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The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes costume designer Trish Summerville spoke with People Magazine about the concept for Viola Davis’ Dr. Gaul costume, “As soon as you put the costume and the hair on her, the wig and the makeup, she automatically started having this little laugh and the things she would do with her hands," she recalls. "It's a huge satisfaction when you can help an actor transform into being another character."
Trish says says the inspiration for Davis's look was something of a "Willy Wonka mad scientist, Dr. Frankenstein kind of vibe" — basically a "whimsical feel" with a "dark side to her that's devious."
"She has to have this jovial side where she draws you in, but then she is really terrifying at the same time," says Summerville.
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Summerville and her team made "thousands" of costumes for the film, "It was a massive undertaking," she says. "We made buttons for the school uniforms that are the Capitol emblem, so that's 8,000 to 10,000 buttons you're making and casting. If you're going to have 200 or 500 students, you have to make two to three times that many costumes because you don't know people's sizes; if you have 500 background [actors], you need about 2,000 pairs of shoes to make that work for people."
She wanted the costumes for Davis, however, to "be much different than" what other characters wore, using "a lot of color" to make her "always stand out."
About those standout "shiny latex gloves," the costume designer says she figured Dr. Gaul keeps her hands covered because "her hands are destroyed from all the experiments she works on. I always wanted to have her hands covered in every scene," says Summerville. "And having this red-and-white lab coat, we'd washed it so it appears to have this veining, which goes to veins in the body and blood and the washing down of blood on her lab coat."
Says Summerville, "She was just so lovely and gracious. You give her these tools and then she turns it into something bigger than life. She's just this cool, amazing, wonderful, warm and loving person."