"Support for Telling the Story"—Dressing the Characters of 'Fargo' Season 5

Do we have an interview for you today? Ope, you betcha.

The anthology series Fargo is a gem in the TV landscape since it first premiered 10 years ago. With its constantly evolving creative flair from showrunner Noah Hawley and one-of-a-kind characters, it has never failed to surprise audiences while gathering accolades galore. This year, Season 5 received 15 Emmy nominations.

The most recent arc followed the seemingly timid Dot (Juno Temple) as she tried to evade her dark past and abusive ex hubby (although he'd say otherwise), Sheriff Tillman. There is also, of course, murder, intrigue and comedy.

Costume designer Carol Case has worked on the show for 40 episodes, and she snagged one of those nominations for Outstanding Contemporary Costumes for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie. The recognized episode is "Insolubilia"—when Tillman's goons break into Dot's house wearing distinct, Nightmare Before Christmas-themed Halloween masks.

We spoke with Case about her work this season and her advice for up-and-coming costumers. Put your warm coats on and venture into the Minnesota cold with us.

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

No Film School: Where did you start in terms of your inspiration for your work this season on the costumes?

Carol Case: Well, obviously it always starts with the script, and I think particularly with Fargo, it's always a deep dive into the characters. It's always like, who are these people, and what makes them tick?

And the things that go on are so out there, how does that work in anybody's real life, really? And so we always start there, and then I'll have a lot of conversations with Noah, because he's the show guru, as it were. And we'll usually have some ideas about what he feels with those characters, and then we'll go from there.

We had a lot of discussions this year about color and with the DP and the production designer, and so I kind of built it in like Lego. Little pieces, little pieces, little pieces, and then finally ending up with a sketch or mood boards to finalize what we thought we would do.

NFS: How do you go about trying to get into the director's head?

Case: Well, some people like to just give it to you: "This is what I want," and then you can work from there. Other people are more visual.

I think I'm a fairly visual person too, and so it almost feels better to communicate with images. I can say a black turtleneck sweater to you, that means something. To someone else, it might mean something else.

So I usually find that if we can talk about pictures, even if it's just inspirational pictures or photographers that we both think connect with what we're doing—it could be anything, any kind of iconic image that people notice. Then you think, "Okay, yeah, I get it. I get where this person's thinking."

And it usually helps with color, too, because color is such an important thing, trying to establish a palette that will tell you who these people are and what they're doing. I think of my job as being the support for telling the story. It's all the support for the characters, helping the audience understand the characters more at another level.

Roy Tillman costume designCarol Case/Provided

NFS: You mentioned using inspiration, and I read that you drew from classical paintings.

Case: When we started talking about the colors for this show, it's kind of a dark thing. It's a dark subject matter. And we knew that we'd be shooting in southern Alberta, so the brightness of that white snow and that blue sky.

So we went toward the colors of the old masters, those super-rich dark colors with lots of layers in them. When you look at an old master, it's red with brown over the top with a bit of yellow on top—it's layered more so than just blended.

I felt like that was a good place for us to start looking at those colors and just giving us a depth, and little onions to peel off. Because we knew we wanted to go with a fair bit of texture to the deepness of the colors and the richness of those old masters' colors, it just reads so much better. It helps tell the story of that period of it—even though we know it's taking place now, but it's taken place for millennia. And that's the whole Ole Munch thing.

NFS: Ole Munch is my favorite character. Can we talk about how you arrived at his look?

Case: He was probably the most out-there character, obviously, but to find a place where he sits in the millennium, it's hard to pin him down, the everyman. And we had that little sequence where he played the medieval peasant. And so to take him from that guy to somebody who could actually function in the real world is a huge leap.

So that's where the conversations started. We also talked a lot about how it is not about fashion for him, it's about comfort. It's about what can he do in what he's wearing? And when it no longer services him, he gets rid of it and starts on something new.

The kilt idea—it sets him aside, out of time, out of place, which I think is a good thing because we know right from the beginning that there is something odd about this guy. He's not your regular mass murderer. There's a reasoning behind it.

It's a lot about culture. It's all about depth and texture and how much some of the coats that he wore, we made the first coat he wore, we made it from scratch, but then he takes away Irma's, the landlady's coat. He decides that her coat is better than his and just leaves his coat and moves on and gets another coat. And he does this several times or changes bits and pieces.

I think the idea that he wears a kilt is great, but of course, that's not super practical. So then he's got to wear the long johns that go underneath it just to keep him warm in the Minnesota cold. So it was just adding those pieces in practicality. The actor who plays him, Sam Spruell, was very involved. He wanted to be involved in how we developed the costume.

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NFS: To contrast that piecing together of an outfit, you have this extreme wealth in Jennifer Jason Leigh's character. So I imagine that's also a big challenge just to convey that wealth through her appearance.

Case: Absolutely, absolutely. And it's a TV show, so we don't necessarily have the money to rush out and buy everything on Fifth Avenue. Jennifer carries it a lot. She sells every one of those looks. There's nothing like a fur coat to sell wealth. And she did a fabulous job with that.

We always wanted her to look like the richest woman in Minnesota and we patterned her a bit off of first ladies, previous first ladies, because really she's the first lady of Minnesota.

NFS: You also mentioned the practicality of warmth. You're working in below-freezing temps. What was that like?

Case: I lived there, so for me, it's something I do a lot, but Fargo has always been the biggest challenge. And this year, again, was a big challenge.

The weather did not necessarily play to our favor, and so there we were, outside at 30 below—that's 30 degrees celsius. But I think a lot of the costumes I designed on purpose knowing well that we would incorporated winter boots into the costume, and also just the ability to layer things in.

You don't want a super-fitted jacket if you have to wear three layers underneath it. And then in the next scene, you're going in the house, and that actor's going to be dying of heat. So then they have to take all those clothes off, and now the jacket's too big. That's a fun line to shuffle through there.

Noah and I have a running joke about Fargo that the costume is all about the coat. If we get the coat right, we've got it.

NFS: It is so funny that you mention that, because Season 1 is some of my favorite TV ever, and I'm just obsessed with the orange coat that Lester Nygaard wears.

Case: I think it's true with a winter show, people have to be relatable as people who go outside in the winter. Not just, "It's snowing outside. And now I'll wear a little trench coat and run across the street." Because it's not like that.

NFS: Do you think there are skills that a costume designer needs to have?

Case: I think having a vision, having an ability to visualize what things might look like or what you want things to look like.

And I think flexibility, frankly, is so important. So many people get locked into something. It's a television show, it's an evolving live thing of its own, and you have to go with the flow, as it were.

So I think that that is sometimes people's downfall is that they get locked into something too much. But I think the vision thing is the biggest.

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NFS: Do you have advice for someone wanting to get into costume design?

Case: Do all the other jobs. The worst costume designer is to want to be the designer right away. Because you don't have the background. And then it's hard to understand other people's position. And it's a team. The costume shop will forever be a team, and without that team, it doesn't matter how beautiful your drawings are or anything, the reality of it is we're all working together.

NFS: Is there anything you wanted to add about your Emmy-nominated episode, “Insolubilia”?

Case: A lot of people want to know about The Nightmare for Christmas costumes. Thank you, Tim Burton. That was lovely.

The only other thing I would say about that particular episode was the stunt work. There are a lot of stunts, and a lot of stunts wearing really difficult costumes. So that takes a little bit of finessing. It's a lot of trial and error and a lot of working really closely with the prop department.

NFS: And I assume having multiples.

Case: Oh yeah, yeah. Story of my life. "How many do you need?"