10 Enchanting Behind-The-Scenes Details About How The "Beauty And The Beast" Special Came To Life
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It's hard to believe that it's been 30 years since the world was first introduced to the classic animated Disney movie Beauty and the Beast. Last night, ABC aired Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration — a two-hour animated and live-action blended special that paid tribute to the original film.
To this day, I still tear up every time I hear "Tale as Old as Time."
While the live special mainly stayed true to the original movie's storyline, a lot of surprises were added, like never-before-seen musical performances and a more diverse cast, which included H.E.R. as Belle, Josh Groban as the Beast, Shania Twain as Mrs. Potts, and Joshua Henry as Gaston — to name a few.
During the 30th celebration special, it was hard to miss the stunning costumes that each cast member wore. Many of the looks were recognizable from the original film, but it was also very noticeable how modernized they were thanks to award-winning costume designer Marina Toybina and her team.
We spoke to Marina about all things Beauty and the Beast and what went on behind the scenes with creating the special's costumes — including how H.E.R. (Gabi Wilson) paid homage to her heritage in one of the costumes, how the Beast's costume was brought to life, and more.
1.One of the challenges Marina and her team faced was keeping with the classic fairy-tale looks of the original movie while adding a modern twist to them.
"In the beginning, it was doing a lot of research and understanding that this is a period piece. How do we digest all the color tones that were used back then and how do we re-create them now? I had a pretty big blueprint in front of me — something that already existed, something that was already familiar to so many fans," Marina told BuzzFeed.
"So my approach was doing as many renderings as you can imagine, talking to John [M. Chu, the special’s director], and hearing his perspective. Also, all of these conversations were happening without knowing our cast. I didn’t know the body types I was working with either."
2.Marina and her team had to design the costumes in a way that would allow the actors to move easily during the live production.
"I really wanted movement on stage. I come from work where there is so much choreography and dance and staging that I really didn't want my designs to overtake the ability to have the physical form come to life and not go too heavy on the builds," she said.
"It couldn't be your typical kind of Disney approach to it that you see in parades. I just wanted this to have such a cinematic feel that people felt like they were watching a movie while also allowing the actors to sing and dance comfortably," Marina added.
3.The costumes were one of the first things to be created on this production — even before the choreography, which made things tricky.
"The costumes were created before the choreography, which usually doesn't happen. So there were many obstacles that we were all facing and at the same time, we had two months to pull something off, which usually takes years in the making. So when I was looking at my timeframe of having two and a half months to build almost 400 costumes, there really isn't room for error, you don't really have room to make mistakes that have to be fixed on the spot," Marina said.
4.A lot of thought was put into each costume but especially the opening "provincial life" scene with Belle.
"I made sure it had simplicity and this kind of air to where you see that it was more like a handmade costume. I used very organic tones, a lot of muslin, and a lot of linens. I couldn't go too heavy on the fabrics," Marina said.
"At the same time, I did a lot of research as to where the fabrics were coming from back then. I decided to go with denim and linen for the whole opening scene just to have that kind of vintage-y color tone and get very close to the pan tones of the original film. I didn't go too bright with the colors either."
5.The Beast's live costume was inspired by the costumes seen in The Lion King and War Horse.
"In the [live-action movie] adaptation of it, it was a CGI beast. I obviously couldn't really do that live. In the very beginning, one of my first conversations with Jon was about how much he was inspired by The Lion King and War Horse and all these elements of fabrication that are not done in a fully enclosed mask or a full costume," Marina said.
"His take to me was always ‘I don't want this cheesy. I don't want this [to be] like a birthday character coming to life.’ Since we were all inspired by this kind of bigger-in-life approach without covering our cast members — the idea came about of using puppetry for the Beast," Marina said.
6.Josh Groban was trained on how to self-puppeteer the 10-foot Beast costume that Marina and her team built for him.
"So then we decided to go in that approach and build an almost 10-foot puppet for him that he would puppeteer and take it back to the old school days," she said.
"No mechanics were used. We were going back and forth about building animatronics into it and having this robotic touch to it. After many conversations, we decided to make it as simple, as stunning, and unique as possible. I told Josh, 'The way I'm going to build it, you're gonna have to self-puppeteer, you're going to have to become this character,'" Marina added.
7.Gabi — whose mother is Filipina-American and her father is African American — paid homage to her heritage in one of the Belle costumes she wore.
"Gabi called me one day and asked where can she pay homage to her heritage. She asked if there was a Filipina print or a fabric that we can use. [I thought] okay, maybe we do it as a hair ribbon. Maybe an added trim to the apron," Marina said.
"I thought about it, I called her back and was like, 'Why don't we do some hand painting? Truly do something that is visual, and we're not hiding it. Just go full out and that's where the whole, you see the print on her apron.'"
"I hired an artist that was of Filipino descent as well. I wanted it to be hand-painted. I wanted her to have something very special and that was so forward. So that was probably one of the most special parts for both of us to be able to bring this forward, and then the production stood behind me on that decision. I think it's so important that we were able to include that and not just hide it as a little detail," Marina said.
8.It was important for the actors to not be hidden behind the costumes.
"With Shania's {Twain] costumes — the very first time we were on Zoom, there was no feedback. She was like, 'I love this, I understand this, it's clear as day but can I move [in the costume]?' I explained that of course, the teapot would sit below the waist so that she has a free range of motion," Marina said.
"I told the cast that I'm not going to create something where you're stuck in a costume. I think when you're dealing with such an iconic cast, the last thing I wanted to do was hide them. All the costumes are so strategically designed to have our cast shine and be able to act."
9.Paying close attention to every detail was important for Marina and her team.
"There's a lot of period accuracy [with the costumes]. We did use costume houses to pool original garments to figure out what that era was all about," she said.
"There is not a single piece that we overlooked. Everything down to choosing the right buckles for every shoe, whether you see it or don't from head to toe, the supporting cast, and all the dancers. Everybody was thought through from the piece of jewelry to the lack of jewelry to every single trim piece that went into Shania's costumes."
"There are so many times we chose Pantones (colors) out of the animated [movie] and then kept correcting it and printing until it was the right lavender, the right pink. I can't even begin to describe to you what a madhouse it was trying to not miss a single detail," she said.
10.It was important for Gabi to add her own originality to Belle, so Marina did not want to copy exactly what the character's costumes looked like in the Broadway and movie versions.
"I wanted Gabi to have a moment rather than repeating something that's already been done. So even the yellows and the golds [of Belle's famous dress], there's so much discrepancy out there — was it a gold gown? Was it a yellow gown? I think with the adaptation of Disney a lot of people recognize it as a yellow dress," she said.
"So it took me months and I can't tell you the amount of swatches that we had to look at for it to be the right yellow. I would pin [swatches] into my dress forms. We did everything on muslins — first, just to get our cuts and our styles. I bought all my cutter fitters' books about corseting from back then. Somehow in the midst of it, I got so inspired by the story of the rose in the film and the softness and the elegance and kind of this evolving love story that really surrounds this flower."
"When it came down to the final rendering of Belle's dress, I wanted the layers to feel like rose petals — the new beginning of a new life. You'll see that transformation in the gown so it's very similar to what the original is but it was also such a different take on it," Marina said.
"This is a significant moment [for Gabi as Belle] and her being a princess. It was such beautiful casting and such a diverse moment that I wanted it to feel new and I wanted it to feel alive. The dress is more fashion-driven than I think historically accurate," she said.
