Five seasons into its acclaimed run, Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building has racked up a whopping 67 Emmy nominations and seven wins so far. Costume designer Dana Covarrubias has earned four of those for her work and always appreciates the recognition from her peers.
“It’s always surprising, but I think [this nomination] was to me a real sign that the academy members that are voting continue to love the show. Everyone still likes the costumes and they still ring true to who these characters are,” she says. “Part of what’s fun about working in episodic television is that you do get to spend these years with these characters and develop them more and more and more.”
Gold Derby spoke with Covarrubias from London, where she’s currently working on the sixth season. She talked about why she decided to submit the Lester-centric episode “After You” for Emmy consideration, the cast member who might appreciate the costume department most and her favorite design details she and her team added to the doormen uniforms this season.
Gold Derby: How do you tackle each season? Do you get hints before you get scripts or ideas?
Dana Covarrubias: We definitely get hints when they start the writer’s room, but it depends. Every season has a theme and so that’s very exciting when I get to find out what that theme is, and then I get to start planning and thinking and dreaming and mood boarding, and that’s always fun.
How did you decide on which episode to submit for Emmy consideration? It seems like an unfair challenge, in the best way.
Friends of mine who are costume designers, we always talk about this, that it’s so hard to choose an episode because you’re really developing a world. You want the whole season to be considered because every episode can have something different in it that you love, so it is really difficult to choose. But I think I chose “After You,” our second episode of the season, because it really shows the scope of our characters that everyone has fallen in love with. It shows the beginning of how everyone came to live in the Arconia and tells Lester’s story and how he became a doorman. In past seasons we’ve gone out of the building and we’ve done all these big storylines and plot lines and I liked that this was all very contained and it was about our core cast. Finding the nuance in the costumes for all those flashback beats was really fun for us and I think that’s why I chose it, because it felt like an honor to the show and the world of our show.
When it comes to your resources, what’s your routine or strategy? Are there specific costume houses you always go to, being in New York?
This had so many flashbacks and a lot of earlier scenes [set] in the ’90s. but most of it was still contemporary. That’s why it’s in the contemporary category. We did source a lot from a couple different rental houses in New York. We go to Alias and we go to Right to the Moon Alice, in upstate New York. And then we also did a bunch of rentals from L.A. to have all shipped to New York and some thrifting and stuff like that. Our go-to, as a contemporary show, is typically shopping or building the costumes and so it was nice to kind of do something new for us.
I can’t imagine any parts of costume design being easy, because of the timeline and how many moving parts there are, but is there a part of the job or process that’s easier for you now?
Right. Television is never easy, but I think five years in on a project, you really know the people and you really know the characters. And so it’s like you created this outline and this very clear sort of [design] wall. And then within that wall you can play. You get to be a lot more, not more creative, but it’s all very developed and so the ways in which you can enhance things, it can be more exciting somehow. So it’s not necessarily easy, but it gets more honed in, if that makes sense.
If we were to watch that episode again, are there little details that are your favorite to point out to give a second look or look out for?
I’ve always loved uniforms. How someone wears it, how they personalize it is who they are. It’s like telling you, projecting who they are. So this episode is about these doormen that run the building. I’ve always loved New York City doormen, I have a hard time trying not to stalk them and take photos of them because I just want to see all different ways that they’re wearing their uniforms. Some have them perfectly pressed and and they’re perfectly tailored and then other ones the pants are 10 inches too long and they’re like pooling at their boot and we played around with that kind of thing. So I would say if someone was watching it back, that’s what you could look for. We show three generations of doorman in the building. And so with every new generation, they did their version of the uniform and waited until the old generation was gone in order to wear the uniform the way they wanted to wear it. Every new generation does a little tweak, a little something to make it their own.
Had you worked with any of your new guest stars before? So many Oscar winners this season…
I think they were all new. I’ve never worked with any of these actors before, but it was crazy. Keegan-Michael Key and Diane Weist and Meryl [Streep] was back, of course. Christoph Waltz, Renée Zellweger, it’s a crazy season. They were all so lovely, playing these bonkers characters and these weirdo billionaires, that was very fun. That’s the joy and the hard part of our show is that our guest characters are so amazing but they come in for just a moment, a couple of days here and there. It’s a lot to manage and it seems like every season it gets bigger and bigger. Our costume crew does not get bigger, but we somehow manage and we love it.
Is there one of your principal cast members who either loves your department the most or likes to come hang out?
Steve Martin gives us the sweetest compliments, literally on a weekly basis. His dressing room is right down the hallway from where our office is, and sometimes he’ll just literally poke his head in from behind the door and be like, “You guys are doing a great job!” He’s just the best. And every time I go in to approve his costumes or do a fitting, he’s always so lovely and complimentary, so nice.
How do you prepare for the Emmys? How far in advance do you decide what you yourself wear?
Not very much. I just search everywhere, high and low. I’m trying to look at vintage shops and stuff online. I’m thinking about getting a suit and doing something custom to it. You do feel a bit of pressure as a costume designer to look great, but it is always fun.
This article and video are presented by Hulu.
