Ellis Dove from 'The Beast'
Women everywhere would love to feel Susan Kaufmann's pain. It's her job as costumer of A&E Network's The Beast, airing Thursdays, to dress Patrick Swayze and Travis Fimmel.
"I know, it's awful, isn't it?" she says,
joking about the two handsome stars, who play FBI agents. "The woman who called
me (to hire her), I told her, 'You could give Travis a kiss for me.' And, they
are just as adorable on the inside."
Playing a youthful undercover FBI agent in Chicago means that Fimmel's character, Ellis Dove, is a bit hip and edgy but not so fashionable that he draws attention to himself.
Kaufmann describes Dove's look as "sexy cool."
"His black leather jacket is Hugo Boss, and I bought so much of his stuff there," she says.
"It's hard in television," Kaufmann says while driving in the snow in Chicago. "When doing that many episodes, sometimes they change six to eight times per show. I didn't want it to look like he had an enormous amount of fashiony clothes. I made a closet for him, and I have him stick to it. One of the things Travis was really wanting was to really wear his stuff out. He wears his jeans four times a week.
"He felt really strongly about that," she continues. "Sometimes actors say that, and halfway through, they say, 'I want more clothes.' He never did. We bought him Dickies. It's what gas station attendants wear. A lot of hip-hop guys wear them. The pants and shirts, he does occasionally look like a gas station attendant. Diesel jeans that looked fairly basic and worn-in and look great on him. We did a lot of the layered T-shirts to keep it youthful and bought some of those at Lucky Brand. It ranged from Urban Outfitters to Barneys."
Like all costumers, Kaufmann finds herself constantly shopping and has picked up pieces at Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom.
His shoes were kept regulation hipster: black, low-top Converses and work boots she picks up at Army and Navy surplus stores.
When asked about Ellis Dove's style, Fimmel says, "I don't give a s--- about costume. He wears Dickies. I just make sure nothing matches."
Why would anyone want to wear intentionally mismatched clothes?
"He's just this FBI agent," Fimmel says. "I've been wearing these jeans for the last week, honey. I clean them all the time and just put them back on."
Kaufmann comes to Fimmel's sartorial defense.
"That is so not true," she says of him not caring about what his character wears. "He doesn't give me grief. He is very collaborative. For a young guy, that's very uncommon. We costumed him, and it seemed real. He's a young guy, not pretentious, not too thought-out, still hot and hip, and he had lots of thoughts about it."
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