Pan's Labyrinth
Jones Talks Pan's Labyrinth Costumes
"He mentioned the pale man in that first e-mail as well and I thought,
'Oh right, you cheap ass,'" said Jones. "'You've got me in Spain,
you want me for free, you get a second character out of me. Right.' But
after seeing the film and seeing how it all came together, I'm looking at
it and I can see like, 'Okay, if Pan is creating these tests for Ofelia
to pass to claim her birthright or whatever, could the Pale Man not be a
creation of Pan?' Anything's possible in this world that he's from. So I
looked at it that way and then it made sense on film. Guillermo doesn't
make any decisions that aren't really calculated, so to have me play both
parts was something that he had in mind. I really trust that man. if he
wanted me to take a crap on film, I would take that crap and I would know
that he would form it into some piece of art that would be gorgeous and
we'd be winning awards next year for it."
The two creatures carry themselves completely differently, which was a combination
of Del Toro and Jones' influences. "With Guillermo, what he does is
he directs me ahead of time. We get together and we meet and he will give
me physical quirks and characteristics he'd like to see along with character
development ideas and what not. I get to go home and put my own spin on
that and practice that and rehearse that, go in front of mirrors at the
gym and get posturing and movement. And then also when doing the dialogue
as well, putting my own spin on that as well. So Pan was interesting too
because he aged backwards. I don't know if any of you caught that when you
saw the film. The first time you see him, he's a big grayer, his hair. One
of his ram horns is kind of eaten away at the end and his whole coloration,
and I was carrying myself a little bit more hunched, my steps weren't as
smooth. By the end, he's auburn hair, his horns are completed and shiny
and he's more erect and fluid. So that was a subtlety that again, I didn't
even ask questions. I just said, 'He's aging backwards. For some reason,
I'm gonna go with this.' But to me, he might have gotten younger and stronger
and more fluid and more powerful as the movie goes on because if this is
a part of Ofelia's imagination, we don't even know for sure is it real or
is it imaginary, if it is, she's depending more on this fantasy life throughout
every step of the way in the movie because her reality is getting worse
and worse."
The Pale Man is only in one scene, so he's not aging either way, but there
was still a process. "The Pale Man evolved as well. At first, Guillermo
even thought that he should maybe have a gallop to him of some sort, that
is fast and terrifying in a you can't get away from me sort of way. But
what he evolved into is what you saw on film where he's creepy, crawly and
has a stiff I've been asleep for a long time sort of walk to him. But he's
still scary. And he's moving slower. Ivana was running down the hallway
much faster than I was coming after, but it was terrifying somehow because
it's like as I interpret it, he's in his own chamber and when children get
in there, they don't go out. So he had all day. I'll find her eventually,
right? She'll tire. So that's how I looked at it. But of course, she finds
a way to outfox him. So yeah, but if you look at those two characters, you
may not know that it was one person playing both of them but I don't know."
Both costumes
were about the same hassle. "They were both about five hours. Pan came
together glue-wise and makeup-wise a little bit faster but the mechanics
were something that had to be plugged in. A lot of things had to work in
concert with them together and with puppeteers operating half my face and
all so he had many various elements that had to be screwed on mechanically
and zippered and pinned and snapped and Velcroed. The Pale Man was more
of a glue down job and color blending that had to happen with silicon pieces.
Pan was mostly foam latex and the Pale Man was silicon because it had to
get the little wartle. Silicon has much more of a lifelike movement to it
and he was piece by piece glued on."
Don't tell Guillermo, but Jones found a way to speed up the process. "In
order to get more sleep for me and for the makeup team, I wore a lot of
the Pale Man back to the hotel. I didn't tell anybody this during the shoot
because I knew that Guillermo would have my hide for it because he wants
me to relax and out of this all. But I had them take my head and neck off
and my hands off but leave the arms and the torso on. The legs came on,
the Pale Man legs were really thin and bony. Yes, I'm thin and bony, yes,
but those were like actual bones with skin dangling off of them. I was wearing
the complete makeup around my torso but it would blend into the bony legs
that were attached to the front of me with my legs in green screen color.
So they could take those off pretty easily too with the drop of my pants,
which I did a lot that week. But this glued on bit, it takes hours. They
would wrap me in saran wrap so that the flaps wouldn't stick to themselves
or to my sheets, oh God. So labor of love. Have I said that before? Yeah,
yeah."
The sacrifice didn't end there. "I couldn't sit in a conventional chair.
When I was in the Pan, the leg contraption was quite elaborate. They CGed
part of my leg out with the green screen wrapped around my leg and other
parts of leg built around that. Very complicated and with the ram horns
on the head, to hold my head up was like ugh, I can't take it anymore. It
was heavy. So to rest, they had like a bar thing with a bicycle seat sort
of thing on it and a T bar this way that I could rest my head on forward.
I couldn't lean back on it but I could lean forward. So it was this one
position. That's all I could. I would eat but then I'd be like, oh, yeah,
yeah, then put my head forward again. It was really a labor of love, can
we talk about it?"
Pan's Labyrinth opens to theatres today.
For more movie info, movie stills, posters and the trailers, go to the Pan's
Labyrinth Movie Page.
Stay tuned for updates.
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