'TLOU' Designer Teaches Us  How to Find a Character in Costume Design

Gamers are liable to get attached to their favorite characters, down to their wardrobe. In the case of The Last of Us, fans expect to see young protagonist Ellie in her iconic Chucks and Joel in homey plaid. So when a costume designer like Ann Foley is tasked with bringing these characters into the real world, that's certainly a consideration, as is how the inner worlds of the characters would be reflected in their appearance.

Foley is the costume designer behind HBO's The Last of Us, where she had to figure out how people would dress two decades after civilization collapsed, post-cordyceps plague.

Foley is an accomplished costume designer whose work spans Emmy-winning series and blockbuster films. She cut her teeth on the first four seasons of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., where her innovative designs earned recognition from Clothes on Film and placement in the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising's prestigious television costume design exhibitions. From there, she moved on to big-budget spectacles like Godzilla vs. Kong, Skyscraper with Dwayne Johnson, Netflix's Altered Carbon, and Disney+'s She-Hulk.

What's great about Foley's process is how she digs deep into character psychology through clothing choices. She spent 10 hours watching game playthroughs to understand the world of The Last of Us, then had her team screen-grab every single costume reference.

No Film School spoke with Foley ahead of the show's Season 2 finale. In our conversation, she shared her research methods, her use of color to mirror emotional arcs, and the nitty-gritty details of making brand-new clothes look post-apocalyptic. Her insights about visual storytelling and the psychology of wardrobe choices will change how you think about costume design.

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

No Film School: I’m such a huge fan of this universe, so I'm interested in how you approached getting familiar with this world and just getting to know the characters and what their experiences are like.

Ann Foley: The first thing I did was I watched a playthrough, and I think it was a 10-hour playthrough, so I could really delve into this world and get to know these characters. I kind of felt like I was playing the game, but I wasn't. These playthroughs are incredibly helpful because the source material is so important to everybody. It's important to the creators of the game, it's important to the cast, it's important to the fans, therefore, it's important to me. And we really wanted to get this right.

So what I did was I had my team go through the game and screen grab every single image that coincided with the script so that we could create boards for every episode with every character and what their costume was.

From there, I do mood boards for every character. And then when the mood boards are done, then we start illustrating the characters and try to stay always as true to the source material as possible, but sometimes you have to change a little bit here and there just to serve the story because the script is ultimately what we're working off of.

So that's our Bible.

Isabela Merced in The Last of Us Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO

No Film School: What would that moment look like when you have to change something very slightly?

Ann Foley: A great example of that would be Dina's rainbow jacket that she wears to Seattle.

In the game, I think it's a reddish brown or rusty color corduroy jacket. And I loved that color, so I used that color on her shirt. But with the jacket, when I was initially doing my boards for Dina, I came across that jacket, and it had such a great late-'90s vibe to it that I just put it on the board for reference because of the '90s vibe, because of the color. I loved the idea of the rainbow, and because Dina is a rainbow of emotion, and she's so effervescent, and she's just wonderful to be around, everyone's immediately drawn to Dina.

I wanted to infuse as much color as I could into Dina's costumes. So that was one of the reasons the jacket went onto the mood boards.

And then, when Craig Mazin and Neil Druckmann saw that board, they were immediately drawn to that jacket for the same reasons. We had a whole discussion about timeline, because Aviator Nation was founded in 2006. Our timeline closed, or [clothing production] stopped, in 2003. So there was a little bit of a fudge on the timeline, but Craig and Neil were like, if it serves the story, then that's what we want to use.

There are so many instances of that happening in the show, even Season 1 with the Flint and Tinder jacket that Joel wears that wasn't in the timeline either, but it became an iconic piece for Joel, so it kind of doesn't matter. And that was the same with Dina. That's how we landed on that jacket.

No Film School: I imagine you probably have to grab those moments of color when you can because everything else is sort of dulled down in the wardrobe.

Ann Foley: But a lot of that is intentional, too. Ellie's color palette this season is darker, and you're not going to see a lot of pattern on Ellie. You might see a plaid shirt here and there, but that's also because I wanted there to be a similarity between Ellie and Joel's costumes, that these two are related. They might not be blood relation, but they're related in every other sense of the word. She is her father's daughter, so to speak.

So I wanted there to be that similarity in palette and texture with them. And it made sense, considering the emotional arc of Ellie's journey this season, that she be in a darker color palette. You'll see in 206 that you saw last week when she wakes up on her birthday, just turning 15, she's wearing a T-shirt that's much lighter and more fun with stripes. And as she progresses toward 19 years old, you see the palette getting darker to sort of match where she is emotionally.

Pedro Pascal, Bella Ramsey in The Last of Us Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO

No Film School: Costuming is so fascinating in how you get those little psychological details about characters through their appearance. Are there any other things like that you can tell us about?

Ann Foley: There's plenty throughout the season. It's really important to help the actors find their character through their costume.

Costume designers are storytellers, so we are taking that source material, whether it's the game or whether it's a script, and we are using that information to help create this character and help the actor find that character. And it's always a really fantastic moment in a fitting when an actor tries on a piece of clothing and they all of a sudden start to feel the character and it starts gelling the fitting. That's my favorite part of costume design.

No Film School: I imagine that's such a beautiful moment as a creator to see that person come to life in front of you.

Ann Foley: It is. And one of my favorite moments this season was Ellie's Converse from Episodes 1 and 2. I love the idea that as a 19-year-old, Ellie is not only doodling in her journal, she's doodling on her clothes.

And I thought, what a great idea if she's just sitting at her desk and she starts doodling on her Converse, that's what teenagers do. I pitched that idea to Craig and Neil, and they loved it, so I gave Bella a pair of Converse early on in prep, and I just said, "Here you go. I think that you should take these and doodle on these like Ellie would." I didn't give her any instruction at all. I just said, "Take these and do with them what you will."

And what came back was incredible, and I never even asked Bella what the meanings of half of that was because I felt that was between Bella and Ellie. And it's such a wonderful character piece for Bella as Ellie, and you might not see it a lot in the show, I think hardly at all, but Bella knew they were there, and it's little touches like that that help inform the cast.

No Film School: I do want to touch on weathering, too, with this being a post-apocalyptic world. What's your process there?

Ann Foley: I had the most amazing breakdown team on the show, and they not only had to break down the infected and the Seraphites, but they had to also break down Jackson.

And when I started talking to Craig and Neil about Jackson and what that level of breakdown would be, we wanted to make sure that we were showing that Jackson was a functioning community. They have electricity, they have running water, so they're really taking care of their clothes because there are no new clothes. Everything stopped in 2003. So what you have in this world is precious. And Jackson was a decent-sized town, so they probably took whatever that they could find in any of the stores afterwards, and that's where a lot of their clothes came from.

And you see the difference in the Jackson community versus the refugees that are coming in Episode 1, and how they're a bit more ragged. They've been on the road, and so they're a lot more distressed. And that was one of the cooler things about Jackson is creating what we call the Jackson Patina. So every single thing got touched and aged down, but not to look like season one when people were in QCs. That was much more of a survival situation than Jackson is.

Bella Ramsey, Pedro Pascal in The Last of Us Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO

No Film School: What is the actual process for you to take a piece of clothing and break it down?

Ann Foley: It depends on what it is. For example, for a lot of the Carhartt pieces we were using, I would send that stuff out to a stone washer first to really break that down because Carhartt is built to last. So I wanted to give my team a bit of a headstart, and then they go in and they start painting in the dirt and the aging and try to give it a layered textured look.

And also using things that aren't going to wash off if we have to send something out to be dry cleaned. Everything needs to be permanent. So yeah, there's a lot of sanding, and there's a lot of painting and what I call spraying into things where they'll take a dye and an airbrush and they'll just spray into it to give it that layered textured feeling.

No Film School: You've already mentioned pulling in things like Carhartt and Dina's jacket. What's your process for sourcing those pieces?

Ann Foley: I try to stay true to our time period and look for classic brands like Levi's, Wrangler, and Carhartt. There were a few others that we used as well. Ariat...trying to remember all of the brands off the top of my head; Old Navy, Gap, things that would've been around 2003, late '90s, but also things that are timeless. So hopefully it's not pulling the audience out of the show too much by saying, "Oh, wow, that was from a company from last year." I really did try to focus on more classic brands.

No Film School: It doesn't look like you couldn't wear it today, necessarily, but it's very appropriate for that period.

Ann Foley: A great example is the stalker from episode one. She's in a Gap blouse that we found, and it's so scary when we saw her for the first time with all the makeup and all the aging in person, because you can relate to that item. That's something that an everyday mom would've worn, and then your brain starts going a million miles an hour of, "Oh my God, my mom could have been in that."

And then we also gave her some low-rise jeans with a little flare at the bottom that were very, very popular in the late '90s. I think I had 10 pairs of them at least. So it became so scary, and we all wanted the audience to have a visceral reaction to her, and not only because we've never seen a stalker before, but wow, what she's wearing is something very normal and something very basic and relatable.

Bella Ramsey in The Last of Us Credit: Liane Hentscher/HBO

No Film School: So, for a new person or someone working on a lower budget, do you have any advice for a costume designer in that space, and what they should prioritize?

Ann Foley: I would say focus on your research and really pay attention to lighting and cameras, how different styles of cameras are going to photograph clothing and texture. But also going everywhere for your resources, whether it's online, whether it's going to old magazines. Study architecture, photography, fashion, so that you have references to pull from. Old film. I've done that before, many, many times.

And it helps not only you, but it helps you to be able to talk to your director and your cast when you are putting a character together for them. You want to be able to show them what your vision is with these mood boards. And so whether that's through a really great piece of photography, which I've used to convey my ideas, or whether it's through some street style, fashion. It's really important to make sure that you have all of those really great references.

For The Last of Us, I wanted to keep those boards very grounded, and so I focused a lot on palette, color palette, and finding incredible photography to help me get that message across. And then even the faces of the citizens of Jackson and the refugees.

So, yeah, just build those references any way that you can.