Echo‘s costume designer Stacy Caballero shared her process for working on Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. ComicBook talked to the Emmy nominated professional about different worlds in the MCU. Echo is a very grounded project, but both Ragnarok and Wakanda Forever occupy two divergent spaces in the world Marvel Studios is building. Caballero credits the Marvel brass for helping guide their approach when it comes to costuming and set design on each of these projects. check out what she had to say about her experience down below.
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“First and foremost, especially coming from the theater, I’m a storyteller, so I really gravitate towards the amazing stories and the story I want to be a part of telling to the world of whoever’s going to see it, the audience. I met Mayes [C. Rubeo] first and I had done a few projects with her before she asked me to do Ragnarok with her,” Caballero explained. “And then I had also done one or two projects with Ruth [E. Carter] before she asked me to do Wakanda Forever. So it was working with two legendary costume designers.”
“I felt like being a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s a different experience … I think it’s very cool to be a part of. They have these visual development meetings, but it’s like Marvel had intellectual property that is paramount to protect. And so us designers coming into their world to help create these worlds, they are protecting it, and we have to respect that,” Caballero added. “We have to honor what they are telling us, especially the visual development department. We’re respecting their characters. And then we also have characters that we are designing at the same time. In these meetings, not only the director that you know is there and all the other creative heads of departments, the Marvel producers are there, Kevin Feige, Victoria Alonso, Louis D’Esposito, David Grant, and Brad [Winderbaum].”
Changing Course On Wakanda Forever
As the topic turned to Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, the costume designer had to explain the massive changes that occurred during production of that film. No one expected that the star of this movie would tragically pass away before they really got rolling on it. But, the team had to soldier on, even if it meant managing their own grief in pursuit of finishing the film.
“From those experiences on Wakanda Forever, I was on that movie for a year and eight months. We had worlds to build there, a world that Ruth Carter had already started in BP One, and then taking it to the next level.” Caballero told us. “And we had started that, I want to say in July. And it was before Chadwick [Boseman] had passed and we were working on a different script together. And then when that happened, it was devastating. Everybody took a beat. Ryan [Coogler] met with Kevin [Feige], and there was lots of discussions about next steps.”
She continued, “When we all came back together, we were like, ‘Okay, things are changing, of course.’ Ryan had said everything about every speech he’s heard Chadwick say over the last few years, it all pointed to a Black Panther 2. So everybody was on board to move forward, but script was changing, but we had a whole world to build. We kept on moving research and development on that,” she added. “Doing all of that time on Wakanda Forever, seeing Ruth in action, doing her thing on Zoom and seeing Mayes in person, I felt very comfortable that I can do exactly what I have been trained to do.”
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