14/10/2025
HOLLYWOOD ISSUE
BEAUTY PAPERS X ARIANNE PHILLIPS
Interviewed by Karl Plewka
…She approaches each character like an investigator. “I’m a people detective,” she says with a smile. “I start with the script. I read it obsessively. I ask a million questions. I want to know what’s going on emotionally, what’s unspoken, what’s inside, even if it never shows up on screen.”
She has a phrase for what she does: “invisible architecture”. Clothes, for her, shouldn’t distract. “I don’t want people to notice the costume,” she
says. “I want them to believe the character.” Her design process is immersive.
“I want the director to see how I think. I want the actor to feel how the character moves.”
Image
1) Gretchen Mol on set for a shoot for Italian Vogue with the photographer Mark Seliger, 2007.
2) John Cameron Mitchell on set for the film Hedwig and the Angry Inch, 2000.
3) On set for Tank Girl, 1994.
4) After Arianne’s first fitting with Courtney Love for The People vs Larry Flynt, 1995.
