‘The Chosen’ Costume Designer Reveals Piece Inspired by ‘Star Wars’ & More Favorites (PHOTOS)
“I do a lot of research. A lot. You can’t really go, ‘I’ll just look it up and see photos.’ You glean through art and pick and choose,” says The Chosen costume designer Leila Heise, who joined midway through the first season and outfits the main cast, guest stars and extras with her small staff of about 12 people.
The process begins in preproduction and the team sews all the way up to the very last flick of a flowing robe when shooting wraps. Many looks are based on Heise’s research, but she also gets directives from producers.
“They do write certain things in the script,” she notes. At one point, there was a request for more color and texture, so when Joey Vahedi joined the cast as Thomas, Heise gave him stripes. Coming up, “We have a lot of different factions of the Roman guard now, so we have to pump them up. A lot is happening in Seasons 4 and 5,” Heise shares.
Scroll down as she breaks down some key costumes.
The Chosen, Season 4, In Theaters
Atticus
“One of my favorites is Atticus [Elijah Alexander] because he’s secret police. He’s got the biggest closet of anybody because he has to blend in wherever he is and stand out when he’s his most Roman,” Heise says. In his Season 4 look (above), he gets a new breastplate, and the secret police emblem on it was hand painted. During downtime in Utah, a trip to Crazy Mary’s Rocks, run by a miner, yielded obsidian made into closures for Atticus’ cloak.
Tamar
For Tamar’s (Amber Shana Williams) red dress, “I had this beautiful orange-red silk, and I just started playing with it,” Heise says. The necklace was hand-made by a local artist. “I wanted it very rough—it’s gotten better with age. The raw amber and raw emeralds have more luster. It’s four years old, and it’s been through wind, rain, snow, whatever, because then they wrote it into the script that she can’t really get rid of it.”
Simon Z
“He was kind of based on Star Wars,” says Heise of Simon Z’s (Alaa Safi) Zealot attire. She got the galactic idea for the ex-assassin while seeking a variation on the standard T-shaped tunic. “He has a crossover kimono-style jacket with a wide belt for his protection. Because he’s a fighter, he has to be able to move in his clothes.” Heise also put the Zealots in trousers to reflect their class. “The poor would wear pants more than the upper echelon,” she notes.
Jesus
“He’s very much still the carpenter. His mother would’ve been making His clothes even as old as He is, at 30, and she would take the time to do the embroidery around the neckline. I find old embroidery patterns,” says Heise of Jesus’ (Jonathan Roumie) ensemble. For the fabric, “I wanted it to be soft and still have that homespun feeling.” To give something a handmade look, Heise hides stitching and uses embroidered yokes, never finishing the edges so they fray. “In Season 4, the texture is a little rougher.”
Matthew
“I talk about Matthew [Paras Patel] a lot because he’s had a lot of different looks in flash-forwards and big flashbacks,” says Heise. She modified Matthew’s existing costumes, created before she joined the show, but tweaked them to maintain the former tax collector’s Roman style: “He is very much Romanesque. He has money and can buy what he wants. He cut his roots off from his Jewish heritage, but as he’s becoming more of the disciple, he’s got more texture to him, rougher, and he’s got a leather belt.”
