The 'Birdman' Costume Designer on Creating a Superhero Suit — and Why They Shouldn't Have Nipples

To fully realize his scathing satire of comic book-inspired films, Birdman director Alejandro González Iñárritu had to order up a twisted superhero of his own.

But Iñárritu — a filmmaker best known for tightly interconnected dramas that explored the human condition — had little experience with the nitty-gritty trappings of genre work. And so he sought guidance from director pal (and geek hero) Guillermo del Toro, who sent Iñárritu to special effects-and-creature company Spectral Motion. They worked on the superhero costume, while the legendary Albert Wolsky designed the rest of the costumes for the film.

The L.A.-based shop had a long association with del Toro, dating back to 2004’s Hell Boy series, and up through last year’s Pacific Rim. Spectral Motion provided their expertise on a wide selection of projects, from X-Men films to comedies like Your Highness, so it was well equipped to handle Iñárritu’s off-beat ideas.

“It was a great departure from the other superhero films that we’ve worked on in the past,” says Spectral Motion chief Mike Elizalde. “They’re done for the sake of what they are, there’s no satire whatsoever — maybe there is, maybe something more subliminal is involved, but I’m not aware of it. This was certainly more intentionally satirical.”

In a recent conversation with Yahoo Movies, Elizalde talked about designing and creating the costume.

Once you met Alejandro, what were his instructions? What did he initially request?
His early notes [about the character], as I recall, used the word cheesy. But he used it sparingly. He said we don’t want it to be ridiculously cheesy — but that a little bit of the cheesy factor is good. He still wanted heroic, he still wanted it to look cool, but he said there’s an element about it that’s too blingy, like the belt buckle, and the gold bling on top of his beak and his bracelets: all the elements that made it feel blockbuster-y.

Related: Michael Keaton Talks About Taking Flight Again in ‘Birdman’

Was there any superhero in particular that he wanted to reference, or anything you worked form?
We didn’t want to look at too much reference material, because we didn’t want to be swayed by something that already existed. He wanted it to look like a hawk’s head, and have sort of vulture wings and feathers. The body would be the color of the vulture — that dark black bluish iridescence — and he brought several photos of birds. And those were the real references that we were working from. We weren’t going down the road of Hanna Barbera’s Birdman.

Was there any reference to or acknowledgment of that cartoon in there?
During the build, every now and again, I’d turn on the intercom and play the Birdman song, but there really wasn’t any instruction to look at it or emulate it. I think what we came out with is unique unto itself. It’s a uniquely created suit. We opted not to go pure sculpture. We made a muscle suit with hand-laid elements, with the exception of the cowl, which was molded.

So what’s it made of?
There are several materials. The cowl is made out of foam latex, with acrylic elements. The body is made out of a Spandex under-suit. We had to treat the Spandex so that it’s really durable, almost like a plastic coating. All the scales on his chest, they’re all individual and laid in like a puzzle, it’s just a beautifully intricate suit, we only had to build two suits. That was the right way to do it, to get that depth of resolution, and also the flexibility. The fact that those scales are all individual gives the actor more flexibility to move around.

The wings are made out of lightweight aluminum to mount them on to the harness, plus lightweight foam and ribbing. They’re real feathers up at the very top of the wings; we fabricated them as we they got longer and bigger down toward the bottom — silk, plastic, etc — whatever works to make an extra long feather. If you pay close attention to the top of the wings, those are all rooster feathers that were hand applied.

Michael Keaton was very kind in telling us he was really surprised how much he could move in the suit — it was a great compliment. He was concerned he wouldn’t be able to turn his head and look around.

Related: How ‘Birdman’ Got That Crazy Shot of Michael Keaton Jogging Through Times Square in His Underwear

Did he have requests for the costume, given his experience with those suits?
My understanding, and this was sort of second- and third-hand information, in the original Batman movie, there were issues with him being able to turn his head, i can’t really speak to it, but if you watch the film, when he’s moving around, he sort of turns his entire body instead of turning his head.

We built [the Birdman costume] so that it was designed to do enough, give as much freedom of performance as possible. One of the requirements, going into the process, was he should be able to lay on his belly and look up and see straight ahead of him. We thought, this thing has to be able to move, it has to be flexible enough to give him that range of motion. There were flying elements, shots that had to have him up in the air, moving around.

Any temptation to give the suit nipples, a la another past Batman?
I worked on Batman and Robin, I was at Rick Baker’s studio when that movie was made. I don’t know what to say, why would you put nipples on it? I wasn’t on design process, or decision making process of that film, I wasn’t that close to the suits, I believe they were made somewhere else. The stuff that we did was Mr. Freeze stuff. But i know from just talking to my own peers, that everybody was scratching their head about that, like, Wow, I don’t know about that. We always ask why do men have nipples, so why put it on a superhero costume?

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Photo credit: AP Photo/Fox Searchlight, Atsushi Nishijima