A long while ago, fans from the depths of the internet latched on to the rumor that Mephisto would be the main antagonist to be played by Sigourney Weaver. While an interesting idea, it was a theory that we found ridiculous which we still do today, being the snobs we are. Our theory has always been that she was not only the leader of the Hand but also a vessel for the mythical Beast. And with these recent quotes from Marvel/Netflix’s premiere costume designer Stephanie Maslansky, that theory looks truer than ever.
“I think that she’s clearly a baddie, and she’s the head of an ancient organization which is grounded in the comics. I hope that her wardrobe reflects that kind of ancientness. I hope I haven’t said too much. I hope Marvel doesn’t come after me.”
A pretty revealing quote as evidenced by her pretext at the end so we’ll take it. And let’s be honest, Sigourney as the leader of the Hand is something that any receptive fan of the Marvel/Netflix world can see coming. Stephanie also elaborated on her approach to styling a character like Alexandra, further revealing shades of Sigourney’s role and hinting at her ties to the “old world”:
“I’d say very elegant, very beautiful. I had so much fun designing her wardrobe. It was very possibly even in a way, grounded in an older world. Maybe very, in a way, European. More of a global feeling to her wardrobe, very lush.”
Later on in the interview, she shared her joy about designing the various members of the Defenders’ outfits. Seeing the different color palette’s colliding and making them work was one of the challenges in creative a visual language for the show, as she worked together with the cinematographer and production designer to keep a consistency.
“What’s interesting about these characters is that our first director [S.J. Clarkson], the director that did episodes 1 and 2 of ‘The Defenders,’ was able to — her idea was to really keep each superhero very distinct in terms of palette. It was really an interesting challenge, and I think we all rose to it and really enjoyed it. And it was a great idea too. Don’t worry about blending as much as maintaining color palettes and whenever crossing over, determine how to crossover and which colors need to come to the forefront and which colors need to recede to the back.”
Interestingly, with the strong color palette persisting with the heroes and villains across the various shows, she was very tight-lipped on what to expect with Alexandra’s scenes, hinting at something similar to we saw with Kilgrave in Jessica Jones, whose scenes were given a strong purple punctuation, especially when it came to his suit design. It seems that her approach to Alexandra’s “world” would be pretty much the same.
“There was a palette component to her world too. I don’t really want to get into that, but you can draw your own conclusions from what you’ve seen. [There is] a lot of depth to her wardrobe. A lot of life or lives to her wardrobe, I wanna say.”
By “lots of lives to her wardrobe” we hope she means the unfathomable amounts of blood stains spilled by the Hand of Alexandra/Beast over previous centuries. There are many interesting elements being teased that could make Alexandra a very intriguing villain and hopefully, we delve deep into her background, understand how exactly the term “old world” applies to her. On a semi-unrelated note, it will be interesting to see how the story of the Hand will be explored especially with all those split factions and how they work under Sigourney’s rule.
Are you looking forward to seeing Sigourney Weaver face off against the Defenders? What do you think of Maslansky’s comments on Sigourney as the leader of the Hand? Let us know in the comments below!
Source: International Business Times
