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La Femme Nikita is distinctly different from other hit shows. It isn’t about teenagers who live by a creek and talk like social workers. It isn’t just another twenty- or thirtysomething nighttime soap. It doesn’t take place in a hospital, with frenzied doctors spitting out medical jargon. Nor is it about hysterical young female lawyers. What it is, is a sophisticated, multi-layered series, its story line a web of nuance. There’s also plenty of action, violence, intrigue, beautiful people, and sex--implied and otherwise. Add to that stories and characters inhabiting a compelling, darkly psychological world. Events take place in the present, but nothing is specific; it’s a somehow "dateless" present. The setting is somewhere in the western world where English is spoken, though some people have foreign accents. This environment is known as Section One, and the people who occupy this most secretive of off-the-budget military organizations are fighting terrorism, in all its forms, around the world. The catch is that everyone who is a member of Section One is not there by his or her own volition, and cannot leave, go home at 5 o’clock, or quit his job. If they try to leave, or escape, they will be sought out and "canceled." Each member of Section One has a story of how he got there; these stories are revealed subtly and gradually throughout the series. A common denominator for most operatives is some sort of terrible crime in their pasts, murder mostly, but nothing in this underground fortress is as it seems. Having been brought to Section from prison, or somewhere else, the soldiers of Section One ostensibly work on the side of good, but there is no absolution. Section One is a sort of Purgatory. In their midst is a recent "recruit" to this world of intrigue, danger, and mystery--Nikita, code name Josephine. Nikita, as in the original film La Femme Nikita, did not commit the crime she was accused of--the murder of a police officer. The charges were false, yet Nikita was given a life sentence. Nikita was a young street person, into drugs, but not into murder. While in prison, Nikita is spotted by Michael, a Section One ranking operative. Once at Section, Nikita is trained to be a consummate killer, though not a willing one. She is tutored by Michael, who will become her sometimes sadistic, sometimes loving mentor (Nikita’s and Michael’s evolving story is an interesting evocation of the myth of Pygmalion). As Nikita has learned "the game," she has become very good at it. She knows the culture of the place, its politics, its danger, and she has learned to manipulate it. But Nikita does not abuse her knowledge. It doesn’t own her. No one does. Although she plays by Section rules, she won’t adapt to the system. Her soul cannot be sold. She alone has been able to maintain her greatest resources: humanity and heart. And that is what makes Nikita such a great character. She is complex. Forget the Spice Girls, this is real Girl Power. She is also extremely beautiful. Cast in the role of Nikita is a talented young Australian actress: Peta Wilson. Viking tall, a perfect, beautiful, strong body, long straight white blonde hair, large luminous blue eyes, and a perfectly shaped sensuous mouth--Miss Wilson is quite a package. She’s sexy and gorgeous in the contemporary way, but there is also an element of her beauty and expression that is archetypal. She reminds me of what Robert Graves describes as the White Goddess or Moon Goddess--a female deity who existed before time was recorded, when women deities dominated, before the men took over. I think I’ve made the case that Nikita is more than a blonde with a gun--Pam Anderson did that and no one was interested. Nikita is much more. And as she has grown and matured in the 4 years the series has been on (this is also how LFN so distinguishes itself from other television shows; the characters actually evolve psychologically, in ways that actual people move through their lives), her outward appearance, her bearing, and her taste in fashion has changed. From the start, Nikita has worn fabulous clothes, and Miss Wilson wears clothes fabulously. But toward the end of last season, and in the current season, Nikita’s wardrobe has consisted of spectacular ultra chic couture clothing. The woman behind the conceptualization of Miss Wilson’s wardrobe (as well as that of the other principal actors), is a talented, articulate and totally creative young costume designer, Laurie Drew. As you will see in the following interview, Laurie’s approach to costume designing is thoughtful, insightful, unique. Laurie was kind enough to have a nice long chat with me. She allows us a peek behind the scenes, and reveals her approach to the costume designing of an extraordinary television show. FF: How did it come about that the show would have an overall monochromatic look? What was the genesis of the look? Laurie Drew: I think it kind of evolved because we wanted to do something that had a style to it, because, I don’t know why that was, but I think it had to do with Rocco Matteo, who’s the production designer, and myself wanting to see what we could do with this particular idea. So how are you going to achieve this? Okay, there are many different ways to skin a cat. But one of them certainly is visually, and in terms of what I’m able to contribute, you know a lot of it has to do with palette, and how they’re going to shoot it and whatnot. And the show has evolved certainly. One thing that I notice in terms of my years of experience is that each actor and each project has their own frequency. Then, once you’ve found that beat, it has its own kind of evolution. A life of its own, in other words. And all we do is simply facilitate that. It’s not like we come along and go, okay, boom, this is the template, this is what it’s going to be, and be very rigid about it. I don’t find, for me anyway, that’s not how I work. Usually what I endeavor to do is try to get a sense of what it is I’m working with in terms of just energy, right? And then whatever heightens that or accentuates that is what works, right? FF: Definitely. Laurie Drew: Yeah. And then that can change constantly too. It’s not as if you arrive at one decision and then you walk away. It’s like a living, breathing entity. It’s fluid. You have to respect that, and pay attention, and it will tell you what to do. I’ve found good success with that method. FF: Interesting. I think that’s a very interesting approach. And so when you say the frequency of the actor, can you describe the frequency of Peta Wilson (Nikita) and Roy Dupuis (Michael), and also of the other featured cast members? Laurie Drew: They’re all different. Every person is. It’s almost like fingerprints. Because, you know, you could talk on the phone to an actor that’s scheduled to come into town in a week or something. And you can flip back ideas and Fedex little drawings and you know tear sheets and whatnot, and get all excited about a certain look. And then when they walk through that door, it can all go down the toilet. So, it’s like the moment the creative process begins is when they step through the threshold. And then you take a look at them, and I think--I don’t know how you can word this--for me, it’s just going to be a very kind of primitive way of putting it, but it’s pretty rudimentary. It’s their creativity, and the same kind of force that’s your sexuality, you know? So that kind of energy, whatever they walk through that door with, it’s like when you get them to the state where they are starting to vibrate, you know, in an almost a sexual manner, okay. Not that they’re jumping around, you know, doing lewd things, but just that you’ve found it where they start to hum. That moment. And then that’s the look. FF: Interesting, interesting. Laurie Drew: Acting is a very creative process. Costuming is as well. So it does have something to do with that creative flash, sexual energy, that you’re kind of working with. FF: And do you think that because Peta Wilson, the lead character, the heroine, is such a striking, physically beautiful individual, and has a sort of majesty…I mean she’s tall, and she’s got a great body and the blond hair. Do you feel that because you have someone who is so amazing looking to work with, that it really gave you much more leeway? Laurie Drew: Well, it does in terms of this show, because this show’s a lot about kind of fashionable looking clothes. Now, each show has its own dictates. You know in this particular one--I mean I could work with Peta on another show where she’d have to be a country housewife, and her look would be completely different, right? Nikita is particular in that sense, and we’re both happy to have all these great clothes. We’re able to use it, and it works for this show. And the fact that she wears them so beautifully. Most actresses don’t have model bodies. So you can have all kinds of ideas from magazines, but once you put them on the bod, it like kind of wilts. FF: Sure. Laurie Drew: So it’s not as easy to wear the stuff as it is with Pete. She wears clothes beautifully. FF: Absolutely. I’ve been following the series since the first season … Laurie Drew: Oh, great. FF: ... and I remember before it even came out, I live near Central Park and there was a phone booth with a poster teasing that the show was going to premiere soon, and there was this girl--I mean, you don’t see many girls who look like that--in this great outfit. And I thought, wow! And of course I’d seen the movie, and I thought well this looks really interesting. And I saw that it was on USA and I thought I’ve got to tune in. And I’ve been a total fan ever since. And when you shaped the Nikita character with Peta as far as the costuming went, the very high couture look emerged more and more. How did that come about? Was that something that you worked on with the directors and the writers as well as with Peta, or how did that all work? Laurie Drew: It had its evolution. And I think in terms of the character’s origins, she’s from the street, and she had a lot of rebelliousness in her for having been captured and kidnapped and forced under their control. So there were sort of odd and awkward and left-field kind of offshoots that would manifest in…in costume, you know. So she didn’t know what the hell she was for the first while, you know, except that she was really good and pissed off, right? But she also had to behave in a kind of appropriate manner for certain missions, and you know that sort of thing. So I think the first season was her more or less sort of finding herself, you know? And in a way we were too, you know. We were more impulsive. We were more kind of emotional about the pieces we would choose for her. And then, as the second season progressed, and certainly into the third, into the third season she has more or less decided to, I think, kind of play more of a psychological game with Section One. So she can play their game now very well, and probably better than they can. So that had to kind of manifest in her appearance. Which is a little bit more sophisticated and controlled. And then from time to time when we have an opportunity, we’ll see what’s really in her soul, you know, but less and less likely around Section. She has to have a sort of appropriate look, and she does. And she pulls it off, you know, in her own fashion, which is kind of like okay, well, let’s wear it well, and let’s do it, you know. If we’re going to do it, let’s do it well. FF: And of course there’s clothes for different, you know, there are the clothes that are for a mission, and there are clothes for when you’re at Section, and there’s at home and there’s evening wear and stuff. But what do Michael’s clothes say about him? Laurie Drew: Well, he’s very non-committal. I mean, we do not know about him. He’s almost an illusion, you know. He’s done with mirrors, right? And he’s not a real person. So he doesn’t show anything. He shows absolutely no emotion, whatsoever. So you could, like you could project going to his house, say for example. You open the closet doors and there’d be thirty suits exactly the same. He’s more a cartoon character in that respect. I don’t know if you can call it that, but he’s more two dimensional. Like he’s not showing more dimension than he absolutely needs to. FF: And you dress him in Gaultier? Laurie Drew: Yeah, he looks really good in Gaultier. FF: Is that primarily what he wears? Laurie Drew: He wears Versace; also a line called Istante ... FF: Oh yeah. Laurie Drew: ... which he wears, and Gucci. That’s about all we can find for him. You know, we’ve really painted ourselves into a corner with him, right? Because it’s got to be a uniform. But it’s got to be a certain kind of body language too. Because there’s a lot of chemistry between him and Peta, and you don’t see him really kind of schlumping around in loose fitting stuff, or anything too conventional. So it’s got to have a bit of an edge. But it still has to be a uniform. So those are the only suits to date, anyway. I’m sure there’s other stuff out there that I probably haven’t seen, but as far as what we can find and source out, it’s that, you know the Gaultier--great cut. FF: And as far as fitting and alterations, I mean because it strikes me also with this show, compared to other television shows, the way all the clothes, the men’s suits too, they fit absolutely perfectly. Laurie Drew: I think fit is so important. FF: And do you spend ... Laurie Drew: You could probably take any garment, and if it was properly fit you can make it look fabulous or just very, very commonplace you know? You probably could. FF: Yes, I think that’s absolutely true. So do you have a lot of fittings with Roy Dupuis? Laurie Drew: We usually do Roy at the beginning of the season. And then again maybe you know halfway through or thereabouts, we’ll book some time with him and have another series of fittings. I’ve got like an amazing crew here of really, really skilled people and we know him by heart to the point where any fluctuation in weight is immediately known! But they’re very good about that; they’re really conscious about our efforts. And therefore if, you know, they eat a little bit more over Christmas, they’ll work it off. FF: Tell me about Operations’ suits and jackets and so forth. What designers do you use for him? Laurie Drew: He’s an Armani guy. You know, pretty much. Raspini, just kind of whatever Italian…pretty conventional, you know. It’s not hard stuff to buy. He wears clothes very, very well. FF: Doesn’t he. Laurie Drew: Yeah he does, so you know it’s an Armani kind of silhouette. And then you know we take it from there with whatever’s around that kind of feels right. FF: And Madeline? Laurie Drew: Madeline’s all custom. FF: Is it? Laurie Drew: Yeah, it’s all made by us. FF: I think she looks very good in clothes too. Is she tall? Laurie Drew: She’s average. I think she’s about five eight. FF: Because she seems--maybe it’s the silhouette, that it’s a nice long lean look. And as far as Matthew Ferguson, Birkoff? Laurie Drew: Oh yeah, he’s great. FF: I like his clothes, too. There were some really cool T-shirts last season. Laurie Drew: We’re using less and less of the street look. It’s got the street silhouette now, but less of the specifics, like the logos and stuff are kind of going away. I guess he’s maturing too. FF: Right, and Walter? Laurie Drew: Don is Don and always will be. You know, he kind of came to us with his preference, which is the bandannas and the leather jeans and that, and I guess we just kind of slightly tweaked it for our show. Because there’s not a whole lot we can do with him. He’s an older person who’s kind of settled into a groove, and had grown into that groove, and embellished it over the years. And he doesn’t have a lot of versatility. I don’t know how you can say this in a nice way. It’s certainly not meant to be not nice. But it’s just--in terms of creativity it’s pretty limited with him. FF: And would you say that in the psychological aspect of how the character Nikita dresses, do you feel that, particularly when it’s a so-called office dress or whatever, is she dressing for Michael? Laurie Drew: No. I don’t think so. She’s got a lot of intrigue. I don’t think she really cares one way or another. I mean it’s a little deeper than that in terms of their relationship. It’s maybe even more twisted than that. I don’t think it’s as easy for them as like, oh, she wears a pretty dress one day, she’ll get him. You know it’s a lot more complicated than that. And she sticks to her guns, no pun intended, just in terms of who she is, and she’s dealing in real truths with him. And I think that’s their weakness and strength together. I don’t know, it’s hard to say. FF: Well, it’s the tension that makes it so interesting, I think, too. Laurie Drew: Yeah, yeah. And it’s the tension based on pretty heavy duty stuff; life and death kind of stuff, like he was her savior, yet her captor. So I don’t know. I don’t think it’s got much to do with clothes. I think the clothes kind of indicate their personalities and their characters, so in that way there’s an interplay. FF: And is Nikita dressing now in a more sort of corporate culture savvy way, because she’s ambitious? Is it with mixed feelings? Laurie Drew: I don’t think she’s ambitious to climb in Section; I think she’s ambitious for herself. I think the one thing about Nikita is, despite all odds, she’s got some vestige of hope left, and that’s what keeps her fire burning. And it’s like she’s not a Hamlet type of person. She’s not like, should I or shouldn’t I, to be or not to be. There’s nothing ambiguous about her. Right? She’s in your face, she says what she thinks, and you know damn the torpedoes kind of thing, right? FF: Definitely. Laurie Drew: So I don’t think she’s actually aspiring to climb the corporate ladder in Section. I think if she has any aspirations at all, it’s to live what mere kind of shreds of a life she has left, with some form of integrity. FF: Yes, yes. Laurie Drew: So yeah. She’s ambitious in that, in terms of like okay, I can play this game too. And if I’m going to make something of myself, and my own personal battle of life, you know, then I’ll use whatever resources I have. And if I can be smart enough to fool these guys, then you know maybe there’s hope. FF: I understand you often pick clothes for a scene right before it’s shot. Laurie Drew: Yeah. FF: So that means… Wow. Laurie Drew: We only get seven days to shoot a whole show, and invariably Peta’s in every script day, and you know there’s nine, ten, eleven different script days per show. You know it starts to mount up. FF: I bet. Laurie Drew: And she needs her sleep. She needs to have a bit of a life. So it’s like the fittings now have just come down to the point where everything that is an option, I present to her already altered and ready to the point where it can go. FF: I see. Laurie Drew: So we just haul in a rack. We have various outfit choices that are completely altered and accessorized and everything. And then it’s just a matter of her going through the blocking, which is something they do prior to rehearsals. Like they’ll sort of go to the set with the director and a few of the key set people, and they’ll walk through their lines and kind of get a feel for the mood of it. And then she’ll come back to change, and then she’ll know, okay, the feeling is this. Because you can read the script, you know I’ll read the script and know it inside out, but not until they actually block it and they have those dynamics in place do we really know what the hell we’re doing. So then that’s when the decision is made as to the feel of it. And then we choose accordingly. FF: And the fittings, since everything has already been fitted ahead of time, when has that occurred? How long before you actually start production do you fit Peta for a whole bunch of wardrobe? Laurie Drew: We’ve got a whole kind of form of her. So we ... FF: Oh great. Cool. Laurie Drew: Yeah, it’s something that my seamstresses have. We’ve got one full time lady working with us, Natasha, who works here at the studio constantly. And then we’ve got another lady, Tamio, who’s brilliant; and she’s got her own studio downtown. And we do contract work with her. She builds for Peta and for Madeline. We have their forms, so we don’t need to access them in actual flesh and blood ever. FF: Interesting. And do you have duplicates of clothes? Laurie Drew: Yeah. When called for, if it’s a stunt doubling situation, we have to have double, yeah. FF: So a large bank of clothes has been accumulated at this point. Laurie Drew: Yeah. But stuff that looked great six months ago, I wouldn’t want to touch it you know. That’s what I mean it has a life of its own. FF: Can you give me an example of something that doesn’t look right any more after six months? Laurie Drew: Yeah, like last year we were into the Costume National kind of silhouette. Very tight with zippers up the back as the pant leg that spreads out over the high heel boot, right? And it looked like so great and so right. And we did a lot of that. And now it’s like hmmm, you know. FF: There was a spread last week in Sunday’s New York Times, and there were Costume National clothes in the spread. It was a spread on Carrie Donovan. And what they’re doing now is completely different. Pastels and the whole thing. Laurie Drew: And that’s the danger. Because we’ve got distribution in Europe, and they’re seeing like two years ago. It’s embarrassing, you know. But I suppose it still may work. FF: It does. Laurie Drew: You go with the character then. And what we have is what goes with the character now. FF: How do you go shopping? Laurie Drew: I mostly have it brought to me. I can’t seem to get out of the office as much as I used to. And I thought that as the series progressed I would get into a nice groove, and that would give me more free time, but it doesn’t seem to have worked that way. It’s really demanding still. So I’ve got two mean shoppers who go out and pull in anything that’s out there on the racks that is looking like it might have a potential here. They’ll bring it in to me, and we have really good close relationships with a lot of the boutiques and stores in town. And you know, we pull stuff in from them, and take a look at it or show it to Peta or the other actors, and then return what we don’t use. And then they also are always scouting for fabrics and elements that might be interesting, right? And then bring some of that stuff in and oh, we can make such and such out of this you know. So that’s how we kind of keep it going. We’re all pretty hands on, and we’ve got like an amazing department actually. If we had more people then we might be stumbling all over each other. I mean we all work really, really hard, probably too hard. But, I don’t know. FF: It’s a crack team, right? Laurie Drew: We’re sick individuals. FF: I understand that Peta comes to New York often and goes shopping, and on these trips she picks up things possibly to wear on the show, or for herself. What places does she visit? Does she visit stores or does she go up to ateliers? Laurie Drew: She has been invited to a lot of ateliers actually, and there have been a lot of people interested in working with the show; but it’s funny because we work so fast that to call, say, Gianfranco Ferre and say, oh, can we have that great coat? By the time it gets through Customs and all that stuff it’s like, it’s a pain. And we’ve all been struggling, them on their end, we on our end, you know trying to get this working. But it’s just like logistically it’s a nightmare. And you know Pete’s not a sample size necessarily either, because she’s a bigger gal, right? FF: Right, right. Laurie Drew: So we can’t always use samples, and oh, just getting the stock in, and it’s all kind of seasonally...it’s really been hard for us. I think if we were located down in New York doing the show down there we could nick over and grab stuff and it would be much easier. But this way it’s very difficult. FF: And how tall is Peta? Laurie Drew: She’s five ten. FF: And when she shops for herself, what designers does she favor? Laurie Drew: She goes in and out, and it just depends on who’s doing what. As we know, you could love a designer one season and the next season you’re going ... FF: For sure ... Laurie Drew: ... what? But pretty consistently Dolce & Gabbana’s pretty fabulous, and she likes sort of the more sophisticated couture houses. I think she’s really partial to the French couture as well. And she wears it really interestingly. Like she’ll wear it offbeat kind of. FF: Cool. Laurie Drew: She’s not all sort of ladylike in those terms. She’s got a completely different energy. But she can certainly wear clothes, and it’s kind of interesting to see her put stuff together. You know, she’ll put it all together in a way that would probably have people freaking out. But she pulls it off. FF: So she has a real fashion sense herself. Laurie Drew: Oh boy, does she ever. She has an amazing eye. FF: Wonderful. And when you say she favors the French couture houses, what others? Is it like Galliano or ... Laurie Drew: No, not Galliano because he’s so out there right now. More Givenchy and Balenciaga and those ... FF: Oh great ... Laurie Drew: But you know the really good cuts like Mugler and those people who are really strong, she can wear that stuff. FF: And what is your--both of you--what is your interest in vintage clothing? Laurie Drew: Used to, although it’s not as important at the moment. You know like maybe in ten minutes it will be, but like right now it’s…I mean the thing is when you’re poor and you know you really need to sort of pull a look together, you know vintage can often be a great refuge. FF: It sure can. Laurie Drew: If you know, if you have an eye, because God knows, if you’ve got that quality in something made today it would cost you a fortune, right? FF: Yeah, and sometimes you can’t even find it. Laurie Drew: Exactly, you know. So that’s a great thing about vintage. But we’d used a lot of vintage in the first season, less in the second and none in now. FF: Because here it’s gone crazy in Manhattan for... Laurie Drew: Oh has it? FF: ... for some reason. And of course also the very, very high end stuff that they auction off at the various auction houses. But it’s very big with the very rich Park Avenue ladies, as well as people who can find…you know, there are places in Chinatown that are great resources for very, very inexpensive but good quality vintage clothing. So it’s interesting that that’s sort of taken off here. FF: Then I wanted to ask you about a few of the clothes in recent episodes. I think it was last Sunday’s episode there were some--I mean I love everything, but I saw very distinctive stuff. Nikita was wearing a sweater--it’s almost a sweater set, but what’s interesting is there’s like a finger loop to the sleeve that almost makes it look like a half glove. Laurie Drew: Oh yeah, it could be, actually. Yeah we’ve got a few sweater treatments with long sleeves in a thumbhold. FF: Yes, yes exactly. Laurie Drew: Long sleeves are kind of interesting right now, and that wrist area is kind of interesting... FF: Very. Now, are you doing that yourself? Laurie Drew: Uh huh. FF: So the sweater is not necessarily that way. Laurie Drew: Right. FF: Oh interesting. Very interesting. And then there was a sort of cranberry red dress at the end of the show with a…I believe a gray coat over it. Laurie Drew: Right. I think that’s Susan Lazar. FF: Very pretty color. And I think what I really, really, really adored was in the first episode of this season, where there’s that whole action scene in Shanghai, and it’s a wonderful stunt sequence as well, and she starts out wearing like ... Laurie Drew: The coolie outfit. FF: ... exactly, and then out comes this sensational mission outfit. Laurie Drew: It’s sort of like the bulletproof layer that’s worn presumably under disguises. FF: Right. I think it’s so iconic, really. Laurie Drew: Yeah. In a way without being too cartoonish. FF: Right. Laurie Drew: You have to be careful. FF: No, I think women would go out and buy that. Laurie Drew: Oh, do you? FF: Oh yes, I do. I actually think Nikita’s influence on dress is very powerful. Laurie Drew: I have a feeling it is. FF: I went past the Gap in my neighborhood yesterday, and in a very--of course, you know things get watered down so people can understand it--but there’s a photograph of a young girl in pigtails wearing a wind breaker. But there’s something evocative of the show in it. And I thought, this is very interesting, because I think it’s emerging in some way. Laurie Drew: Yeah. Well she’s a hero--a heroine to us in a way. Because of her strange situation, the ability to filter into places and to meet people that are very exotic, that we in our little ordinary lives could never possibly you know get to, right? Or meet. FF: Absolutely. Laurie Drew: And then her approach to all those people, and her function in those environments, is kind of intriguing. FF: Definitely. Laurie Drew: Yeah, so we watch her for that kind of…just…just the experience is kind of traveling on her coattails, right? And seeing what she’s seeing, experiencing what she’s experiencing. FF: And I think also at the same time it’s accessible because in a sense, what she’s struggling against in the structure that she’s in, is sort of a metaphor for a lot of people’s jobs. Laurie Drew: Exactly. We all feel kidnapped. FF: Screwed over and everything else. Laurie Drew: I know. What the hell. FF: Except this is much more glamorous. Laurie Drew: Yeah, and a lot of it could even be of our own making. You know, such a big machine. How do we know until it’s almost too late to change it, right? FF: Yeah, how it all works. And so that mission outfit, did you design that and make it yourselves, or was that pieced together? Laurie Drew: We did piece it together. We designed the pants. The top we used the arms of a downhill ski underpadding garment, and then the vest is what’s called an armadillo. It’s a standard piece used by stuntmen. And we took out pieces of it, and just kept basic elements of it, and it kind of worked. FF: It’s brilliant. When that whole sequence went by, and I saw that costume, I really just think it’s really up there with the memorable outfits on stars in movies that you love. You know it’s got that real wow power. Laurie Drew: Amazing. FF: I think it does have that strength. And now, just a couple of questions about last season. FF: In the final two episodes Nikita was wearing a very beautiful black dress that had a very sort of geometric cutout in the back; it was almost backless. Whose dress was that? Laurie Drew: That’s a local designer from Toronto called Crystal Siemens. FF: Wow, very nice. Very talented. Laurie Drew: Yeah it’s beautiful. FF: I’d like to know where you were born. Laurie Drew: In Ontario here. Not far from Toronto; a small town. FF: A small town? Laurie Drew: Uh huh. FF: And what did your parents do? Were they in a related field or not? Laurie Drew: Not at all. No. My mother was a school teacher; my father was a cop. FF: Oh great. Laurie Drew: Later a businessman, but you know when I was growing up he was OPP, Ontario Provincial Police. FF: And did that make it hard for you in a small town, that you father was a ... ? Laurie Drew: Oh God. Did it ever! FF: You studied at, is it Brock University? Laurie Drew: Yeah, and oddly enough, I took courses in drama. So that was the real first indication to me that I had an interest there, because, of course, small town Ontario, growing up in the Sixties, you know it’s like that’s not even part of your universe. You know it’s not even an option. And we didn’t watch a lot of television in our home. You know it was school work and playing outdoors a lot and activities and stuff like that. We weren’t really brought up on TV like a lot of kids are today, and maybe were then; I don’t know. But you know we could watch Walt Disney Sunday night; that was about the extent of it. When people would come to me and say, well, what do you want to be when you grow up, I was always miffed. I had no idea. Because the options that were available to me didn’t interest me at all. You know? But when I did go to university they had a great drama department there that was just newly built. And so that was a big plus for that university. And also it showed me that world for the first time. And in fact, the theatrical world really was very intimidating at first. The professor and the green room and his little kind of group of favorites and all that. And I was very country kind of naive you know, and I was pretty intimidated by all of that, but still fascinated. What really turned me on, though, was the actual work on stage, though I didn’t do much. We built costumes, we built sets, we mounted entire productions. I think the one I remember most was Moliere--what was that one? And I played a member of the Italian commedia dell’arte. FF: Oh yes. Oh neat! Laurie Drew: I played the old guy, and I just loved it. So I think probably from then on I started developing this interest in the arts, the lively arts. FF: It must have been fun doing costumes for that production. Laurie Drew: Oh yeah it was; it was great. And then I came to Toronto, having left home, and you know left home early, as early as I could basically. You know and I just came and started working at odd jobs in Toronto. And eventually, though, got into the film business. A friend of mine, Robert Lantos, is a producer up here, and he was just starting out at that time. So they didn’t have a lot of crews at that time in Toronto. And they were starting to really produce much more. So it was a perfect time for people without a lot of skill and experience to start in. FF: Right, get in on the ground floor. Laurie Drew: Exactly. And my boyfriend at the time was an artist and Robert was buying his paintings. And so at one point Robert said well listen, I’m going to start producing my own films; do you want to art direct? I got into costume that way. And apprenticed. So basically my whole background is apprenticeship in terms of this. And I’ve been doing it for twenty years. But I found that it’s a really, really good way of learning. You know, I think you can probably learn a lot in school, and I would never discourage anyone from going to school to study it, because you know that’s more formalized, and you get a lot of information that way. But in terms of apprenticeship, that’s where you really get the experience. FF: Oh definitely. Laurie Drew: In the sense of actually working with people and the dynamics that are at play in the film production. It is experience that really, really counts for you. FF: Definitely, definitely. And during this time, even when you were still at home, and then when you went to college and were just starting out, what was your interest in clothes just in a general sense for yourself? Did you make things--design things for yourself? Were you gravitating in that way? Laurie Drew: No, not at all. And it’s funny because again you know that whole world didn’t even really exist, like haute couture and high fashion and all of that in a small town scenario. It’s something that never really existed. I think my interest for costume is more…psychological. Yeah ... FF: Very interesting. Laurie Drew: Yeah, it’s like what makes the character tick, you know. Like when I traveled to Europe when I was in my formative years as a kid, was like wow, I could sit in a café, you know, for hours just watching people. You know? So I think, what components really put together a specific personality, and how you can translate that into costuming, right? FF: Right. I think that’s great, and I think you achieve that brilliantly on the show. It’s just fabulous. FF: And when you were in Europe you say sitting in cafés was also sort of an inspiration to develop this sort of psychological aspect of dressing. What were some of your favorite countries? What were some of your greatest influences or moments there that really stand out for you? Laurie Drew: Well the thing is, it really opened my mind and I think, you know, for any kind of artist, travel is vital. At a certain juncture in your life you’ve got to go; it’s almost like a rite of passage. You’ve just got to do it. Because I think we’re very one dimensional in America. We’ve had, I don’t know how many years of civilization here; not too many. And it’s all been mostly in the modern age, right? FF: Absolutely. Laurie Drew: There’s not a lot of reflection on the past, what’s come before, the origins of things. All of that. And that has always kind of fascinated me. You know when they say the news on TV, it’s like, yeah, the news. The news is boring. What about the old stuff? What brought us here? How do we make a decision without knowing all the variables that have caused us to arrive at this point? You know? FF: Yes. Laurie Drew: Why do we just respond to…to what’s news? We could be making the same mistakes over and over again without ever knowing it. We just don’t reflect, right? FF: Right. It’s the old Lily Tomlin joke. I think she says, history would stop repeating itself if we listened to it. Laurie Drew: Exactly. Oh yeah, that’s brilliant. Wow. So you know that kind of thing really blew my mind in Europe, because those people have been around. They’ve suffered a lot. And because of that I think their value system is, is much…how shall I say, maybe I think they’ve figured out what’s really important in life. And it’s pretty much the simple things you know. It’s beauty--beauty’s a big one. FF: Right. Laurie Drew: Pleasure; and that can take many different aspects. I think it’s probably the simplicities of life, you know? And they make a space in their world for the development of anything beautiful, whether it be food or clothes or lifestyle or art appreciation or music or anything. Those things--here they don’t really have a monetary value, therefore, you know, if you can’t really make money out of them, it’s not worth the exploring, or spending time on. But there in Europe money is only to get you the time so that you can enjoy the finer things of life, right? So that’s what really, I think, changed me and turned me right around with like wow, you know, there’s an actual pursuit of an esthetic that can be a lifelong endeavor. FF: Yes, I was struck by that too when I first went over. I spent a lot of time in Italy because I have family there. But it’s true in many, many places. What were some of the spots that are in your heart still? Laurie Drew: Well unfortunately I still haven’t been to Paris, so that’s a place I still have to go to. But mostly I spent a lot of my time in Spain and in Italy and in Hungary. Because my ex-husband was Hungarian. It’s a very, very beautiful country. FF: Oh yes, I hear Budapest is gorgeous. Laurie Drew: Yeah it is. And the countryside is gorgeous. FF: Oh how wonderful! Laurie Drew: Austria is beautiful. So I’ve done a lot of sort of--Germany I’m not so mad for. It is absolutely gorgeous. I’m just not as crazy for the people. But I love Italy. I suppose Italy is first and foremost, and next Spain. Spain’s pretty…pretty amazing. You know there’s so many regions of it and they’re all quite different in vibration kind of like. There’s Seville, very sensuous, and Madrid is very formal, and the north is pretty gorgeous in terms of the topography and all of that. Portugal: I spent a lot of time there, too. Belgium and Holland I really enjoy. I like the people in Northern Belgium and Holland. I love the Dutch; they’re gorgeous people. FF: Aren’t they beautiful? Yes, I’ve been struck by that too. And tall! Laurie Drew: Yeah. That’s true. They’re very sophisticated people. I feel like a country bumpkin when I’m there, because they’ve got something figured out. Extremely civilized people. FF: So are you multilingual? Laurie Drew: No, not really. I have an affinity for languages, and I do speak a bit of French being Canadian, but I pick up Italian very easily when I’m there, to the point where I can pretty much manage. But then I lose it when I’ve left. I think with languages, you know, I don’t pursue it. I don’t study it, because I just don’t have time. But when I’m there I kind of pick it up quickly. FF: Oh that’s great. That’s wonderful. And then it said in your bio that after your tour of Europe, your multiyear tour, you went to Key West. Laurie Drew: Oh yeah I did. FF: And what -- what triggered going to that particular place? What was the thought process? Laurie Drew: That was personal. Again, it was just a friend of my ex-husband, who was another painter and had a house down there, and we were invited down there for the winter, and stayed for three years. FF: Oh nice. Laurie Drew: Yeah. FF: Did you like it there? Laurie Drew: I loved it there. Yeah, it was right down the street from Jimmy Buffet, and the whole temperament there in the Seventies was really incredible, because a lot of the gays from Fire Island would come down there in the winter time, and they developed really fabulous restaurants and clubs. And there was a free rolling feeling happening down there, and it was just so kind of isolated from the rest of the country. It sort of had its own rhyme and reason, right? FF: Neat. Laurie Drew: It was neat. It was very, very great. FF: Sounds kind of electric too. Laurie Drew: It was. It was really great. But then you know whatever, I’m not American and eventually did have to come home, right? FF: Right. Laurie Drew: So that’s when I got into the film business actually, when I left Key West. FF: And you designed swimwear while you were down there? Laurie Drew: Yeah…yeah I did. FF: And that was for both men and women, or just women? Laurie Drew: Mostly women, yeah. FF: What did the swimwear look like? Laurie Drew: Well we brought the tanga (a kind of bikini) into Florida and did very well with it, too. FF: Interesting. Laurie Drew: Yeah, and we sort of introduced the high cuts and the tanga. And we wholesaled it, and had great success with it actually. FF: I bet. Laurie Drew: But I had to walk away from it, because I just couldn’t get it organized in terms of, you know, being a Canadian down there. FF: I see. So you returned home. Laurie Drew: Yup. I returned home upon invitation to do a film. FF: And that was in Montreal? Laurie Drew: Yeah. FF: And which film was that? Laurie Drew: Oh God, I can’t remember. That was many years ago. FF: Okay so you settled then in Montreal for a while or ... Laurie Drew: Yeah, uh huh. FF: And how many years did you live there? Laurie Drew: Oh, maybe ten. FF: Ten? And you did a variety of costume, both contemporary and period work or ... ? Laurie Drew: I’ve done very little period work. I’ve really just designed one period miniseries and got a Gemini (Canada’s Emmy award) nomination for that. And it was the Margaret Sanger story. FF: I saw that. That was lovely. Laurie Drew: Yeah, but it wasn’t called that finally. I think when they actually did run it they called it something else. FF: I think you’re right, because I think I saw it on Lifetime maybe a couple of years ago, and I did think it had another title, but I recognized it. FF: And then, after the ten years in Montreal, what happened next? Laurie Drew: I was invited down to Toronto to do a cop series, and so I came down here to do that and just stayed, pretty much doing TV and what that was, for us here, was pretty much movies of the week. So we would pop out these mini movies for television in like six weeks. It’s just like a kind of mill. But it was a great school for learning. FF: I bet. Laurie Drew: So it was tough in many, many ways, but a good experience I guess on hindsight. FF: And the cop series; what was the name of that? Laurie Drew: You know what you’ll find with me? That my memory in terms of work is really selective, and it’s embarrassing sometimes because I just don’t remember stuff. As soon as I’m finished, boom, I put all of my focus on the next project, or the current project. I completely just forget all the rest. FF: And you yourself, who are your favorite designers? Laurie Drew: Well, it’s funny, because, you know what? I live mostly in just active wear. Kind of like, we have a store up here called Mountain Co-op, and that’s what I live in. And I live in boots, ski pants, thermal zipper jackets, and that’s it. Because we have to be up at five in the morning, be on set. And this is now my third year, right? So I gave up dressing, and I just dress for comfort. But when I go out and stuff, I like to make things. The dress for the Geminis was a make, and the stuff I wore at Christmas I made. You know, or had made, right? Just go out and buy fabric and…but as far as designers go who I really love right now, and couldn’t possibly afford, you know, because I mean if I dressed in the clothes that I like, I’d be a pauper. I’m intrigued by Yamamoto right now this season. FF: I’ve noticed some really nice shoes and boots on Peta. Laurie Drew: Yeah. Sergio Rossi sent us a whole bunch, which was really nice of him. So they’re really gung ho for this show. He just sent us up a whole box. FF: Oh, how wonderful. Laurie Drew: Can you imagine? FF: I can just see designers dying to dress her. Laurie Drew: Yeah, it’s just the logistics of it has been weird. I think it’s probably a first for TV, you know, where couture people take an interest on that level. I mean I don’t know of any other show myself. FF: Without a doubt. Laurie Drew: I mean on film, yeah. Obviously you know everybody’s into film. And it’s much more workable with film, because you’ve got a lot more prep time. But on TV I don’t think we’ve ever seen the caliber of dress that we have on Nikita. FF: I completely agree. I occasionally watch Melrose Place, which I’m sure has quite a large budget, I really feel the clothing on that show is fairly banal. I mean it really isn’t very distinguishable year from year or from character to character for that matter. Laurie Drew: Yeah. Like they might be dressed off set by designers, right? FF: I don’t know. I don’t know how it works on that show. But also I think all the girls are rather petite, so they’re probably harder to fit. Laurie Drew: Yeah that’s it. With actresses it is. It’s a real limitation. FF: And they don’t fit the way the clothes on your show do either. Laurie Drew: Well like I said we’re sticklers for fit. We love fit. So whatever we can do to achieve that we’ve pretty much tried to. FF: You should be really proud of the work because it’s superb. And finally, can I ask you a little bit about your personal life? Are you married, do you have children? Laurie Drew: No. I don’t. FF: No to both. Laurie Drew: No not married, but living with someone. No children ever. FF: And do you have any pets? Laurie Drew: Oh yeah, I’ve got two Jack Russells. FF: Oh, I love them. Do they come to the set? Laurie Drew: Yeah, yes. FF: Oh excellent. That’s nice. Laurie Drew: Not all the time. From time to time, because they’re like little terrors. FF: They’re really smart. Laurie Drew: Oh they’re great, they’re great animals. FF: Thanks for speaking with us, Laurie. You’re doing great things