Exclusive: Costume Designer Luca Mosca Talks “The Rings Of Power”

Ahead of the release of The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power season two, I had the privilege of speaking to the epic fantasy series’ costume designer, Luca Mosca, who takes over from Kate Hawley this season. Mosca’s behind-the-camera credits include The Last Witch Hunter, Paranoia, Vantage Point and the first three entries in the John Wick film franchise, preparing him for the unique challenges of designing for Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Harfoots, Orcs and more, on one of the largest television series’ ever made.

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Leith Skilling: We’ve heard that this season of The Rings Of Power takes the series to a much darker place, tonally and thematically. How have the costumes evolved to reflect that?

Luca Mosca: This season is action versus lore: last season, we introduced the characters, but what you will see this season is lots of intense epic pieces that require intense costuming. Sauron is definitely darker but since he is deceitful he can also appear in “fair form” in order to mislead both us and the characters that he is juxtaposed to. In terms of designs, we manipulated his fabrics by dyeing and distressing them, and we played with shapes to be more or less fluid or drapey, in order to go along with the misleading message. Sometimes, a fabric appears one way, but it may reveal a shiny underlayer to create the illusion of something that exists or maybe does not exist, something that is visible only partially or only at different moments.

LS: The Rings Of Power is heading to locations, like the land of Rhûn, that the books never described in much detail. When designing for an entirely new culture and its characters, where do you look for inspiration, and what are the difficulties of creating something that has to feel distinct but still exist within the context of Middle-earth?

LM: We always start with intense research. My team and I consulted art and history books and ancient artifacts. I am a museum rat and I spent days in the various museums of New Zealand, New York, London and Paris, absorbing cultures and time periods and drawing inspiration from textures, fabrics, colors and shapes ranging from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages, from Baroque to the late 1800s.

LS: This season, you got to create one of the most iconic outfits described in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord Of The Rings; Tom Bombadil’s feathered cap, bright blue jacket, and bright yellow boots. What were the challenges of bringing that from page to screen?

LM: Tolkien was very specific when describing some details of Tom Bombadil’s outfit. Our goal was not to immediately make him identifiable as Tom Bombadil, and we played with tonal variations of the colors described in the lore, and when you meet him on the screen, hopefully he won’t immediately jump at you for who he really is.

LS: Costume design is a collaborative process with several other departments, and with the actors who will be wearing the costumes. Can you briefly take us through the process of bringing a costume from sketch to screen?

LM: After the initial sketch, a very detailed illustration of the final costume is created. The choice of colors and fabrics are driven by the interior sets or the exterior locations, so I encourage a constant back-and-forth with the art department. When we created a new civilization this season, on top of the photos of the location, we obtained samples of sand, dirt, dust and vegetation from the actual location in order to design the costumes in harmony with the landscape and to “ground” the characters in their environment.

LS:  The costume I’m personally most excited to see onscreen is the white dress and mosaic collar Míriel wears this season [pictured above], that was on display at San Diego Comic-Con last month. If possible, can you tell me anything about how that dress came to be and how difficult it was to create?

LM: Maybe the adjective “difficult” should be replaced with “elaborate” because it involved so many components and so many sub-departments of the costume department were involved. The costume required the work of smiths, jewelers, embroiders and milliners on top of dyers, cutters and stitchers. Queen Regent Míriel wears that costume for a scene that evokes emotions, and we thought of a watery theme, where water represents feelings. The collar is encrusted with pearls and with a mosaic of mother of pearl, almost to evoke a submarine creature living inside a seashell.

LS: If you had to choose one, which costume are you most proud of and why?

LM: Please don’t ask a parent to choose his favorite child 🙂

LS: What inspired you to become a costume designer, and which costume designer’s work is an influence on you?

LM: My background is fashion. I never thought in my early years that I would have shifted my career towards film and TV, but movies came to me one after the other and the transition was organic and almost seamless. It was the “oldies” from the 40s, 50s and 60s that shaped my cinematic taste. I can tell you that at least once a year I like to rewatch Dr. Zhivago.

LS: Finally, if you could go back in time, is there any film you would have loved to have done the costumes for?

LM: It would be an old movie that I love so much, therefore I would not want to have done costumes for it because they are perfectly beautiful as they are.

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The Lord Of The Rings: The Rings Of Power season two premieres Thursday, August 29th, on Amazon Prime Video.