On the eve of the 2023 Oscars—the calm earlier than the flashbulb storm—Hong Chau known as from Los Angeles after a ultimate becoming along with her stylist duo, Zadrian Smith and Sarah Edmiston. All was going swimmingly. The customized Prada gown, a pink silk column with a black practice resembling glass shards, had arrived becoming like a glove, no alterations wanted. (A minor miracle throughout awards season, which Edmiston described as “like Squid Sport, however with a number of stunning clothes.”) Nonetheless, swanning will not be the actor’s ordinary mode. “I undoubtedly don’t really feel at residence on a crimson carpet,” mentioned Chau, who, as a movie scholar, initially took an appearing class as a way of overcoming her shyness. “I believe there’s simply a lot occurring, and I’m unsure anyone is absolutely current,” she defined, describing an atmosphere the place interactions really feel clipped and commodified. “Even when I’ve simply met you, I nonetheless yearn for a real interplay.”
That conscientiousness is unsurprising to followers of Chau’s work. In The Menu, director Mark Mylod’s darkish tour by the ultra-rich playground of advantageous eating, Chau breathed specificity into the loosely drawn position of the maître d’. “They thought Elsa needs to be unremarkable and really plain-dressed,” Chau informed Vogue final yr, describing how she and costume designer Amy Wescott as an alternative sharpened the character’s costume and look. This was not your commonplace hospitality professional or chef groupie: “I likened her extra to a marketing campaign supervisor for a politician”—fastidious with out being flashy.
Even for her Oscar-nominated flip because the nurse Liz in The Whale, a job whose contours have been properly outlined within the authentic play by Samuel D. Hunter, Chau floated a particular request previous director Darren Aronofsky: that her character have tattoos, even when they’d find yourself being hidden from view. The actor despatched early inspiration pictures to make-up division head Judy Chin, together with a dumpling with a star. “We had a superb giggle,” Chau informed me, including that she was significantly struck by considered one of Chin’s hand-drawn designs. “It was two koi fish—a bigger one for Charlie and a smaller one for Alan—they usually have been form of wrapped round one another. It was so stunning.” Freed of the standard hours in hair and make-up (Chau, then a brand new mom, was capable of embrace her personal bare-faced exhaustion for the half), she leaned into the ritual of the tattoo utility. “It was a pleasant time for me to settle into the character as a result of I used to be simply coming from residence, the place I used to be nursing a child,” Chau mentioned. “I wanted that, wanting again on it.”
The emotionally uncooked world of The Whale couldn’t be farther from the frothy Oscars, the place each head-to-toe element is finessed. “I believe that’s why no one ever acknowledges me after I’m on the carpet: as a result of I look so completely different from my characters,” mentioned Chau, who began working with Zadrian & Sarah (because the group is professionally identified) in late January. The stylists, talking over Zoom on Saturday afternoon, recalled Chau particularly stating that trend could be a secondary concern for her—and an individualistic one. “She didn’t wish to emulate old-school Hollywood glamour, or any period that didn’t characterize her as a lady,” mentioned Smith. Consequently, their pulls for Chau these previous few weeks have mirrored a self-reflective and forward-thinking mixture of designers: Simone Rocha, Dries Van Noten, Rodarte, Jason Wu.
For the grand finale, it was to be customized Prada. A handful of sketches arrived; Chau gravitated towards one after which, because it occurs, had an concept. “I used to be like, ‘I do not know when you’re going to be very offended by this, however I simply needed to include my roots slightly bit,” she informed me, recalling how she despatched alongside a photograph of a spring 1997 Prada gown with a Mandarin collar. (Chau’s dad and mom left Vietnam as postwar refugees, finally settling in New Orleans.) The suggestion was a successful one. “It felt like there was slightly little bit of a collaboration occurring, which I really feel so humbled to be part of,” she mentioned. The gown “simply feels very me—and I really feel nimble in it.”
The same sense of ease carried above the neck, with a group—Derek Yuen on hair, Fiona Stiles on make-up—that has labored collectively all awards season lengthy. “I really like Fiona’s capacity to simply provide you with very pure, breathable pores and skin,” Chau mentioned, marveling on the means Stiles as soon as eliminated hint quantities of make-up with a Q-Tip, to raised let the freckles shine by. For Yuen, the Oscars supplied an updo alternative—a modern double bun—with out the helmet-head really feel of an excessive amount of product. “All of it feels very mild and easy,” she mentioned.
