Next month Jenny Beavan is slated to receive the Costume Designers Guild’s (CDG) Career Achievement Award. The three-time Oscar winner (and 12-time nominee) is grateful for the Guild honor, but wary of its perceptual downside–that somehow it signals the winding down of a career or even worse, an imminent retirement. The fact is that Beavan continues to work at a high level, has many professional irons in the fire, and loves what she does far too much to step away from the art and craft of costume design.
Happily, pushing back against the false assumption which often accompanies career achievement recognition is that Beavan–at the very same CDG ceremony–will be in the running for an award in the marquee Excellence in Sci-Fi/Fantasy Film category. This marks her ninth career CDG Award nomination and it comes on the strength of her world-building contributions to Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (Warner Bros. Pictures). Beavan is a three-time CDG Award winner–in 2011 for The King’s Speech, in 2016 for Mad Max: Fury Road, and in 2022 for Cruella.
Beavan’s latest nomination is special in that it is for work she’s done in collaboration with writer-director George Miller who took a leap of faith in gravitating to the costume designer years back for Mad Max: Fury Road. Though she was quite accomplished at the time, Beavan was best known for her work in period films (which she continues to love doing). A tentpole movie with a creatively wild dynamic and imaginative stunt work, Mad Max: Fury Road thus grew Beavan’s career, helping her to garner more diverse assignments and challenges. The range of her filmography is part of the career achievement being celebrated by the Guild–from A Room with a View, The Remains of the Day, Sense and Sensibility, and The King’s Speech to Cruella as well as a pair of high-profile entries in the Mad Max franchise. (Beavan teamed with costume designer John Bright on A Room with A View, The Remains of the Day and Sense and Sensibility.)
Beavan described Miller as a true auteur who is very clear in what he wants. Yet he is not a micro-manager as he affords other artists a measure of freedom and remains open to new ideas. Beavan added that Miller has the uncanny knack for gaining commitment from his collaborators to go the extra mile. She related that he can phone you on Sunday night about an idea and “because it’s George, you want to make it work.” You marshal your colleagues and resources to help him push towards and/or realize that vision the next day. It’s a challenging yet joyful ride.
There was also an inherent joy in returning to the Mad Max franchise, shared Beavan who found herself reunited with costume creations from Fury Road. Those costumes were kept beautifully in containers, unpacked and were ready to go for the production of the prequel Furiosa in Australia. “It was like seeing a lot of old friends,” said Beavan. “They become really personal costumes.”
And of course there were assorted new costume creations for Furiosa which was an even bigger production than Fury Road, had significantly more characters and entailed even more elaborate stunt work. Making it possible to take on that expanded scope and volume, noted Beavan, was an incredibly skilled workforce in Australia. It was exciting to feed them ideas and see what came back, she related, adding that the artists she dovetailed with were expert in “making things work, making them wearable and easy to get on and off.”
Beavan connected with and became part of a “family” of artists and craftspeople in Australia. A highlight of working on Furiosa, said Beavan, was “being so accepted into Australia and how much I loved being there. It’s wonderful being part of something in that way.”
Perhaps most gratifying, continued Beavan, was seeing the finished film. Though immersed in its making, she wasn’t privy to the visual effects and other elements presided over by Miller as the auteur/master conductor. To see all that come together, particularly the actors’ performances, was a treat that amazed and impressed Beavan, serving to make her proud.
Asked if her experience on the Mad Max films has informed her work in other genres, Beavan offered a big-picture perspective. “Each film is so much it’s own thing,” she observed, noting that they all entail storytelling. “You have to tell a story. It doesn’t matter if its in 300 BC, the 1800s, Jane Austen, Victorian, post-apocalypse. It all comes down to just telling the story and knowing what story you want to tell.”
What helps inform her, she continued, is “being older,” meaning while you might not immediately know how to solve a problem, you have the experience so that you “know how to tackle a problem” in order to realize the director’s vision and do full justice to the story.
Beavan’s storytelling acumen is reflected on many fronts, including the aforementioned Academy Award recognition. She won Best Costume Design Oscars for A Room with a View in 1987 (with costume designer Bright), Mad Max: Fury Road in 2016, and Cruella in 2022. Her nine other Oscar nominations were for The Bostonians (with Bright), Maurice (with Bright), Howards End (with Bright), The Remains of the Day (with Bright), Sense and Sensibility (with Bright), Anna and the King, Gosford Park, The King’s Speech and Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris.
In addition to her three CDG Award wins for The King’s Speech, Mad Max: Fury Road and Cruella, Beavan was nominated six other times by the Guild–for Cranford (in a TV category), Sherlock Holmes, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, Dolittle, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, and this year for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.
Beavan has also earned five primetime Emmy nominations, winning for the telefilm Emma in 1997 and the miniseries Cranford (part two) in 2010. The balance of nominations was for Lord Mountbatten–The Last Viceroy (Masterpiece Theatre) in 1986, The Gathering Storm in 2002, and Cranford (part one) in 2008.
This is the 12th installment of our weekly 16-part The Road To Oscar Series of feature stories. Nominations for the 97th Academy Awards are scheduled be announced on Thursday, January 23. The 97th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 2.
