A fan of the dark side! Harry Potter costume designer Jany Temime may have dressed The Boy Who Lived, Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, but it was two Slytherin villains that she enjoyed to style the most.
“I really enjoyed Bellatrix. Bellatrix was a great character and also Voldemort,” Temime exclusively tells Us Weekly. “I think the casting was a great part of the design, finding out who they had. I was getting inspiration from the book and the book was always the starting point.”
Temime joined the film franchise, based on J.K. Rowling’s bestselling and beloved book series, on 2004’s Prisoner of Azkaban. While Bellatrix Lestrange (played by Helena Bonham Carter) was her favorite, she notes that Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) was the most “difficult” because he is the key to the fictional world.
“He is the symbol of the devil and it’s always difficult to illustrate it. I spent a lot of time trying to find the right direction for him,” she tells Us. “I think I got it when I designed for the green because it was a sea green, which was a key of the story. Although it happened quite late.”
Temime also enjoyed bringing Severus Snape to life. Although a Slytherin, the professor turned out to be one of the bravest, beloved wizards at Hogwarts. (Always.)
“Every actor was fantastic. Every actor was amazing. Alan Rickman was a wonderful person to work with,” Temime tells Us of the late actor, who died at age 69 in January 2016 of pancreatic cancer. “Such a trained actor and the way he handled his costume. He’s a theatre actor so he knew how to walk with that tongue train in back behind [his robe]. He was brilliant, Rickman was brilliant.”
Temime, who still has piles of sketch books, uses Prismacolor Premier colored pencils and fine line markers to bring her characters to life. “The colors are incredible,” Temime adds. “The very first person that I work with is the fabric buyers. … So the first thing is I put colors on my sketch and send it to buyers and see what they come back with. Then I can finish up with the sketches and give the sketches to the costumers to start making them. Coloring is extremely essential to my job. It was incredible to have those pens. They are so beautiful and sophisticated.”
