To create a safe working environment while shooting “Cyrano” during the coronavirus pandemic before a vaccine was widely available, director Joe Wright established a bubble with his cast and crew on location in Italy. But while the strict health and safety protocols required to mount a musical production in October 2020 were significant, it also provided a bit of creative inspiration, at least according to Sian Miller and Oscar winner Alessandro Bertolazzi, the “Cyrano” hair and makeup team.

“Cyrano’s” makeup designer Alessandro Bertolazzi says he used just one shade of red for the film’s makeup. In retrospect, Bertolazzi says not only was it a risky move, “but it’s quite crazy.” His research process to find the right color meant looking at different grease palettes and water-based colors until he found the right color. Once he did, it was about taking that and creating a different result on every character that included Cyrano, played by Peter Dinklage, Roxanne, played by Haley Bennett and Christian (Kelvin Harrison). “There was this extraordinary organic effect where everyone was linked together,” he says.

Period romances are birthed out of history, so it goes without saying that lots of research and real-life references were pulled for the now-Oscar-nominated film. To get the behind-the-scenes details of how this movie came to life in the 21st century, we spoke with hair and makeup department heads Siân Miller and Alessandro Bertolazzi. Ahead, they share how they worked alongside Wright to make sure "Cyrano" felt authentic without losing the theatrical nature it was born with.

The story of Cyrano de Bergerac is a familiar one: A man known for his bravery and wit deems himself unworthy of love. It’s been reprised both on stage and on-screen several times. When Massimo Cantini Parrini was approached to design costumes for a new adaptation, he knew the project was going to be a special one. Director Joe Wright’s vision for Cyrano, starring Peter Dinklage in the lead role, felt different. And Cantini Parrini "fell even more in love" with the story, interpreter Marina Spagnuolo translates from the costume designer’s Italian home. Now, he has received an Oscar nomination for his work, shared with two-time Oscar winner Jacqueline Durran, who designed the costumes for the female lead, Cyrano’s love interest, Roxanne (Haley Bennett).

Costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini and Wright say they both wanted to present the character as a member of the military. Parrini explains, “Cyrano is a noncommissioned officer of a certain rank, and with Joe, we agreed that he was not going to ever change his costume until the end of the film when he becomes a poor man.”

We were fortunate to conduct a series of interviews for the film, which you can listen to down below in the following order: Daniel Howat's interview with actress Haley Bennett, Will Mavity's interview with the hair and makeup team Sian Miller and Alessandro Bertolazzi, Howat's interview with director Joe Wright, Mavity's interview with Academy Award-nominated costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini and finally, Howat's interview with cinematographer Seamus McGarvey.

The movie “Cyrano” jumped into director Joe Wright‘s head in 2018 when he saw his partner Haley Bennett star as Roxanne in writer-director Erica Schmidt’s Goodspeed Opera House musical re-imagining of “Cyrano de Bergerac,” which starred Schmidt’s husband Peter Dinklage.

Though Edmond Rostand’s play Cyrano de Bergerac is nearly 125 years old, Oscar-nominated designer Massimo Cantini Parrini found its themes to be eternal. “We live in a world dominated by social media, where appearance seems to rule on everything,” says the designer. In this spirit, Cantini Parrini created a clever convertible uniform—held together by buttons instead of seams—ensuring that Cyrano’s main wardrobe, like the character, would be more than it looks.

“The idea was to re-create Cyrano around the mid-1700s to give the idea of lightness through the costumes,” costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini said. “The 1600s, while a beautiful period to represent, is very set and rigid. Setting a musical in the 1700s allowed us to make everything light and airy at the same time.”

To help create the costumes for his musical adaptation of “Cyrano,” director Joe Wright enlisted Oscar-nominated costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini to bring his signature steady hand to the project. But while the end result – which is out later this month in limited release before a nationwide debut on February 11 (“Cyrano” had an awards-qualifying run in December of last year) – looks as lavish and bespoke as Wright’s other films, its production was anything but effortless. Wright shot the film in the fall of 2020 before the coronavirus vaccines were widely available, and as Parrini tells Gold Derby, it created a unique set of challenges unlike any he experienced before.

Jacqueline Durran: Best Costume Design for ‘Cyrano’

"How amazing! Thank you to everyone in the Academy who voted for Cyrano - it is such an honour to be nominated in the costume category alongside Massimo Cantini Parrini. Most importantly I want to thank Joe Wright for giving us his beautiful vision to interpret and make real - and for me, working with Haley Bennett to find the visual language to express Roxanne’s story was a pleasure and a journey of discovery. Having the chance to look at an historical period with fresh eyes is a gift for a costume designer - Thank you."

Il semaforo verde è arrivato un mese prima delle riprese. «Devi essere molto coraggioso per fare questo film», gli ha detto il regista Joe Wright. Non solo Massimo Cantini Parrini non si è spaventato, il risultato è spettacolare. Fiorentino, è stato allievo di Pietro Tosi e ha esordito nel cinema accanto a Gabriella Pescucci. È un fedele collaboratore di Edoardo De Angelis, dei fratelli D’Innocenzo e di Matteo Garrone. Iil suo lavoro per Pinocchio gli è valso una candidatura all’Oscar e con Cyrano è in nomination per gli Oscar 2022.

Cyrano (in theaters on February 25) boasts megawatt talent – notably, Peter Dinklage in the title role – but newly minted Oscar-nominee, costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini, may be the film’s secret weapon. Parrini has won a bundle of European awards, mostly for his work in his native Italy. He came to Hollywood’s attention in 2020 when he was nominated for an Oscar for his costumes for Pinocchio, starring Roberto Benigni.

This week, however, Below the Line spoke to Massimo Cantini Parrini, who was responsible for the undefined period piece costumes in Joe Wright’s epic musical Cyrano. The film, which revisits the Edmond Rostand tragicomedy of Roxanne and the titular tragic poet, premiered at last year’s Telluride Film Festival, and Massimo, having received the film’s sole Oscar nomination along with fellow costumer Jacqueline Durran (who designed the costumes for Roxanne), was excited to talk about his creative journey on the project.

For costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini, helping to remake the classic "Cyrano" story into a sweeping movie musical presented a formidable challenge. If creating hundreds of romantic, era-appropriate costumes for the cast to dance and sword-fight in wasn't chaotic enough, he also had to do it during a global pandemic. "It was very difficult," Parrini tells POPSUGAR. "I only had one month of preproduction for this film, but thanks to God, I kept making the costumes in the workshop I opened in Sicily during the whole shoot. We sewed until the last day and created about 750 new costumes made exclusively for this wonderful film."

Recently, I was able to talk to acclaimed costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini about his designs for Cyrano (2021). Parinni is the designer for two Frock Flick favorites, Tale of Tales (2015) and Ophelia (2018). His style is notable for a dreamy aesthetic fused with an understanding of historical silhouettes, and Cyrano delivers on both of those fronts.

How do you give a visual makeover to a classic tale that's centered around appearances? That was the question facing award-winning costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini when he began work on the latest screen adaptation of Edmond Rostand's 1897 play "Cyrano de Bergerac," and he had 26 days to figure it out.

Wright’s musical film, adapted from a recent stage production of the 1897 play, stars Peter Dinklage in the titular role. While Dinklage has been lauded for his performance in the period film (and onstage; he originated the role in Erica Schmidt’s production), the costumes have emerged as a major star of the project. Parrini, and Italian costume designer, has received prestigious nods for his work on the film, in collaboration with Jacqueline Durran, and is in the running for a BAFTA and Academy Award this month.

For director Joe Wright’s romantic yet bold cinematic adaptation of the classic story of Cyrano de Bergerac, “Cyrano,” starring Peter Dinklage and Haley Bennett, costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini re-imagined the often-rigid heavy and formal costumes of the 17th century period, flipping them into a mix of fluid, light-filled pieces awash in watercolor-like hues. The film was shot in the fall of 2020 in the midst of the early lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic. Both patience and creativity were at a premium.

“Red is the color of passion,” says costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini, receiving his second nomination, after last year’s for Pinocchio. “We are telling a love story with this movie, but it is also the color of blood and battle.” Thus, landing upon the ideal shade to viscerally convey the film’s overwhelming emotions also required dedication and debate with the director. Instead of purchasing fabric, Cantini Parrini test-dyed multiple bolts of neutral linens. “We closed down our choices to three different hues of red, until we finally hit the bull’s-eye,” he says.

The Best Costume Design category is full of worthy contenders this year, but Cyrano‘s designs make you swoon the most. For a tale about the power of words and the weight of love, nominee Massimo Cantini Parrini (a contender last year for Pinocchio) manages to capture the feeling of your heart fluttering with pinks and light blues but then he grounds those passionate thoughts with crimsons and reds. In this legendary story, the men are yearning the hardest, and Parrini’s work echoes all the pangs of love and heartbreak.

On this episode, I spoke to hair desinger Siân Miller about her work on Cyrano.

This week I sat with (should I say zoomed with?) Oscar award winner Alessandro Bertolazzi and BAFTA nominated Sian Miller. This is the duo behind the epic 18th century looks in the film Cyrano which finally will be coming to theaters Feb 25. In this interview Sian and Alessandro tell me about their Baroque Bubble that kept production going through the height of COVID, of a volcano that contributed to Alessandro's makeup looks, and as commonly discussed by the greatest artists, it's never about the awards, but about the integrity of the work. Both are nominated for the BAFTA this year for their work in Cyrano and when you see the film, you will understand why.

Massimo Cantini Parrini and Jacqueline Durran for “Cyrano”. The classic love story “Cyrano de Bergerac” has never looked more romantic, courtesy of director Joe Wright and costume designers Massimo Cantini Parrini and Jacqueline Durran. Wright’s musical film, adapted from a recent stage production of the 1897 play, stars Peter Dinklage in the titular role. Every costume was crafted specifically for the film, and Parrini created more than 750 costume pieces from scratch to reflect France in the early 1700s.

The film’s sumptuous costumes, overseen by longtime Wright collaborate Jacqueline Durran and Italian fashion designer Massimo Cantini Parrini, are among the contenders for Best Costume Design next Sunday. I had the pleasure of speaking with Mr. Cantini Parrini to ask him about the challenges of not only creating a unique visual identity for one of the most adapted stories of all time, but having to accomplish this at an insanely compressed and demanding timeframe while still adhering to COVID-19 sanitation protocols.

You may be familiar with the work of acclaimed costume designer Massimo Cantini Parrini from his designs for the 2019 film, Pinocchio, which was nominated for the Academy Award of Best Costume Design in 2021. Now, just a year later, he has been nominated a second time. This time alongside the esteemed Jacqueline Durran, for their work on the movie musical, Cyrano.