From Vidya Balan's capes in Tumhari Sulu to Nakuul Mehta's Gen-X style file inNever Kiss Your Best Friend, costumes can be as identifiable with a character as the actor who played the part. A costume designer is in charge of designing outfits worn by actors in a film or stage production, satisfying the unique demands of the character. Meet Rick Roy, the man whose profile boasts of projects like Joker and Begum Jaan to her credit, has an exclusive chat with PeepinMoon.com about his work, favourite directors, future projects and more!
Excerpts from the interview:
Q. What do you take into consideration while designing a look?
The most important thing for me is the vision of the director. It’s a director’s child at the end of the day and it is important to add my expertise and deliver the vision. Getting a clear brief about the character’s look and developing different options is the most crucial part of this process.
Q. What are the best looks that are close to your heart?
Anarkali Disco Chali from Housefull 2! It’s one of the first item songs that I did it with Malaika (Arora) and it remains very close to my heart. I did a little bit in Munni Badnaam earlier and it was fun. Farah( Khan) is fantastic to work with, someone I would want to work with every year at least once as she is phenomenal. I absolutely enjoyed doing Vidya Balan's Tumhari Sulu because it was very different for me. I started my career with Malaika and they slotted me into a segment that is good only for sexy outfits. ‘Rick was good for only sexy nanga clothes- that was my slot’. So it took me a long time to convince big directors to let me do their film. I ultimately managed to shed the tag that of being glam and sexy with Vidya (Balan) in Sulu. People started realizing that Rick could do realistic and individualistic costumes as well. But again the problem was I was put into another slot- you can only do de-glam, saree-blouse clothes and that pisses me off, to be honest.
Q. Who do you enjoy working the most with?
I genuinely enjoyed working with the director I last worked with called Aarif Khan for Never Kiss Your Best Friend because he is a first-time director, had no ego issues and gave me absolute freedom to create the looks of his series's characters. Director Kunal Deshmukh, with whom I did three films, works exactly like this as well and so does Suresh Triveni. He exactly knew how his Sulu will look like. He gave me all the creative independence and never interfered with my work.
Speaking of actors, I enjoyed working with Malaika (Arora) because she was the first-ever actor I worked with. She is like a muse, mentor and sister to me. I came straight out of college so knew no aspects about the industry. Malaika was there for me since day one. She took me under her wings and groomed me. My understanding of a body type is all thanks to Malaika. I have worked with Vidya in three films and have enjoyed working with her as well. She is very professional but the first person you have worked with always remains special.
Q. Which actor/ director would you like to work with next?
There’s a long list of directors. I love watching Imtiaz (Ali)’s film, so he is on my list. See, I want to work with directors who make different films and give me the liberty to express with my craft, with no hang-ups of name or fame. I never aspired to work with a particular actor as I am not a stylist. I am a costume designer, I style the character. As long as the character makes sense to me I’ll be more than happy to dress the person. But at the same time, it’s also very important that the actor moulds himself into the given character. In that way, Ranveer Singh is on the top of everybody’s list. I have never seen a person transform the way he does and that’s a delight for a designer because then you know that there’s nothing that you cannot do with this man. He is an actor and super-f**king model put together.
Q. Tell us about your upcoming projects?
I'm doing two more shows out of which one is a web series, although I haven’t signed it yet. I'm enjoying the whole web series phase as they are fun to do. I'm definitely going to be doing another film this year most probably with Kunal Deshmukh or somebody.
