The Last of Us Costume Designer Ann Foley Shares Excitement for Season 2

Ann Foley shares her love for her workroom crew on The Last of Us and The Spiderwick Chronicles.

The second season of The Last of Us went into production earlier this year, and fans have seen some very small glimpses of the production. The folks involved with the series are being understandably tight-lipped about the new episodes, but some have shared their excitement for the upcoming season. One such person is Ann Foley, the show's costume designer. ComicBook recently had the chance to chat with Foley about her work on The Spiderwick Chronicles, and we asked how far she was into The Last of Us process. 

"It's blurred behind me," Foley teased of her background during the Zoom call, indicating that she was in the middle of working on the series. "Oh my God, yes," she added when asked if she was excited for Season 2. "This is great. I am so honored to be part of the show. I was a huge fan of Season One, even before I interviewed for this job. So I couldn't be happier to be part of it. It's a spectacular team. It's a gorgeous show with a wonderful cast. I'm just so happy to be here." 

We went on to ask Foley if there were any unsung heroes of the Spiderwick production, and she ended up shouting out her crew from the new Roku series in addition to The Last of Us.

"Well, I mean it actually applies to both shows," she began. "It applies to all shows, but my workroom, who builds the costumes, the breakdown team who does all of the aging and the dying. For example, in Spiderwick, Lucinda's peony dress, that was handmade. Every single one of the petals on that dress was cut from a piece of silk. It was then hand pressed into an old-fashioned flower petal press, and then hand-painted, and then hand sewn on."

"So it took about six weeks and it was a stunningly beautiful dress, and the team just really knocked it out of the park. And the same even with Thimbletack, and his costume, and my workroom, making all of those tiny little shorts that he wears with the tiny little tunic, his little hat. I mean, it's actually kind of difficult to make those small clothes and to make them in a way that doesn't look ... terrible."

"They did such a beautiful job," she continued. "And actually, Jared's hoodie was custom-made in the shop, too. You would never know. So yeah, that's the beauty of the team. And I'm only as good as my team, and thank God I had an amazing team on Spiderwick. I have a lot of them here with me on The Last of Us, and everyone from the assistant costume designers to the set costumers."

"I always say it doesn't matter what I do, it's like it lives and dies once it goes to set," Foley explained. "So the set costumers have to take care of it. They have to make sure it stays exactly the way that it's meant to stay and what the design intent was. So yeah, I had a really wonderful team. Awesome. To be perfectly honest."

The Spiderwick Chronicles is now streaming on The Roku Channel. Stay tuned for updates about The Last of Us