsal to adjust things? Because of the way the show worked, and it just never stopped moving. How different was that for you, maybe from other network television?

[00:49:25] I think we were stealthy, weren't we, babe? We would like go in, like we, I didn't ever feel like we were stressed in any way. Like those guys, like, yeah. I mean, if anybody was waiting, they were waiting on the boys because they were outside hacky-sacking, you know what I mean? Or we were trying to find, you know, Steve Buscemi would always disappear when he was directing that episode, and they'd always be going, does anybody have a 20 on Steve Buscemi? And it became like a thing after he had left.

[00:49:52] And any time an actor was, or a director was missing, or an actor was missing, they'd go, does anybody have a 20 on Steve Buscemi? I mean, it just became an ongoing thing. Do you remember the Law and Order, the crossover? Remember how Benjamin Bratt, he was such a good, like, so sweet. Those actors were so well-trained and fat. You know, they were like, he would always hold his own coat, and he'd always put it aside,

[00:50:21] you know, like, do this. He'd take it. He was always great. All they were really respectful. And then two days into him being on set, he's like disappeared. He's outside in the street. He's hacky-sacking with everybody. All the other actors, his coat's on the ground. I'm like, it took him two days to all of a sudden become like, our actors, what is up with that? I mean, I was like, Brett, what are you doing? So, I mean, it's just like, all these actors were come, and then, you know, our guys, like,

[00:50:51] were just, like, didn't know their marks. You know, they knew their marks. You know what I mean? It's just like, it was crazy. It's just like, again, it's like a dysfunctional family, kind of. And we were all a family, so. Right. You know, but professional. But yes, a little bit unprofessional at times. I do. Do you guys remember, like, when we would do the bloody, you know, all the murder scenes and stuff?

[00:51:16] And that always seemed rushed, because it was always, like, at the end of the night, you know, and blah, blah, blah. Yeah. And we would always say, we're lighting. Because for some reason, you know, if lights, you know, like the grips and electrics always got the time. The camera department always got the time they needed. Sure. But for some reason, hair, makeup, and wardrobe was always, like, get in, get out. You don't, you know. And blood scenes were hard. And it took time.

[00:51:45] And we couldn't do it in two minutes. So we would always be like, we're lighting. Right. Exactly. That's why they called us camera Donnis. And there was a lot, a lot went into that. That was. That was so much fun. The whole blood thing was one of my favorite, favorite things to do. Yeah. Me too. And even when we just had BG in the morgue scenes, we're like, how are we going to kill this guy? Let's put scissors in his back. Yeah. You know, let's do. But you, and you would also be like, okay, so the person was standing up when they got shot.

[00:52:15] So the, you know, the blood has to run this way, but then they were down on the ground. So then it's got to run this way. And it, and it was also a collaboration between makeup and wardrobe and props because the, the skin was makeup. The clothing was wardrobe. So, and then the, anything that was on the set was for props to do. So we would kind of, they would do their makeup, would do their blood first and then we would follow and then props would follow with their blood. So it was all this kind of collaboration.

[00:52:43] Oh, the actual blood had three designations. That's interesting. Yeah. We had, we had blood etiquette. Yeah. Yeah. We used blood etiquette where we would be respectful of the other departments and how, like where they're laid would be, you know, we used to call each, remember B, we would call all of us blood, sweat and tears. We got this blood, sweat and tears. Yeah.

[00:53:07] And, and we would also, we had a tech advisor that like, if there was one episode where a guy had, I guess, had put a gun in his mouth and had blown his, you know, brains out. And so we had a, we, we would always depend on talking to the, our tech advisor about like, how would, like, where would the brain matter go? We were to go up or back, you know, it was gross. We were like asking, but it was so, we were so infatuated with making sure that it looked

[00:53:37] exactly like it would look if it had really happened. So that was fun. We kind of were gory, but we, I just, we had a lot of fun and it was artful too, right? Do you guys remember, blood is just a corn, corn syrup and food coloring. And then you add a little bit of chocolate syrup to it to get a little bit deeper texture. But there was, do you guys remember blood wedding, which was Danvers' fiance was shot in the bridal shop in her dress and he got blood on him.

[00:54:06] And we had to do, he wore the same outfit throughout that episode. And so we had to take that blood from fresh, bright red blood the minute it lands on him to dark brown blood that had been aged. So I remember pricking my finger and putting, um, putting my finger onto fabric, I think a white shirt and taking a Polaroid. This is what it looked like immediately. This is what it looked like after an hour.

[00:54:35] This is what it looked like 12 hours later. This is what it looked like. And then taking that prop blood and adding different things to it to make it have those darker colors. Cause he had like maybe four or five different shirts and one was the fresh blood and one was the darker blood. And that was super, super fun to do. And that was all just kind of making it up as we went along. I mean, if we distressed now, now I can't distress anything. I have to hire a whole team, but we would blow torch.

[00:55:04] We'd run stuff over with cars. Like we, everything, if we had to distress something, we did it ourselves. An age or die-er. Yeah. An age or die-er. An age or die-er. That's a job? Really? Yep. Wow. Yes. This is fascinating. Nice job. And the ones who are good are amazing. Yes. I've worked with some amazing, amazing people. So what were the brains? Probably like cottage cheese or- Weren't they like scrambled eggs? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Probably.

[00:55:33] There was a time we did, we had a decomp body that was found, I think when it was cold out. And they were, it was all about the maggots on the body. And, you know, I'm at crafty. Like walking around like, okay, so what could we put? Take a banana and mash it up and like put some banana around the wound. And then, oh, look, there's rice. That looks like maggots. Cool. And we'll put maggots on. You know, just anything that we would find, like just a, I don't know.

[00:56:02] We did a lot of winging it, I feel like. So, so along with that whole, and, and, and Fletch and a couple of you all said, use the word family while we're talking about what it was like to work on the show. And a couple of you, I think before we started recording, talked about like the motto and the philosophy. You know, a lot of us had, had, you know, those sort of go words and jokes and things to get through the day. But, and somebody mentioned you guys had something like things that you had taped up in the trailer. So talk about that a little bit.

[00:56:31] Like what was, what was your sort of department philosophy motto, things that like kept you going when bells are throwing wardrobe out of the truck at you? Well, it's, we put the war in wardrobe. Yeah. That's right. Our main one. But I want to show you guys, this is the label from one of our continuity books. And it says episode 713, the same coin, director Lisa Cholodenko.

[00:57:00] And then underneath it says war is hell. So we would always have a subtitle of the episode on our continuity books with the word war in it. So that was one of our little, everything had war in it. I love it. I mean, and this was probably maybe not the third season, but maybe by the fourth season, that was kind of became our thing. Because we were, we did, it was kind of like a battle sometimes to get our time, to get everything done.

[00:57:27] Like we were fighters, the four of us, you know, we were, we were scrappy. I mean, we were doing like six company moves a day almost or five or four, right? I mean, like now in show, like films or TV series, like it's like one, it takes like all day. And so it's stressful. You know what I mean? It's like, we were like, pack them up, let's go, you know, and just over and over. You remember that. Everybody. Yeah, yeah.

[00:57:55] And I will say, I will say that I do remember that attitude of like, yeah, camera and grip and electric can have their time. But then it's like, come on, where's wardrobe? Come on, hair and makeup, get in there. You know, it was sort of almost like a lack of respect for your jobs and how important they were. And obviously we all were, everybody, we all worked as a family, not just interdepartmentally. But that certainly had to be, you know, add some stress to it.

[00:58:19] I do think, I think that it's still, I don't know if you guys feel this, but I feel like it's still that way. I think because everybody gets dressed. So everybody thinks that they can do what we do. And what I say is, but not everybody wears a wedding dress every day. And how many dresses did you try on or your wife try on before she picked that one?

[00:58:46] So, you know, it's, I definitely feel like, and I know now, like at this point in my career, I'm not working with people that don't respect me. Like, I just don't take the job. Quick question on this theme. I've always had a pet theory. Is it because a lot of the time men are ADs or directors? And so they just don't understand the intricacies of these things.

[00:59:07] Because I've, I worked on something years ago where I kind of real, where I witnessed this sort of hostile attitude from the sort of AD department toward costume and makeup. And it was male dominated. And then I've subsequently done some projects involved with a lot of makeup and things. And suddenly like realize how complicated hair is and stuff, which a lot of people just don't understand. And I've always wondered whether that might be a factor too. I don't find it in men because I've worked with a lot of female ADs and they have the same attitude.

[00:59:36] You know, I think that, I do think that it's because everybody combs their hair and, you know, gets dressed in the morning. So they don't, they think, oh, that's, you know, like they have no idea that we might've had to go to seven stores to find that one shirt, you know, or that you take for granted. And like, I, I always say that if people don't notice the costumes, then I did a really good job because it shouldn't look like a costume.

[01:00:04] It should look like, yes, they came from their house and they walked on the set and they're acting and they're the person who you think they are on screen. And no one had anything to do with that. Like that's to me is when I do a good job, when people that, you know, when they think that way, but that's not in fact how it works. It takes a lot of work and effort and, you know. Yeah.

[01:00:33] And Chris, just so you know, two of our wardrobe women, significant others were assistant directors. So did that, that's a great sort of, that's a great sort of question. Did that, was there a better understanding? Because Beeb and Fletch both had assistant directors working on the show who were their significant others. Did that make a difference? Mm. I think so. Absolutely.

[01:00:58] And I know that it carries over to Frank's other jobs because he always talks about the costume department's always his favorite. And he always makes sure that they get their time. And I hear makeup too. I mean, he's, he's good about that because he gets it because he hears my frustration when I come home from a job. I'm like, oh my God, I couldn't even do last looks. You know, this, you know, and sometimes that, that did happen on, on homicide too.

[01:01:25] Like, you know, Yoff, it's in the wrong tie because he got confused in his trailer and put the same tie back on that he had just taken off. Or he decided he really just wanted to wear a red tie that day and didn't want to change. You know, there was that, there was that too. Love it. But yeah, I think, I think that, that, that Frank's relationship with me absolutely helped him with that understanding and giving us, giving us the time.

[01:01:53] And I've, I've worked with some ADs who are, who are as good about that. And then others that just, you know, come on, hurry up, hurry up, hurry up, you know. Right, right. Right. And Fletch's husband's gone on. He was a, did he start as a PA or as a second? And now he's working as a first. I'm pretty sure he was a PA first and then became a second. So he got to see the whole nine yards. Second, second. The whole nine yards too. Yeah. So I guess we'll kick off with Tina.

[01:02:20] You know, are there any particular episodes that really were so challenging for you or, or, or on the flip side, very enjoyable for you? I mean, the season thing was a challenge. The, the shooting, and that was almost for the whole show, you know, shooting winter in July in Baltimore was always rough.

[01:02:48] You know, because the actors just didn't want to wear their clothes. So that was my most challenging thing. My most, I don't know. Because there's one episode in season six where, you know, the squadron shootout or a lot of things, you know, a lot of people suddenly getting shot at and stuff. Or you've got even Sniper as well.

[01:03:11] Yeah. I always let like be, I loved, yeah, I love the, I love the blood. I love like that to me was the, you know, I loved, I also loved homicide because everyone was real. And, and that's the kind of designing that I like to do. And it's like people say, oh, Tina likes ugly.

[01:03:40] I do. So, but yeah, the blood to me and that, oh, you know, like I remember that episode, like, you know, crouch behind, like helping them fill squibs up because we were like running out of, you know, shirts and that kind of on the go stuff. I, I love that type of work that doesn't exist nowadays.

[01:04:08] The run and gun of it all was great. Made it exciting. Yeah. I think also like every now and then we'd get like a, a day player and I'm not. Like looser. And what, the, the, the, what about the lady? Yes. Was it his sister? Yeah. Or Lily Tomlin. Can we talk about Lily Tomlin? Please do. Please do. Oh my God. The hat. The hat. The hat episode. The hat.

[01:04:38] Do you want to tell a story? I don't know. Do you know? I, I do remember having to fit her in her hotel. I think it was the night before she worked. People telling me that she had, um, uh, like she was like a germaphobe or something. So like I was going to have to wear gloves. Like, and none of that was true. She was interesting.

[01:05:05] So Tina got her for her costume, a vintage hat because she was an older person and she, you know, this was part of her character was this hat and it had netting on the front of it. And because it was old, the netting kept coming apart. And we would glue it back together. And then as soon as it was put on and then stretched over her face, the way it was supposed to be worn, the net would pop open again.

[01:05:31] So it became my job with tweezers and super glue while she was in the makeup chair with my hands shaking because I was so afraid she was going to yell at me and trying very hard not to super glue the netting to her nose. Just piecing together these little pieces of netting with super glue and tweezers. She was all, you know, just so nervous because, you know, what if I, what if I glued it to her face? Oh my goodness. Can you imagine? It'd be horrifying. Especially with her. Yes. Yes.

[01:06:00] Because she was, um, she had to sing. And, you know, she was under, I think, a tremendous amount of strain on that one because part of her character was she was a singer and she had to sing in that long ride in the car. And I think that was, I think that was hard for her. And so, so you didn't, if it was a vintage hat, you didn't have a double for that. Yeah. Yeah. So that was a scary, that was a scary thing off the bat. You didn't have a double for the hat for the main actress. No.

[01:06:30] Wow. That was just the hat. Yeah. It's a bit like she didn't destroy it in a fist of temper or something because he, as you mentioned, bells are throwing things out the door of the belts. Imagine that. Yes. Yes. Right. I would have to go into hair and makeup every day and put the hat on her head. That would have been bad. Yeah. Yeah. Tina, can we, can, do you, I don't know if you want to tell the story because I feel like your perspective on it is, is better maybe than mine.

[01:06:57] But, um, episode, uh, four, season four, thrill of the kill with Jeffrey Donovan and our friends, Kyle and Andre and what they decided to do with their costumes. Ooh. I still have PTSD from that. They both were plaid. Oh, right. For that scene where they're pretending they're, yeah. Right? They both wore plaid with baseball hats. Oh, is that what, yes, but they're doing the road thing. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:07:25] And it was like in the middle of the night, whatever it was, and I wasn't there. Yes. Because we were probably prepping or doing something and I had, um, um, yeah. And they, Tom was so mad. So they came up to us, they came up to me and Fletch and they were like, we think that we would be in disguise and we wouldn't be wearing our suits and our overcoats. Yes. We'd be wearing, like, something a trucker would wear.

[01:07:53] So they wanted, um, flannel, wool, plaid jackets, basically. And I feel like one of them had a baseball cap, but didn't one of them have, like, an Elmer Fuddish hat on? I think so, yeah. Yeah. I think it might have been Andre. And so, you know, it's probably two o'clock in the morning. We're on an unused highway in the middle of nowhere, you know, and we were like, okay, that's what they want.

[01:08:20] They talked to the director into it and we shoot it. And, oh, that was bad. We got in a lot of trouble for that one. What the? Because they looked ridiculous. Because Tom was pissed. Yeah. Tom was pissed. It was, you know, in his, the one thing with, you know, Tom, his writing is so good that you don't want stuff to take away. Like, I've done other shows. I've done Kimmy.

[01:08:48] I've done where the costumes are part of the story. You know what I mean? It's just, like, what the person's wearing is as important as the joke and or what the person's saying. But on Homicide, that was not the case. You know, I've worked on a lot of Tom shows. On Tom shows, that's not the case. And so, yeah, he was really, really mad.

[01:09:13] And, you know, and I think eventually he understood that. Really? What was that? What was it bad? It wasn't. Why was it bad? What are we supposed to do? From Tom's point of view. Even if we said no, if the director is saying yes. I mean, I have a story of Yafit. All of a sudden, do you remember the tie? Wanting to, I can't remember what scene it was, but he wanted to wear a red tie.

[01:09:42] And he didn't have a red tie on in scenes prior. But for this one particular scene, he wanted to wear a red tie. And there were producers there. And no one would stand up to him. Oh, no. And I remember going into, I was in the box with him. And I'm trying to, like, have a rational conversation with why he wouldn't wear this thing.

[01:10:07] And he starts to scream at me and bang on the desk. And I'm just standing there going, hit me. Hit me. Because I'm going to sue your ass. Just hit me. And he didn't. But I can't, one of the, there was like a grip underneath the desk. And he came out after the whole thing happened. He goes, I swear to God, if he would have hit you, I would have gotten out of the thing. But not one person stood up to him.

[01:10:36] And then Tom realized that, like, there's only so much that we could do. We can try and rationalize. We could try and have adult conversations. But in the end, it's the actor and it's the director. And in the end, it's the actor. Well, he would even do things, funny things. It's kind of funny about the whole tie thing. It made me remember. There was one time where he would start, he would reset himself with a crooked tie. Interesting. And then he would tuck his tie in at the top of the scene and fix it.

[01:11:04] Because that's what JFK used to do. And he wanted to emulate him. I just, like, that just popped into my head. It was just such an odd thing. Because I would always try to fix his tie. You know, you always want to start with it straight. So it stays that way. No, no, no. I'm doing something here. I'm going to start with it crooked and I'm going to fix it. And his character famously wore trainers as well with a suit sometimes. And, yeah, that was inspired by him directly. Trainers here in the United States is athletic shoes.

[01:11:34] Yeah. That's because his feet hurt. And it was not, I mean, in my recollection, that was not really a character thing. That was just because his feet hurt. Yeah. Well, and then it became a character thing. Right. Yeah. Right. And his, uh, his Sanzibelt pants. Oh, my God. Sanzibelt pants. Which we had, we had Giorgio Armani labels made. I would burn in. That we sewed into every pair. There you go.

[01:12:01] And the fact that he's not around anymore is good because he didn't know that. Sorry, I shouldn't. No, no, no. I'm saying it's good that he didn't know that, right? You don't want him to know that. I would never say this if he was still living. Sorry. Because he wanted, he wanted high end. Exactly. Yeah. Because I had heard that, that he, that he insisted on Italian suits because his character was Italian. And I always wondered, like, seriously, are they really going out and buying like $2,000

[01:12:29] Italian suits for him? Well, first of all, they didn't come in his size at the time. And yeah, no. So he sewed, so he sewed labels it. I love it. I just, I do remember it's going to the account and going, don't ask questions. Just, this is going to save us money in the end. But he looks very smart. You know, he looked, he looked great. He did. He really did. So it worked. It worked even if it was all smoke and mirrors. Yes. Well, it all is smoke and mirrors.

[01:12:59] Everything is, right? Any other standout episodes for anybody? What I remember the most challenging episode were two things. One of them was when we were filming in a really kind of bad area of town. And it was the day that OJ Simpson's verdict was going to come out, whether he was guilty or not.

[01:13:24] And we were told by production, because we were shooting in a kind of a bad area, that if OJ Simpson was to be found guilty, that we needed to just drop whatever we were doing and get out. Because they thought that people were going to come out with guns or, you know, shoot from the windows. I mean, that's the area that we were in.

[01:13:49] And I remember thinking to myself, OMG, I cannot believe I'm working on this TV show and I'm in an area where I might get shot today. And this is cray-cray. So it was a big deal. And we were all listening in when the verdict came. And we were all pretty kind of sadly happy that he was, you know, not guilty.

[01:14:18] So that was one of the most challenging days that day. Another fun, challenging thing that happened was when we did the subway episode. And Andre Brower and I had become super addicted to Mike and Ike's. And leading up to the subway episode, we were told that no one was supposed to bring down any food at all into the subway.

[01:14:49] And Andre gave me the day before this huge, huge, I don't even know where the heck he got this humongous bag of Mike and Ike's. It wasn't a box. It was a huge bag of Mike and Ike's. And he bequeathed me this bag of Mike and Ike's and said, make sure in the subway you have the Mike and Ike's. And I was like, OMG.

[01:15:15] I was like, okay, I will do anything for you. I will make sure you have the Mike and Ike's. And that's so funny because he had also asked Joe, which was my boyfriend and now my husband at the time who was a PA.

[01:15:38] And he said, and to make sure that this pound of cheese is cut into small squares. And Joe made sure that he got the pound of cheese cut into little squares for him in the subway episode. So that was kind of pretty interesting.

[01:16:02] These little things that we did for our little actors that we love so much. Yeah, the subway. That was such a crazy. That was amazing. That was amazing. But I also remember it being like an incredible stressful for everybody, like all departments. Right. Because he got twisted. Yeah. Yeah. And you had to have the fake legs dressed and underneath the car. And who was that?

[01:16:31] Was that did you dress the prop legs and then props dealt or dealt with the legs once you dressed them? That goes to props and it gets attached to the train. That was probably, yeah, that was Jeff. Jeff and Brooke. I think he handled those legs as I recall. Yeah. Jeff and Brooke maybe. But yeah, we had to dress them and put the shoes on. And then just him being stuck. Have multiples for those. Just him being stuck against the train with his wardrobe being all messed up.

[01:16:58] And then him being very, very almost physically violent in his performance with everything moving around. I mean, that must have been challenging too. Even though it's just, you know, it was a very, once the accident happened, it was a very sort of small contained scene. Mostly between him and Andre. But then you've got this 100 people, the, you know, the EMTs and the fire people and the extras flying around.

[01:17:25] In a situation like that, how many other day players would you have dealing with people or did you with a big, big background stuff like that? I don't really remember that many hiring that many day players. I don't know. I think we, on something like that, we would just decide that we were both, you know, Fletch and I would both be on set for a scene like that. Or whomever it was that was working at the time. Like, whatever had to be done in the truck could be done later.

[01:17:53] We needed to be on set, you know, taking care of all these people. So if pretty much all you, all you gals, this show, although maybe not the first thing you did was fairly early in your careers. But then you went on to do like tons and tons of other amazing stuff, features and other amazing television series. Can you talk a little bit about how different this show really was different in the way it was put together, in the way we shot it.

[01:18:24] You know, it was really different. And how different did that feel, either coming from more traditional filmmaking and coming here or going from that non-traditional TV filmmaking going on to more traditional stuff? Was there an adjustment period or, you know, how different was that for you all?

[01:18:50] I know how it was different for camera, but I don't know how it was different for other people. I mean, I think for me, it's, you know, when I'm on, I do mostly commercials now. I jump in and out of shows occasionally for short periods of time. But I'm mostly on commercials, so that's extremely different.

[01:19:10] But when I jump back on a show, I'm always just astonished by the amount of time that we have in prep and the amount of people that we have working in the department and how all the jobs have been like whittled down into the, you do this thing and you do this thing and you do that thing. And it used to be I did all of those things.

[01:19:36] And so, and what do you mean we have a month of prep for this? Like a full four weeks of prep before we even start, before we even get a camera up. You know, that's just, that's not how, I mean, I don't remember how much prep we had before a season started. Do you, Tina? Probably three weeks, three to four. Yeah. And does that mean then you had to juggle the prep as the show shooting for the next episode? Oh, yeah. Because we don't have, I mean, we usually didn't have scripts. We would have the first script.

[01:20:07] Maybe we'd have the first two, but we didn't have the whole season. So, you know, on a show like Homicide or, you know, I've done other kind of procedural shows. It's like for us, we'll build closets for people, especially the main people because you know, like, you know, they're detectives. So this is what they're going to do for a living. This is what they're going to need. And then per episodes, if they have like a wedding or something, you go and shop for that separately.

[01:20:35] But so we start to just build closets and build, like, we may sometimes they'll say, hey, we're going to do, there's going to be a bunch of episodes with fire department. So then we'll start to like gather that kind of stuff. Like we'll have some prep and understanding about that. But mostly all the day players and everything, that's from episode to episode.

[01:21:00] So Amanda and I would have literally seven days to prep for an episode, shop, fit. Have all the clothes ready. We would try to do it day one. I mean, you know, like sometimes it was possible, sometimes it wasn't. But and while we were shooting.

[01:21:24] The current episode and that would mean trying to be on set and checking background and, you know what I mean, doing all that kind of stuff. So it's yeah, pretty fast paced. Yeah, we would I know we would get a script and, you know, if we were on set. Doing continuity and taking care of the actors clothes and so forth. And we would be we'd have a desk right off of where the elevator was.

[01:21:52] That was kind of our little station where we would work if we weren't shooting in that area. And that's we would have our binder and we would start breaking down the script. And we'd be doing that as we were minding the set. We would we would break it down in between ironing, you know, 20 to 30 shirts a day. And cutting yourself open so you could do blood tests. Yes. Yeah. Putting the blood, sweat and tears literally in it. Wow. That's right.

[01:22:21] OK, where are we, Chris? Memories of working with Jim Finnessy in the production office. He was he was a gift. I loved him. Because explain that gift part. He was I mean, he was. Extremely. Tough. But loving. I don't know. He was a he was a character for sure. I think, you know, I think it helps if he likes you for one thing.

[01:22:51] And he liked me. So that that made things a little bit easier. But he was just he was kind of like one of those special people that you you work with in your life and you just carry the lessons that he taught you through life. And the most important one was keep it simple, stupid. I mean, he he drilled that into us. And time is money. Like, just let's go. Like, make it the simplest thing that you can and get it done.

[01:23:21] And don't worry about all this other fluff. I recall. I think one of the reasons why I like I just really loved him so much. There was a time when I was day playing. And this was the story about Yafit. But he left in his costume to go home to eat lunch. And he came back and he came up for rehearsal. And I was like, guys, he didn't change. Like, he's in the wrong costume. He's got to change back.

[01:23:49] And I was very green, very new. I was filling in for Deb. So it was like good job for me to realize that he was in the wrong costume. They shuttle one downstairs real quick. Bring him right back up. And he's wearing the wrong tie. And, you know, Mara comes upstairs and she shows me the tie. She's like, he's got the wrong tie on. And I'm like, oh, my God, my career is over. I burst into tears. I'm never going to work again. This is like the worst thing that could possibly happen. So I go up to the director. And it was Lee Bonner.

[01:24:18] And he's like, who cares? You know, we went into one building and it was sunny out. And we came out of the building and it was raining. Whatever, you know, like nobody's going to notice. Don't worry about it. And I was still super, super upset about it. And Mara was like, oh, this is, you know, it's pretty serious. And I might have to talk to Jimmy about it. And so Jimmy comes upstairs and onto set. And I think we're out in like the props area right outside of set at the top of the ramp. And I'm just bawling my eyes out. And he's like, what's the matter? What's the matter? What's going on?

[01:24:47] So I'm crying and he's hugging me. And I'm telling. He goes, who gives a shit? You know, don't worry about it. You know, it doesn't matter. And I'm like, what do you mean it doesn't matter? He's like, yeah, whatever. You know, worse things could happen kind of thing. And I was like, huh, OK. I thought I was going to, you know, I literally thought I was going to get fired for doing that. And then. Because they had already shot the scene with him in the wrong thing. It wasn't before that. It was after it had been shot. Right. Right. We're not going to go back and fix it. Yeah. That's why you were crying because they'd already shot it. Right. Yeah.

[01:25:17] Oh, it was I was devastated. You know, like I screwed up. It was my one job that I had to make sure he was wearing the right thing. And he wasn't. And Lee Bonner, what a good director to have in that situation to be like totally chill about it. Completely so even keeled. Like whatever. That's great. That's a good Jimmy story. Yeah. And how he kept, you know, the trains running, you know, and, you know, and he wanted to make sure we got done so that we could be done and go have your life. Well, he also was a crew person.

[01:25:46] Like he came from he was a grip. So he knows how hard we work and he knows he knew, you know. So I do think he respected people that worked hard. He saw who did and who didn't. He didn't. He was no bullshit, you know. And, you know, you come in, you do your job, you keep your head down, you know, go to the bar and have a drink. Right. Yeah. But he also gave people opportunity. He pushed you. Mm-hmm.

[01:26:18] Into your next level. Oh, you can do this. You know, I think I have faith in you. You can bump up to the next thing. I know he did that for a couple people, me included. And I do have to say that both, like, you know, the memories of homicide and everybody, how they talk about it's a family. And, you know, I still, I did Oz in New York.

[01:26:45] And to this day, I still meet background prisoners that say that was the best job I ever had. It was like a family. I've never had another job like that before. And they were like, you know, prisoner number 322.

[01:27:01] Like, so there was definitely something about Tom and Jimmy and that made people feel, you know, like we were all kind of in the trenches together and we were going to get this done. And, yeah. Yeah, I definitely remember that about Tom. He would always, you know, when he showed up at the end of an episode, there was always a raising a glass and thanking everybody.

[01:27:29] There was always this appreciation, I feel like, that came from Tom for everybody's hard work. And, you know, he just, he knew what we were going through. He knew how hard that show was. And you felt that he cared about what we were doing as crew, you know, as crew. Yeah. I also think some of that feeling is because I think we also felt like we were working on something meaningful.

[01:27:55] Like we weren't working on some fluff or overly violent, you know, uber thing, uber violent thing to be violent, just to be violent or sensational. That really the content, on top of the crew experience, the content, I think, made you feel like this is a worthwhile thing we're doing, too, in the middle of how crazy it was, but also how much fun it was, you know?

[01:28:18] Yeah, one of the things that I think struck me when we talk about why it's retained interest 30 years later is also because, and, you know, I don't, when I watch the show, it doesn't look, and I've said this many times, doesn't look dated to me. Even the wardrobe doesn't look dated. Sometimes there's like a hairstyle on an extra that's a very 80s whatever thing happening. But it looks, it still looks very Baltimore workaday. It looks very real.

[01:28:47] But you know how sometimes you look at 90s shows and it just looks weird and old? And it doesn't look like that. And that'd be interesting from your point of view as from the wardrobe people, why that might be. Because it wasn't designer.

[01:29:03] Like, I remember going to SVU, you know, and doing, like, and even when they did the crossover with Law & Order, you know, it was like all their suits were Armani. You know, they were the designers of the moment. And that's not what, that's not how we shopped. That's not what our characters look like.

[01:29:28] And so I do think that that takes, so it almost was like they were dated even when we were shooting it. Because it was, you know, if you look at men's clothes in the 50s, you know, it's jeans, t-shirts, whatever. It's like if you wear it a certain way, you could wear the same clothes and it looks modern now because there's, it's not, there's not like a trend or a fashion to it.

[01:29:57] And because our people were never trendy or fashionable, and I don't mean that in a bad way, you know, it doesn't date them, you know, it just doesn't get dated. It's not like they're wearing Jordache jeans, right? I mean, they were just in their work clothes, right? Yeah. Yeah. The rumpled cops.

[01:30:14] I think it just was like classic silhouettes, you know, which is the same thing Tina's saying, as opposed to a shoulder being like, I feel like a shoulder tells so much of the time. Or it's like a shoulder pads or a puff sleeve or they were like just classic cuts, you know. And I think part of the staying power of the show is the writing and the acting.

[01:30:43] I mean, I think that the storylines are epic. You know, they, they are fascinating, interesting, introspective stories about human beings and, um, and murder, you know. And I think that the psychology of the show is still fascinating as it was then that it is today.

[01:31:10] And I think that the chemistry that was happening between the actors on set, um, you can see that. I mean, the acting is so good on the show that you're compelled. Like when I, when I see it, it's not like I, I go to watch it now, but if I see it on, I'll watch an episode and I'm like, oh my God, it's so still good.

[01:31:38] And, um, I think you're right. I think it, it, it, it, it's Tina, you nailed it when you were like, it's almost like the clothes were dated when we, when we shot it. It was like, you know, so you're never like, I mean, every now and then we do something that was like, we did that, the name plate necklaces.

[01:32:00] I mean, I was going to say, like, if you look really, you know, the urban kids don't dress the way, but in some places they probably still do, you know, like big baggy jeans and two is not a silhouette right now. So that's a little bit dated, but in people's minds, that's what urban kids look like, even though that's not what urban kids look like today.

[01:32:24] Like, and I'll have fights sometimes with, especially older producers, you know, we'll have a young African American kid and I'll put them in, you know, skinnier jeans and like nice sneakers and whatever. And they'll be like, and it's supposed, he's supposed to be poor. And they'll be like, he doesn't look poor. And I'm like, go look at poor kids. And you know what I mean? Like that's like your image of what those kids look like is not, is not the reality. They, you know, they're still thinking everybody wears baggy jeans, hoodies and big gold jeans.

[01:32:55] Right. Right, right. I also think it's interesting that nameplate necklaces then went on to make their debut on like Sex and the City, you know, and like, so it's interesting how things, you know, change and some stuff's just, you know, I still wear a nameplate. I actually still have two of the nameplate necklaces from the show. Wow.

[01:33:19] I still have the black vest that Clark, you know what I'm talking about? By the way, I should just say this. Tina and I together, I think had the most outrageous fashion ever. She and I, not only like, not only did we do the wardrobe, we also had the most fun.

[01:33:46] Tina, I mean, I think I saw her hair multiple blue. I saw different colors. I have a funny story. I worked, I went on an interview for a job and Barry Levinson was the producer and he was in the room. And he looks at my resume and he looks at me and he goes, I should know you. And I was like, yeah.

[01:34:15] And he goes, I go, I had, he goes, you had blue hair. And I was like, yes. That was me, right. But Amanda and I would go shopping and like all over that. Like sometimes the cops would stop us because they would, they'd be like, what are these two white girls doing in this neighborhood? They must be looking for drugs. Interesting.

[01:34:38] I mean, and we would be in like, I remember I used to wear like these platform tennis shoes and, and I always had my own style, but Tina had like this New York punk rock edge. And so together, like we would bounce off of each other. And then somehow along the way, Shorty became a part of the story, which Shorty was like this dog that we found.

[01:35:06] All of us really found him across the street from Penny at the grind. And Shorty was like the fifth member of like the wardrobe department. Yeah. And Short Dog, he's the greatest. Short Dog. I mean, he was Short Dog, was part of our department. And he would go to Crafty and like, we would be like, you know, had no idea. And Shorty would be, you know, he, it was just, it was like a big family.

[01:35:33] And going back to what, like Chris, you were saying about the like intern or the like period of transition. I don't think I ever really found that same dynamic in any show that I went on to. I went on to The Wire. First, I went to The Corner and then I went to The Wire. And then I worked in hair and makeup.

[01:36:02] And there was never the dynamic that I had here. It was so special. And I've never worked with a designer that I've clicked with. So, I mean, we're still, I talk to Tina, you know, every week, you know. I see Beeb when I come back to Baltimore. Fletch, I never see, but that's because she lives in Hawaii.

[01:36:31] But I still keep in touch with everybody here for the most part. And I think that's really something to say after all these years that we still pretty much know what's going on in each other's lives. Yeah, and you can see somebody who you haven't seen, like, you know, especially at the, you know, at the reunion. My God, my cheeks hurt so bad from smiling, having seen people. But, like, you remember the love that you had.

[01:36:58] And it was just like you would see somebody and be like, oh, my gosh, I love that person. And they're here. And it was just, it was so overwhelming. And, you know, if I feel that way, sometimes, you know, Frank will be on the phone with Jeffrey Gordon. And I'm just like, oh, Jiggity Jeff, hi. We're going to have them one next week. I miss you. I'm going to talk to them. Oh, they're the best. Brooke. Brooke. Yeah. But one thing, going back to the whole look, you were talking about the look of the show and how it's timeless and so forth.

[01:37:24] But what's interesting is if you think about, like, Munch, his silhouette was very old-fashioned for the time. You know, he wore those thin vintage ties and he had those skinny lapel suits. You know, he was very 60s. So that was his image. So it can't really be dated because it's dated, if that makes sense.

[01:37:45] And what's funny is I did SVU and then he was, we had shipped everything over to SVU because, and then I ended up being on SVU. And I'm like, oh, my God, I can't get away from these ties. Nice. But then, you know, even Melissa's character, she couldn't stand new things. So you often would buy her some vintage. Right. I just remember, like, she would have some vintage pieces.

[01:38:12] But like one time you gave her, I don't know, maybe it was a new vest and a new jacket. And she just spent the whole day just kind of like, I can't wear it. Like she just felt like smothered by the clothes because they weren't Kay's clothes. They didn't feel right for her. Because she had things that were, you know, bought at secondhand stores. And then Max Perlick, his whole look was vintage. His was like 40s look. Yeah, true. I had never thought about that. Yeah.

[01:38:39] I think that kind of helps, yeah, that helps make it seem less, you know, because it wasn't that trend of that day. It was, you know, these guys were wearing some vintage or used clothes or whatever. But speaking of ties, I have a funny, technically sometimes the clothing can be an issue for the sound department.

[01:39:04] And Bruce Latecki, I remember him coming into the wardrobe office and taking the ties and rubbing them with his hand up to his ear and saying, no. And then the next time, no. You know, like he was governing what ties we were going to put on. It's like, dude, figure it out. Like this is what they're wearing. This is established. These are the fabrics that we're working with.

[01:39:30] Like we don't, we don't really have control about like over that so much. He was very particular about the sound of the clothes. Yeah. Yeah. Just about silhouettes from a minute. I was just thinking of, I picturing Andre in my mind and his, yeah, how would you call those? Braces. Suspenders. Suspenders. Suspenders. Suspenders. Yeah. What was the philosophy behind his look? I loved his look. It was just, he always dressed in that way. Body type. Partly. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:40:00] Well, they established him pretty preppy, I think, right from the beginning. Definitely preppy. Professorial. But he, we, we have to make his pants at, at one point. We, we had to, yeah. We were making, getting his pants. Yes. Stay away from him. It was all that cheese. Cheese. He used to walk in from Crafty with a bowl of cheese cubes, just eating them. They're like, oh my God, no, your butt's going to get bigger. Don't do it. I do remember somebody saying to me, like, you can't wear belts and suspenders.

[01:40:29] And I'm like, well, they have to, because they have guns. You know? Yeah. Of course. Because you're not supposed to, if you have suspenders, you don't need a belt. But. Oh. That's interesting. Not on a cop show. Yeah. I remember coming on the set once and it was a winter, it was a winter episode. And I look at Andre and I was like, and he had an overcoat, a winter coat that was waterproof on the outside and then had, you know, like fleecy gray.

[01:40:58] It was reversible gray stuff on the inside. And I was like, that's interesting. I just bought that coat for myself. Because I couldn't find, I normally couldn't find stuff to fit me with long enough sleeves and stuff like that. So I would go to the men's department and it was at, what's the fancy, the fancy department store at the Towson Town Center? I can't, I can't think of it. Nordstrom? Nordstrom. It was from, I went to Nordstrom's into the men's department and bought myself a winter coat and I go on the set.

[01:41:26] It's Andre's coat, which, which goes to talk about the way that you bought things off the rack that were real people clothes. I mean, that was real people clothes. It wasn't Armani. It wasn't what it was. It was something I could actually buy at a department store. And I still have that. I still have that coat. Great coat. Really terrific coat. That's awesome. So to Chris, do you want to ask your signature question? Oh, yes. Yeah. So you sort of mentioned Scrapple earlier, but we, we, we've been asking people about

[01:41:54] some food memories of Baltimore because the camera team were living off gizzards and the writers were living off Scrapple and coffee apparently. But what were you guys sort of surviving on? Or your favorite things. Or your favorite places as well. What was, yeah. What were your food memories of Baltimore? The few things that I survived on when I was working on Homicide were about three things. They were cigarettes, powerhouse sandwiches from the grind, which were amazing. And lots of red wine.

[01:42:24] That's what got me through all of it. It was amazing. Yeah. Well, the, I think that Pat Moran coined the frozen coffee drink from the grind as the velvet. What did she call it? Velvet. It was a granita, right? Yeah. It was a granita, but she called it the velvet jolt, I think is what she called it. A velvet jolt. So that was delicious. Just, I mean, anything really from the grind was, was great.

[01:42:51] But the scrapple sandwiches for me from Jimmy's and I was a big fan of when the Teamsters would go into Lexington Market and get a big old thing of chicken livers. Yeah. Me too. Throw some hot sauce on it. That was fantastic. The livers and the gizzards when the guy, the Grips Electric would get it from like the corner stores where we, you know, whatever neighborhood we happen to be in. And I was like shocked the first time I had was like, oh my God, that's so good. It was delicious.

[01:43:16] I think the first two years I probably lived off, I remember Brooke and Jeff gave me, they had like a promotion for Jiffy Pop. So I got boxes and I would literally just eat Jiffy Pop every dinner. I didn't have plates. I had Ford's kid's bed, his son's bed and dresser. But yeah, Jiffy Pops. But then I do love the Baltimore, the shrimp and crab cakes.

[01:43:45] Still to this day. Yeah. Try and replicate them. Those crab cakes. Amanda, how about you? Any food memories? Yeah. Coffee and cigarettes. Yeah. That's true. And Diet Coke. Yeah. It was. And Diet Coke. I mean, how often were we just sitting on the back of the prop truck just drinking a Diet Coke and smoking a cigarette? That's just what we did. Right. And on the set, in between. Yeah. Ford would know my car because it would be Diet Coke cans, MapQuest maps for me to get

[01:44:14] to because we used to have to print out. Like we didn't have GPS or anything. And cigarette cartons in my backseat. I remember passing cigarettes around in between shots when we're working outside. Just like, oh, I'm not even a smoker. Just give me some of that and just pass it back and forth between whoever had one at the moment. Well, that was the, in the beginning, at least, I'd say like maybe season four or five, like,

[01:44:41] you know, you just walk on the prop truck and be like, hey, can I get a pack of cigarettes? And they're like, yeah, here you go. They had your drawer full of them and you just, you know, take your pick, whatever kind you want it. $500 a carton or something. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Yeah. I don't think that happens anymore. Well, cool. Okay. As we're coming into our last section, does anybody want to talk about what homicide meant for them in their career and what they're working on now? No, but I'm available if anybody's hiring. There you go.

[01:45:10] Bebe Faro, find her online. Because you have a website. You have a contact. You have a contact on the website? I do. Bebe Faro Styling. Bebe Faro Styling. I was just on that today. .com. Check her out. Oh, I meant to tell you, I was looking through the clips, the clips on your website. And the one with Ray Lewis and Peyton Manning is so good. And just, you know, our football season here was foreshortened.

[01:45:39] We didn't get into the playoffs this year. But it was so nice to hear Ray Lewis talking about the good old days and getting into the Super Bowl. It was just, that was, but also just really good. Good looking clip. And also their wardrobe looked great. They did. He looked great in his all white. They looked great. I'm sorry. Well, he showed up in that. I'm not going to take credit for that. He did show up in that. Peyton, I got him dressed, but he had a stylist from out of town send that.

[01:46:07] But that kind of show, working on Peyton's Places and things like that, when you're working with, I think my hierarchy of working with people is I want to work with sports celebrities first or sports people and then musicians. Interesting. And then I'll take the actors. And no shade to any actors who I love and work with. But like when you're in a room where you have these sports legends having a conversation,

[01:46:35] talking about specific plays that they played. And you're just like, wow, I'm just here listening to this and I'm getting paid to do this. This is insane. Like, what is my life? Like, this is so cool. And, you know, having worked with sports people, I love getting to work on commercials with football players and baseball players. I just think that's the coolest part of my job. Yeah, that interview was great because, and I'm getting off topic here, but the respect

[01:47:04] that Ray Lewis and Peyton Manning had for each other, even though Ray Lewis's whole job was to knock him on the ground. It was really interesting. And Fletch, how about you? I owe a lot of my career to Homicide Life on the Street because of how incredible our team was, how hard we worked. And, you know, since that time, I've gotten to work on projects in South Africa. I worked on Hotel Rwanda.

[01:47:33] I went to Paris and was Kate Hudson's dresser. I worked with Terrence Malick on a film in Virginia, but then I went to England to work on it and was Christian Bale and Christopher Plummer and Colin Farrell's dresser and also the costume supervisor of the project. I've worked with David Fincher. I mean, I've done a lot of really cool things and worked with a lot of really cool directors.

[01:48:02] But the most coolest thing I've ever experienced was Homicide Life on the Street because the crew and everyone working on that project were really amazing and really instrumental in building my career and my ethics and my work habits and everything. It was actually the best time of my life and still is the best time of my life.

[01:48:28] Right now, I'm working on a project called Untamed for Netflix. It stars Eric Bana and it's the second season. And I'm very excited about it. We're shooting in Oahu and we're going to be going over to the Big Island and then also go to Zion, Utah for the series. And I'm really excited about this project. So it's really good to be working actually where I live, which I live in Hawaii.

[01:48:58] And I love the crew here too, but nothing is better than the Homicide crew because they are always going to be the most important people to me because that was the most special time in my life that I've ever had. And, you know, I think Homicide Life on the Street will go on and on because, you know, it's meant to be.

[01:49:28] Tina, you got anything you're working on now or coming up? No, I just finished the four seasons, the second season of the four seasons on Netflix. And in between, I volunteer and work at an animal shelter, which is really what I want to do. So I'm trying to get into semi-retirement so I can kind of just do that. Do you want to give a shout out to that animal shelter? Puppy Kitty New York City. Puppy Kitty New York City.

[01:49:58] Oh, I love it. That's great. Yeah, that's one of the things on my list I think about when retiring too. Amanda, how about you? So Amanda, you've got your own fashion design studio and art studio combined in Delray Beach, is it? Florida. Yeah, so I've been here 17 years. Holy crap. I know.

[01:50:25] And I met my husband here who is also an artist and we started our own art gallery called Amanda James Gallery. And it's just because his name is James. And it's kind of two things or it's multiple things under one roof.

[01:50:45] And he does custom framing and he's a photographer and we collect Florida highwaymen, which is just a really interesting niche. It's 26 African-American painters that painted Florida landscape. Oh, neat. And they painted during the Jim Crow era. And they were not allowed to show paintings in regular galleries because of the color of their skin.

[01:51:13] And there's three of them still living. And so we collect them, restore them. And sometimes we reframe them. But we have a huge part of our space that's dedicated to their work. And that is a passion as well as just it brings all kinds of interesting people in. And we feel very lucky to be shepherds of that kind of work.

[01:51:40] And then, oddly enough, I ended up getting into fashion. I make my own fabrics out of my paintings and I turn them into resort wear, which sometimes when I say this out of my mouth, I actually can't believe it. Because I skate the line between preppy and punk.

[01:52:08] And that is somehow I'm able to do that here. And I dress a lot of conservative, wealthy women. And it's just every season. And this is my season. So from really January until May, I do a lot of trunk shows.

[01:52:33] And I go to a lot of like over-the-top communities. And I dress these ladies. And I always feel like somewhat of like, I don't know. I never quite have, I'm learning that I do belong there. But sometimes I'm just like, I'm just like this crazy Baltimore girl that had pink hair. And they would never know. They would never know.

[01:53:03] You know what I mean? I just kind of camouflage in there. Right. And sell a lot of fabulous dresses. And I always, most of my shows are connected to a cause. And I do, I donate a lot to either women in recovery or women who have had violence in their lives. So I do a lot to help women. I'm sorry.

[01:53:31] And you're, and say you're, and Tina too, say your websites so people could get more info. So I'm amandajohnsonstudio.com. Okay. Or amandajamesgallery.com. Okay. And Tina, you have a website too, correct? Uh-huh. tinanigro.com. I do want to tell everyone, these women have had amazing careers. Please look at their websites and or check out their IMDb pages and see what they've done

[01:54:00] and go watch their stuff because they are an amazing group of women. Thank you. Thank you for having us on. Yeah. And buy Amanda's dresses because everyone will compliment you and tell you how amazing you look. Good, good. I have a shirt on today, but you don't see me, so. Oh, yay. You did that on purpose, Tina. Yeah. Right. Thank you so much. It's been awesome. Well, thank you guys. We appreciate it. Thank you all.

[01:54:46] So that was the wardrobe department. I hope everybody enjoyed that. Susan, how was it for you? That was so much fun. Yeah. I've said in multiple episodes that I think I'm learning as much as our listeners sometimes because, you know, I don't like that word silo that everybody uses these days. But, you know, one thing, especially, and I don't mean to differentiate this from non-union sets,

[01:55:13] but on a union set, everybody stays in their department, basically. Yeah. Obviously, we help each other out. But everybody has a very directed job. There's 100 people on the set. Everybody's doing their own job. It looks like chaos, but everybody's doing their own job at once. So I don't know a whole lot about everybody else's jobs because I was so concentrated on my job.

[01:55:35] And I didn't grow up in part of the industry where I'm doing every job, which is also a good way to learn about filmmaking, is to start on small productions and do every job. I really never did that. I basically started in camera from college, and the first non-union job I did was in camera. So the stories they told about all the different things they have to keep track of

[01:56:01] and all the different layers of things you have to do in the wardrobe department, you know, from prepping while we're shooting, from going out and buying. And I love what you said earlier in the intro, Chris. Talk a little bit about, you know, what that means in a pre-digital society. What does that mean 30 years ago if you want to get five of the same pairs of pants or, you know, 10 of the same shirts? Yeah.

[01:56:30] Well, as they were saying, like, you know, they would have to – they would find maybe three of the shirts in one store and then find two matching shirts in another store because they have to have five of everything. And I particularly enjoyed Tina's story in which she was worried she'd be mistaken for a drug dealer as she was waiting with her pager by a payphone, waiting for measurements to come in from the office. And then she would go and buy those items.

[01:56:57] And it's a really kind of crazy way to operate, but that was how we used to have to do things. And considering there was only four of them, that's really phenomenal. And I just loved their little thing about how they put the war in wardrobe. And they were a real sort of tight-knit department who were really kind of on it. So, yeah, it was such a – yeah, just such a fascinating thing because we take so many things for granted now. You know, with Amazon, you can order multiple items and know it will come at a very specific time if you have Amazon Prime.

[01:57:26] Not that they're a sponsor, but, you know, if you have certain – Not a sponsor. No. Might as well get SpaceX. They're really into the money at the moment. For sure. So, yeah. So, no, we live in this age now where there's so many things that can just be delivered, you know, ordered the night before and delivered the next day. And that just didn't exist back then. Especially also the – like the Lily Tomlin story is kind of interesting because, obviously, they had this vintage hat and from what I understand, they only had really one of them because it was a one-of-a-kind

[01:57:56] and it had some netting on it that was very fragile. And so that was the bit that they could keep replacing. And then on top of that, Lily Tomlin's sort of nerves expressed themselves in a kind of way where she came across as difficult, I suppose, is the way to put it, or prickly. And so it made everybody extra cautious around her whilst trying to repair this hat. So it kind of became a bit of a nightmare scenario. But, you know, there are so many things we sort of take for granted, really.

[01:58:23] But, yeah, it was a real eye-opener, really. Yeah. And the fact that – and I think Lily Tomlin felt a little – I think they described her as being, you know, under pressure because of the kind of character she was playing and she had to sing. And fast shooting pace, too. Yeah. And not an easy – if you're a guest star and we're shooting in a way that you never probably worked on a show or a film that was shot this way,

[01:58:54] and there's somebody in the back seat with you or somebody, you know, you're in a confined space in a car with the camera in your face, you know, or in that case it was the car cut in half. Yeah. That's crazy, isn't it? But I don't think they even had replacement netting. I mean, what Beeb described was having, you know, like a toothpick and superglue and having to, you know, superglue the net –

[01:59:21] just think about the fineness of a netting and having to superglue it back together while it's on Lily Tomlin's face. And the way that hat was worn was the netting was pulled down completely to her chin, which obviously put stress on it. But all those things – and back to the digital – the non-digital component they had to deal with. I love the comment that Fletch made was, you know, you couldn't just push a button and add 10 to your cart.

[01:59:51] Yeah. You had to get in a car or be driven, you know, by one of the Teamsters. And how many places, like you said, did you have to visit to find those? Yeah, because it's not even like you had the internet to see buying the item and know it's in that shop. You would have to resort to, I guess, catalogs, paper catalogs, I guess, were the thing back in the day in magazines. Or just go and hope whatever you're looking for is in the men's department or the women's department, right?

[02:00:18] And back then there would have been more large department stores, not necessarily discount stores, but there would have been more, you know, department stores around like Macy's and Hex and Hutzler – maybe not Hutzlers at that point – but Nordstrom's and places that had large, you know, fairly deep, you know, clothing departments for men and women. Yeah. And you remind me, actually, you know, you made the comment and you're right that the show doesn't look particularly dated.

[02:00:48] It's – and, you know, the costumes don't stand out in a dated way. In most situations, there are a couple of bits maybe where it might. But because they weren't looking for designer stuff because designers very much of an era. So, like, if you had Don Johnson, the way he was dressed in Miami Vice – I mean, it's probably coming back into fashion now, actually. But, you know, it was a very dated look for many years.

[02:01:13] So, in the 90s, they used to ridicule that look because it was so dated and associated with a particular era. I know the 90s are kind of back at the moment. So, there's certainly clothes that I grew up with when I was at school as a teenager that are kind of fashionable again at the moment. It's quite amusing. But to get that timeless style, they were just buying, you know, functional clothes most of the time for the characters and things. And those characters weren't people looking to wear designer items.

[02:01:38] So, that was a really interesting note that not buying designer things actually helps the show kind of almost not end up looking dated. That was very interesting. Right. Exactly. They mentioned Law & Order. They're not in a bunch of Armani suits. They're in work-a-day suits and work-a-day clothing. And there are no, true, and maybe there were less in the 90s than there were in the 80s. But there were no really, I mean, there might be here and there, there were no popped collars.

[02:02:05] And you know how everybody, and I did it, you used to roll the sleeves of your jacket up and have like a contrasting shirt underneath and have that rolled up. So, you had your jacket rolled up and your collar popped. Yeah, it was a real look. And yeah, but that was really interesting that they addressed that.

[02:02:25] And part of the reason, not just because they were usually doing work-a-day clothing and people that weren't wearing designer clothing and classic silhouettes on the actors. Also, that much of the clothing they were using was vintage or from Goodwill or from a vintage clothing store, used clothing store. So, the clothing already was not of that era, not like pigeonholed to that era.

[02:02:54] So, I think somebody said, so how do you make old look old? You know, it didn't, it doesn't look dated because it already was dated, right? Which is really interesting. Yeah, not a bunch of people in jord-ass jeans and all that sort of designer style. Yeah. There's a question I should have asked, actually, not directly related to homicide, but just in costume design in general. So, I'll put it out there and then if anybody was emailing afterwards, feel free.

[02:03:24] There was a short film I watched a few months ago online where basically it was set in this sort of American Civil War era. And these people were all dressed in those sort of particular kind of, that particular clothing. But it just looked like I was watching a museum reenactment. It just looked so fake. It looked like, just for something about it, just all looked too polished and a bit too much. Everything looked new. Yeah. And it's like, it just didn't quite work.

[02:03:52] It just stood out immediately as this costuming isn't quite right. It's not that it wasn't accurate to the period because it was, but it just all looked, I guess, brand new and out of a museum or wherever they got it. And it just stood out like a sore thumb and immediately took me out of the film I was watching because it just looked too fake. Yeah, it's interesting. I just read a comment recently about some more recent Civil War film somebody was complaining about.

[02:04:20] They said, really good film was fine, but it really bugged me that all the costuming was just too clean. It just looked too good. But was it Beeb who mentioned or Fletch that mentioned you never put a new white shirt on an actor that you have to gray it down first? And she said, but I do see now, you can see now in other television shows that that happens. It comes off the rack. It's super white. It goes on the actor. It doesn't look like it's been lived in.

[02:04:49] It doesn't look like it's seen a washing machine. You know, it just looks new. And I love the story Beeb told about the blood and the episode. And do we know the name of it? The episode where Jelko, where his wife in the shows gets murdered. And he has blood on his shirt, on his clothing through the whole episode, the same clothing.

[02:05:15] And so she did a testing where she pricked her own finger and put it on some material and then noted what the blood looked like after a couple hours, after a day, after a couple days, so that they could dull down Jelko's clothing. So it would be correct as far as how long he's had that blood on him. And it's not fresh blood at that point.

[02:05:47] Really interesting. That attention to detail. Real dedication there, yeah. I know, it's brilliant. It is brilliant. So, yeah, so that episode was Blood Wedding from Season 5. And that was Episode 10. So, thank you, Google. So, yeah, so Danvers, yeah, Danvers' fiancee, unfortunately, was murdered in that episode. I also loved that they talked about, you know, all these things they had to keep track of. And they also obviously had to keep track of continuity.

[02:06:14] Like, did you run in off the street with the coat off or half off or over your shoulder, you know, and having to keep track of that, you know, in the script. And then taking Polaroids of every actor in what costume before every shot or not every shot, every scene. But then during the scene, they're going to move things around. So, then if they, you know, in this shot, they have their shirt this way and that way.

[02:06:40] And then talking about Yafit wanting to start with a crooked tie so he could straighten it up. Oh, yeah. And then even change colored ties, didn't they? You know, bless him. No, I want a red tie now, you know. And at some point, it's like, okay, whatever. Like, what are you going to do? So, and I love the little bit that, because I did think it was a costume choice when he wore his, as you called them, trainers, when he wore his running shoes. Yeah. You know, his tennis shoes, whatever you called them back in the day.

[02:07:08] And that was because his feet hurt sometimes. So, it wasn't a choice of. Yeah. Because his character gets told off by Barnfather, I think, about dress code or something. Maybe they put it in. There's an episode somewhere where somebody makes a derogatory comment from management about it. Yeah. And having to do all those levels of things at the pace we were working at, you know, and having to keep up with all that.

[02:07:35] But that was part of the fun and part of the excitement of working on that show was just getting it done as quickly as possible with the shit. I mean, the shit was flying on that. I mean, it just was. And everyone's like, look over at John, the cameraman, you know, the first, the second cameraman. And he would just be like lit up. Like, he would have this little twinkle in his eyes.

[02:08:03] And he'd laugh about, like, just the chaos of it. And then it managed to come together in a way that was just really, you know, just, you know, really new and exciting and such a good show. It just was good. It was good.

[02:08:52] Yeah. But yeah, I think she was talking about, like, with, um, talking about, like, addressing homeless people and things. There's, again, there's another thing, like, we've talked earlier with the historical things. Trying to make somebody look, quote unquote, homeless is a bit of an art in itself as well. Because some shows, it could look a bit over the top and ending up getting into kind of what I call Charles Dickens theater territory. Whereas, I don't know, they got charcoal on their face. I must admit, I've always had an aversion to anybody putting charcoal on their face.

[02:09:19] Because, um, I, I, I feel like you've lost the battle in life if you've got to that point. But, uh. And then the whole thing of people's and, and, you know, directors, you know, stereotypical ideas of street kids, you know, um, and that, oh, you got to put everybody in a black hoodie and baggy, baggy, uh, pants. And that that isn't necessarily, go what, go see, you know, who's wearing what now. And, you know, stop with the stereotypical ideas of, of the way people dress or the way they look.

[02:09:48] And, you know, I love that she had her antenna up for that. Yeah. Well, yeah. And, and like how then, you know, so that brings us into an interesting area about like expectations. So she mentioned, I think like she found with some older producers and directors that, that they didn't understand the street fashion in the way that she did. And so there were like, you know, expectations that the street person, you know, person in the gang should be wearing a hoodie, et cetera.

[02:10:16] And then also we had network notes about Tony Lewis and about how they didn't want her looking to, um, ethnic the word that was used. Yeah. Ethnic. And like, there's just so many things, so many battles going on in the making of a television program. So it's like, wow. And that extended outside of wardrobe to her hair too.

[02:10:38] Her hair changed multiple times on the show, apparently while they were trying to figure out what they thought she should look like instead of just looking like Terry Stivers slash Tony Lewis. I know. Cause I remember her first appearance in the show, she looked amazing cause they really lent into her sort of background. And then obviously over time, not that she didn't always look amazing, but it's just, she had a very distinctive look in those early episodes and she was very colorful.

[02:11:03] She was sort of a tough cookie in the earlier episodes and they softened her, um, which is what they tried to do with Melissa at the beginning. They tried to soften Melissa at the beginning with the hair and the makeup. And if you watch earlier seasons, uh, Melissa has makeup on and then you watch later seasons and there is zero makeup on her. I mean, there might've been makeup to look like she didn't have makeup, but she definitely, they definitely went, went off from, you know, trying to make her look. I'm sure it was about what she did not want to look like.

[02:11:33] She did not want to look made up, you know, and that she wanted to have a man's jacket on. Um, and she wanted to be very, very, um, you know, she wanted to be, you know, a homicide detective. Yeah. Not a model. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And like, you know, and she wants basically dressed like the other detectives. Um, and, and, uh, yeah, it's, that was brilliant. Um, and then we had mention of Yafet and his designer suits or fake designer suits.

[02:12:01] He thought they were designer and it turned out they were just sewing in labels. I might try that in life. But they looked good, but they looked, they looked designer. I mean, there, there's a sort of an, a sort of a crisper edge that he has, I think in later, in later seasons, um, that, that I think lent itself to that. Maybe you sort of feel like he matured into this more, um, stylish, stylish way of dressing.

[02:12:27] Um, even though they weren't really Armani, they looked like it. Yeah, faux Armani. Mm-hmm. Faux Armani. I love your, I love your question. You know, what's your favorite food hangouts? What were you surviving on, you know, for Fletch? You know, it was cigarettes, powerhouse sandwiches and red wine. Uh, and for Beeb loving the granitas, uh, and the scrapple sandwiches and chicken livers.

[02:12:53] Um, and, and Tina loving shrimp and crab cakes, uh, and Jiffy Pop that came from the props department because they'd gotten a big box of it. Um, and Amanda coffee and cigarettes and Diet Coke. Yeah. Yeah. And I did the return of the powerhouse sandwich that comes from the daily grind. It comes from his daily grind. And I did Google the powerhouse sandwich. Which you've never heard of before. No. They're ubiquitous here. And I'll be honest, I was a bit disappointed. It didn't sound very powerful.

[02:13:23] I guess supposed to be healthy. So instead of calling it the healthy sandwich, they call it the powerhouse, right? Yeah. Oh, it was like hummus and like various other things, but it sounded nice, but the name kind of, I don't know, made me think it was a more protein based thing or something. I don't know. Grilled chicken and something else, but no, it wasn't that at all. Um, and also scrapple made an appearance again, which is good. Um, so yeah. So. Yeah. For breakfast with.

[02:13:51] And as usual, I would, I would suggest everybody go check out their IMDB pages. Oh, they've all worked on amazing things. Um, I mean, Tina, you know, besides homicide, you know, went to Oz and then Lord Law and Order SVU, the unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, New Amsterdam. Beeb, who works mostly on commercials now, also did some, you know, John Waters movies and also The Corner and The Wire.

[02:14:17] Um, and also the subsequent David Simon show, We Own the City and then Lady in the Lake. Um, and Fletch has been on a million things. Um, Mars Attacks, Species 2, before Homicide. Um, Hannibal, Gods and Generals. And then also, uh, if you can jump over to what they're doing now. Tina works for a shelter called Puppy Kitty New York City, if y'all want to check that out.

[02:14:45] And Amanda, who is, uh, also a fashion designer now, has her own website and gallery in Florida. Yeah. Uh, which she also mentioned. So, um, you know, follow up with them. Um, really powerful bunch of women. Um, very successful and good at what they did and what they do.

[02:15:05] Um, and thank the, I just thanks to them for spending so much time with us and, and being candid and really being informative and interesting and letting us all know about what their jobs were about. Um, how difficult they were to do, but how much fun it was on that set with the kind of atmosphere we had. Yeah. Thank you very much to all of them.

[02:15:29] I did want to add that thanks, uh, to everyone who has, who has contributed to the buymeacoffee.com page. Yes, thank you. That we have, which is buymeacoffee.com backslash homicide POQ instead of Homicide Pod. But one of the things that's so, I really appreciate is people, um, are leaving these wonderful messages for us talking about not just how much they enjoy the show,

[02:15:57] but how much they enjoy hearing the behind the scenes stories, technically how we made it, how we worked on it. And then the people that we're interviewing from the crew and they're, they're seeing their names in the, in the credits after the show. So they really feel like they're getting, um, an inside look, but also feeling just more familial, not just familiar, but more familial with the show and getting to know, uh, the crew and cast and creators.

[02:16:25] Uh, so thank you to, to the buymeacoffee.com folks. And if anybody else wants to slap some change in there for us, please feel free. Yes, please do. Cool. Uh, well, I think that covers everything. So, uh, yeah, thank you, Susan. And yeah, again, thank you very much to everybody who has contributed to buy me a coffee. We very much enjoyed that. And I loving the, um, messages we also get on Instagram as well.

[02:16:50] Um, and, uh, we, we get all sorts of messages and it was really great to hear about these sort of different stories about either how they discovered the show, how they ended up working on the show or just how they enjoyed the show and what it means to them. So, uh, thank you very much. Yay. Thanks everyone. Bye.