How Carlos Rosario Dressed Characters for Zero Gravity and Stunts in 'Alien: Romulus'

Way back in April when I first spoke with Carlos Rosario about his stunning (and now Emmy-nominated) costume design work in Shōgun, I knew he had also recently wrapped on the new entry to the Alien franchise with director Fede Alvarez.

As a die-hard Alien fan, I brought up my excitement back then for the film, and told him I hoped we'd be able to bring it full circle when Romulus finally had its wide release. We'd all already seen the grimy workwear and oversized outerwear characters had on in the trailer, betraying a hard futuristic life that still somehow felt current and real, so I knew Rosario had brought his familiar thoughtfulness and attention to detail to the film.

The first Alien came out in 1979, on the cusp of the 1980s. Romulus takes place between the events of Alien and Aliens, and so in-universe, its look and feel align more with the same period the films were developed in, a deliberate choice from Álvarez and Rosario.

But the clothing doesn't look costume-y or gimmicky—it's an almost subconscious nod to '80s elements, like a sweatband on one character and a fanny pack on another, mixed with the edgy and grounded sci-fi world that has always made Alien one of my favorites.

And so, here we are—many audiences have finally enjoyed the misadventures of Rain (Cailee Spaeny), Andy (David Jonsson), and their unfortunate friends as they try to escape an industrial world and the control of Weyland-Yutani.

Rosario graciously agreed to speak with us about his work on the film (and gave us a few secrets along the way).

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Editor's note: The following conversation is edited for length and clarity.

No Film School: I would love to know where you started in terms of playing in the established universe and creating new looks.

Carlos Rosario: My first conversation with Fede was really about designing the look of the colony, because in order to design the costumes for our lead characters, it was important to know where they were coming from.

The concept of the colony was that it was supposed to be successful, it just fell apart. It was important to show right away to the audience the state of that colony falling apart.

My first conversation with Fede was about determining the different groups in that colony, and he told me that there were two main groups, the farmers and the miners. And all our characters were actually contributing to those two groups. So I knew that by designing those groups, I would find elements that would allow me to design the costumes for our lead characters.

I started doing research. For the farmers, I mostly focused on American farmers of the '40s, '50s, and '60s. I found a lot of vintage Carhartt, a little bit everywhere. I broke it down to give that sort of gritty look that I needed to show the audience that it was all falling apart.

For the miners, it was a lot of different elements that I styled together. We prepped the film in East Europe, in Budapest, and so I found a lot of old uniforms and old coveralls. I knew that it was going to be a multicultural colony. So I found those elements in East Europe, but then I looked a little bit everywhere in rental houses, in vintage stores, for pieces that would allow me to build that look.

For example, one of the pieces that I thought was interesting for the miners was actually ski combinations from the '80s that I mixed with uniforms, and hoodies that I made, and ponchos, and different types of deconstructed rain-gear clothes. That allowed me to design the clothes for the miners. Then everything was broken down and aged and over dyed.

So that was mainly the colony, but the main concept of the film was that it needed to look like the '80s, because it was supposed to be between the first one and the second one. Fede told me that what was important for him is that it wasn't just about doing the research about the '80s, but it's that I needed to design this movie as if I was in the '80s. Everything that was sci-fi then is very different, when you look at Alien and Aliens. It's very grounded in reality. There are no shiny fabrics, and all that.

The third thing that came up in that meeting was Fede telling me that I needed to contact Reebok in order to design the sneakers for Rain. So that was also part of the first meeting, and that was the starting point to design our lead characters.

David Jonsson as Andy in 20th Century Studios' 'Alien: Romulus'. Courtesy of 20th Century Studios

NFS: I do want to talk specifically about Andy's silhouette because it is so distinctive with that hood.

Rosario: He is supposed to always be next to Rain, to protect her and be with her. And Rain is part of the farmer's group, in a way. When we see her, she already has changed, and she's wearing her casual look.

But I wanted to give him a silhouette that would be in touch with the farmers' group. And that's the reason why he's wearing those sleek coveralls.

But because he's a synthetic, instead of the color palette of the farmers, which was more grounded in reality, earthy and tones of browns, I decided that for him, I would make him completely different. So he stands out in the crowd as he's the synthetic that is wearing something different than the others. And because all those costumes had a lot of hardware, zippers, it just had a very industrial feel to it. I added a lot of zippers, pretty much everywhere on his coveralls.

In terms of the fanny pack, that was one of Fede's ideas. We started laughing about it because in the beginning, he said, "What can we give him that is just simple, but tells everything about who he is?" And we came up with the idea of the fanny pack because it's so '80s, and we thought, "Well, he's a synthetic. He doesn't really need to eat or anything. He's not cold or anything."

Actually, when they get inside the ship, everybody else is wearing these big thick parkas, but he's not wearing anything. And so he's very different than everybody else. And so we thought, "Well, if he travels, goes somewhere, he doesn't really need a jacket or a backpack or anything. Just maybe the fanny pack just to put whatever he wants to put in there is enough for him to keep his belongings." So that concept came from that.

In terms of the hood, I was inspired by a piece that I found online that had this very distinctive cut, and that really inspired me to design that hood. And I put a snap in the back of the hood because I knew there were going to be a lot of gravity scenes, and I didn't want the hood to start moving around. I wanted that look to stay impeccable all the time, and very sleek, which I think really goes with who he is.

Cailee Spaeny as Rain Carradine and David Jonsson as Andy in 20th Century Studios' 'Alien: Romulus'Photo by Murray Close/20th Century Studio

NFS: Is there a costume or a detail that you're most fond of?

Rosario: I would say there are two. The Hawaiian shirt that we designed for Navarro [Aileen Wu], because we made that pattern, and we printed about 50 yards. We needed to make so many multiples of that shirt. And it was a really great pattern with palm trees. It's always very gratifying to print your own fabric and make your shirt.

That was very special because I love that creative process with her. I love the look of Navarro. We made all the leather jackets and the leather vest and everything. That came out really well. And that Hawaiian shirt was an homage to Brett [Harry Dean Stanton] in Alien who was wearing a Hawaiian shirt too.

And then I really love the puffy red jacket that Rain wears, because Fede was very clear that he wanted her to wear an oversized red jacket.

Red is one of the most difficult colors to pick because it can look very strange on camera. You have to be really careful. And we tried so many different fabrics. We actually made all those prototypes in different types of red. So that one was also a very long creative process to make, but it came out really well. It was the perfect red, and it was beautifully broken down by my textile team. I was very proud of that one.

Archie Renaux as Tyler and Cailee Spaeny as Rain Carradine in 20th Century Studios' 'Alien: Romulus'. Courtesy of 20th Century Studios

NFS: Is there anything from this project that you learned and are going to take to your next one?

Rosario: I think what was complicated and challenging about this project was the technical aspect of it. We needed so many multiples for so many different reasons, because all these actors go through so much blood and acid and dirt and action, and they needed to have harnesses. Each one of them had one or two stunts to perform all those gravity scenes.

All the costumes needed to be in different sizes for those stunts. It gets very complicated. I think the technical aspect of the costumes was challenging. I've never in my career had to deal with those very specific challenges.

For example, they all die in very strange ways. When they die, prosthetics needed to be attached to their bodies. So the costume sometimes has to divide in two or three different parts to allow the physical body of the actor to be dressed, but also the prosthetics. It's very technical, and you need to figure it out with a lot of other departments, the prosthetic department, the VFX department, the stunts, the makeup, the hair team, and everybody needs to talk and try to figure out how to make it work.

It was a very challenging process. That experience I think really gave me a lot of understanding of how I could make a costume work if I come up with another movie that has this type of action, and brutal deaths, and things like that.

NFS: I know that stunts and action can be very demanding on a costume designer.

Rosario: It's complicated. Shōgun was more creative, and we didn't have that many multiples. This one was just complicated in that sense. I think we had 20, 25 multiples for every costume. So it's challenging, but fun at the same time. It's a different type of costume design.