Servant costume designer Caroline Duncan chats color schemes, symbolism, teases Season 2
By Sandy C.
Servant on Apple TV Plus takes audiences on an intense ride of mystery, grief, and fear. The M. Night Shyamalan directed series pulls all the stops in creating the psychological thriller, and one of those is getting preeminent costume designer Caroline Duncan on board.
Recently, we chatted with Duncan to get the scoop on the symbolism behind the wardrobe of the cast, why Jericho’s onesie is so important, and I tried to get some teasers for Season 2. Did the latter work? Read on to find out! Please note: Huge spoilers ahead if you are not caught up on Servant. Watch the first season on Apple TV Plus before reading ahead.
The psychological thriller follows Dorothy and Sean Turner, a married couple who have hired Leanne as their live-in nanny to their 13-week-old son, Jericho. The problem is, Jericho passed away under mysterious circumstances, but Dorothy was given a realistic doll to deal with the pain after losing touch with reality and falling in a catatonic state.
Dorothy now believes the doll is real and Leanne backs her up, especially when she returns home from a walk with Jericho, who is now a living and breathing baby boy. Who is this baby? What happened to Jericho in the first place? And what are Leanne’s true intentions with the Turner’s? Servant has viewers begging for answers throughout the first season.
Planting clues, symbolism, and intrigue is Caroline Duncan (When They See Us, Lovely Bones, 27 Dresses), the show’s costume designer who cleverly dresses the cast. Read our interview, below!
Note: The interview below has been edited and shortened for clarity.
Hidden Remote: I know you have worked on a little bit of everything, from When They See Us to 27 Dresses, what drew you to Apple TV series? Is horror one of your favorite genres?
Caroline Duncan: I’m actually not a horror fan, I have a pretty weak stomach for it! I love the script that I was shown. I had worked on another series that was about the death of a child and how that impacted the family and the process of grieving that was very naturalistic. And this show [Servant] has a very different prospective on grief, and gives you the opportunity as a designer to explore more of the subconscious or unconscious handling of a loss. I felt incredibly drawn to it.
HR: I’m particularly curious about Dorothy and Leanne’s choice of clothing — especially Dorothy! In the flashbacks with Jericho, she dresses and behaves so differently compared to present time, can you tell me about that?
Duncan: Sure! In the flashback [Episode 9, the penultimate episode of Season 1], from when she gives birth up until Jericho’s last day, we totally wanted it to feel like another world, a completely different world. A world of optimism. It’s summer, the windows are always open so there’s a breeze coming through the house.
I wanted to change her palette to feel far more optimistic and just a little bit more naive in terms of sophistication, just less put together and more natural — like what you would wear after having a baby.
MORE: Servant season 1, episode 10: Breaking down that insane finale
HR: I could totally see that! The series doesn’t tell you when there’s a flashback, it just goes into it, but it was obvious just from the clothes.
Duncan: Oh, good! Then we did our job [laugh]! Yes, we wanted to imagine a world in which a baby lived.
HR: What can you tell me about Jericho’s yellow onesie, the one he wore last. To the average viewer, it’s just an essential piece of baby clothing. But is there more to it we should know about?
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Duncan: There’s an episode before the flashback where Leanne finds it [the onesie] in the laundry hamper and it’s just described as a onesie that has a little piggie on it. And Jericho’s wardrobe is a lot of layette colors, whether it’s the doll or the baby, there’s a lot of pale blue, gray, and white, and not a lot of color in his wardrobe. So with the pre-tragedy Jericho, I felt like that onesie had to have some color to it far from what he wears in present day.
Yellow is always a good neutral color for any baby, but also there’s something about yellow — it can be fun and optimistic, but it’s also a color you can associate with decay. And then the piggie on it makes it very identifiable, it adds a sweetness of a little baby, but there’s also that double play on the show with food.
There’s that carcass at the beginning of the episode, on the table, and then the baby is left in the car decomposing. And that’s the same idea with the little piggie. It’s so sad!
MORE: Servant on Apple TV: Rupert Grint is a stand-out in psychological thriller
HR: Wow, that’s so interesting! There’s so much mystery surrounding the death of Jericho from the beginning. How much did you know about that going in?
Duncan: Not much! We had the first eight scripts pretty early on, and the ninth script we didn’t get until a few weeks out. So we didn’t know how Jericho had died, whether it was natural or not. We really had no idea, so when we got the script it was a surprise to us all how it tied together.
HR: One thing I did notice is how George and Julian are both uncles and they both wear suits, but their suits couldn’t be more different! Can you tell us about the comparison between the men?
Duncan: Rupert’s [who portrays Julian] suits are high-end, full of texture and rich. He is an addict and in complete denial of any feeling. He’s drinking and taking drugs as his process of grieving. His wardrobe is impeccable even though his life is falling apart. And Uncle George is, much like Leanne, a relic of many, many times. What era is he from? Is he alive? Is he an angel? Those are not questions I want people to answer, so part of the process of building his suits was to evoke something that could be from the 1930s, but it also could be from the 1980s.
HR: Were there any specific costumes you enjoyed working on?
Duncan: I loved Leanne’s art in general. I loved working out with Nell how to bring a presence into this home that had a girlishness, but also a timelessness to her [Leanne]. She wears very different palettes than the rest of the family, she’s very modest. And then, once she becomes absorbed into this world of the Turner’s, how do they change her?
In the second episode, Dorothy dresses her in this beautiful blue dress that Dorothy picked out for her. It was just a lot of fun psychologically to play with what would overlap from Dorothy’s world that Leanne would still feel appropriate in. It’s part dress-up and part wearing someone else’s skin. It was a lot of fun working that out with the actress.
HR: Are you going to be working on Season 2?
Duncan: I already am!
HR: Ah, that is exciting!
Duncan: We’re filming now, yeah!
HR: Can we expect any drastic wardrobe changes?
Duncan: I can’t tell you anything, you know I can’t! [laughs] But you can expect some wild, fun choices…and some really interesting new characters.
HR: All right! Well, that’s exciting, I can’t wait to watch! Thanks Caroline for chatting with me!
Well, I tried to get more teasers, folks! But it appears Season 2 will be as secretive as the first season, but isn’t that one of the many things we loved about Servant? Stay tuned for more updates on the series!
Stream all of Season 1 of Servant on Apple TV Plus.