In real life and on TV, nuns are not a one-size fits all outfit group.
The traditional black uniform has been the go-to attire for on-screen sisters on TV shows from The Young Pope to American Horror Story. Not every character plays by the convent style guidelines, as Kristin Chenoweth’s eye-catching teal garb in Pushing Daisies and Alba Baptista’s battle-ready Warrior Nun showed. Now, Betty Gilpin joins this illustrious list of women wearing a habit in the brilliantly bonkers Mrs. Davis. There is a new blue nun in town.
When Mrs. Davis premiered at SXSW in Austin last month, nuns dressed in similar attire to that worn by the sisters of the (fictional) Our Lady of the Immaculate Valley convent were on hand to spread the word of the new Peacock genre-bending series from Tara Hernandez and Damon Lindelof. In the globe-spanning venture, Gilpin plays the blue habit-wearing Sister Simone, who goes from making jam in Reno to taking on a powerful AI system, Mrs. Davis. Simone is also tasked with hunting down the actual Holy Grail, crossing paths with Mrs. Davis’ acolytes, secret societies, school teachers, scientists, Nazis, and a blast from her past.
When a powerful technological entity is a central antagonist, it is impossible not to conjure images of Black Mirror episodes. There is an overt connection to the sci-fi anthology series through Owen Harris, who directed three outings of Black Mirror, including the iconic “San Junipero” (and another personal favorite episode, “Be Right Back”), and half the season of Mrs. Davis, including the pilot.
Capturing heart and humanity while never losing humor is tricky. Harris turned to frequent collaborator, costume designer Susie Coulthard, to dress nuns, cowboys, and magicians (oh my!)—all while sticking to that brilliantly bold tone. “It’s funny because whenever I read a script, I can imagine how it should look straight away, and the fact it was coming from Warner Bros. and [had] this cartoony Looney Tunes feel to it. I thought, ‘Oh, God, I’ve got to do it,” Coulthard tells The Daily Beast’s Obsessed.
Coulthard’s ability to marry grounded elements with flights of fancy is evident in her memorable work on “San Junipero.” It is important “to have like a little bit of fire under the creativity of the show,” Coulthard says. When Harris sent her the script, she was blown away by Hernandez and Lindelof’s vision. The combination of “light and fun, and intelligent at the same time” was so appealing that she couldn’t turn this opportunity down.
Getting in the Habit
“Initially doing all the research and looking at the habits of what it should be, what that kind of sect of nuns actually would wear—all the brown—and I was thinking, ‘Oh, gosh, it just didn’t feel cartoony enough,’” says Coulthard. Aside from an ongoing Blue Nun wine joke between Harris and Coulthard, the designer was also keen on incorporating a vibrant shade rather than traditional black and white. “It took a little bit of convincing other people,” the designer admits. However, the concept art showed how it would look against the desert backdrop. “I felt it needed something a little bit more unusual. Something that made it stand out a little bit.”
Practical considerations led to additional design conversations, as in the first episode alone, Simone rides a horse and a motorbike. The original plan was to only have a culotte option for stunts and revert to the long skirt during other scenes. Instead, it was decided that the culottes would become Simone’s go-to nun attire the moment Coulthard met Gilpin: “She’s got this real Katharine Hepburn-ness to her; she’s physical, intelligent.”
When Gilpin reacted enthusiastically to the culottes during a fitting (“She was like, ‘I love this. This should just be it!’”), Coulthard made it happen. “The cast is such an important element of bringing their sense of what they feel their character should be too,” she says. You don’t always notice the pants element, but “it gives it a bit of a twist and her a bit of attitude—her stomping around in these culottes.”
Last year, I spoke to Gilpin for Obsessed about her book All the Women in My Brain, while Mrs. Davis was in production. At the time, she couldn’t reveal much but teased, “It’s been a lot of sprinting and sobbing in a habit over the summer.”
The heat of those summer months proved to be a challenge. “I had a little bit of a nightmare. Being British, I ordered all of this wool gabardine—hundreds of meters of it,” Coulthard says. She is typically in Los Angeles during the more temperate months. “I’m thinking, oh my God, I’m gonna kill everyone. It’s so hot.” Coulthard recalls Gilpin saying, “This might get a little bit warm in the desert.” Luckily, there was time to duplicate it with lightweight, cool wools from a mill in West Yorkshire, and the designer learned a valuable lesson.
Considering how much is going on throughout Simone’s quest, it would be easy to overcomplicate the signature look. Whereas the color of the nun attire is eye-catching, Coulthard wanted to keep the headpiece Gilpin wears “as simple as possible.”
“There’s a lot of action going on,” she says. “You want to see the expressions on her face; it has to be about that.” Suffice it to say, the wimple perfectly frames Gilpin’s expressive face.
Coulthard and her team made approximately 90 nun costumes for the Mrs. Davis cast (including stunt doubles and stand-ins). That included Emmy-winner Margo Martindale, who plays the Mother Superior. “All my dreams came true when she walked on set in a mother superior outfit. Like my entire life has been leading towards this moment,” Gilpin told me
The Cowboy Connection
Gilpin doesn’t only wear her nun attire; early on, she sports a rainbow bike helmet during a daring escape featuring a connection to her past. Wiley (Jake McDorman) and Simone’s histories are deeply entwined (he calls her Lizzie, hinting at a mystery behind their relationship). “Betty’s helmet should have a relationship to his helmet,” says Coulthard. The bike chase is on the wackier side, and the rainbow headgear Wiley gives Simone leans into a “cartoony” aesthetic. Wylie’s metallic teal and red helmet came first, and his jacket was the jumping-off point that led to the playful choices, adding to the Looney Tunes vibe.
The inspiration for Wiley’s jacket came from a definitive movie costume: Tyler Durden’s instantly iconic red rust leather jacket worn by Brad Pitt in the 1999 David Fincher movie. LA Leather artisan Jonathan A. Logan made that jacket, and Coulthard approached Logan to create something similar in suede. Then she discovered that McDorman had already shopped several pieces from Logan’s collections in the past. “When I first spoke to Jake, he’s like, ‘Oh, I’ve got this guy I want to introduce you to.’ I said, ‘Don’t worry, we’re already there,” she says. “A wonderful serendipitous moment where that collaboration worked out nicely.”
The weather, however, again sowed havoc: “He didn’t want to take it off… until it got hot. Then he was like, ‘Oh my God, why am I wearing a massively heavy suede jacket?’”
One Mrs. Davis character who takes a less-is-more approach to how much he wears is Wiley’s co-conspirator JQ (Chris Diamantopoulos). The rebel resistance leader is no shrinking violet, opting to wear suspenders sans shirt. There are purposeful pop culture references from all over TV and film history. A major one is Bruce Willis in Fifth Element. “We moved that forward every time we did a fitting with him, it was like, ‘OK, Chris, who are we channeling today?” she says.
It is another case of larger-than-life imagery that adds to the brilliantly weird tapestry. Even though it is using recognizable movie references and archetypes like nuns, cowboys, and magicians—David Arquette, as Simone’s father, sports several dazzling sequinned Nudie and Nudie-inspired numbers—everything about Mrs. Davis feels original. On paper, it might sound like ChatGPT had a hand in this, but AI could never come up with this level of nuance.
Even Wiley’s cowboy influence is put through the sartorial blender. “He needs to feel quite worn in; cowboy is part of his character,” Coulthard says of the broken-down boots he sports when he is first reunited with his childhood sweetheart. Considering how much stock Wiley puts into this aesthetic, he is forced to try a different look when, in the third episode, he is gifted a pair of silver British Knights sneakers that are incongruous with the character’s Western style. “I was worried when I was going to try them on Jake. I was thinking, ‘Oh my God, what’s he going to think? This is going to look like madness.’ But actually, I think the madness works out well,” she says.
This shoe switch plays an integral part in the plot, including the flashback to a Super Bowl commercial in the fifth episode taking Mrs. Davis to new, even wackier heights. Coulthard worked closely with the brand on sourcing the retro design, which harkens back to the ’80s, when they launched. “They were amazing to collaborate with, and it sits nicely with what’s revealed later on,” Coulthard says.
The image of Wiley and Simone in the present day speaks to their different paths since they last saw each other and adds to the heightened absurdity. Appearances can be deceptive, though, and despite their contradictory closets, they are bound by a common goal to bring down Mrs. Davis. As we barrel toward the thrilling conclusion, it is clear that when it comes to style, AI hasn’t got anything on a culottes-wearing nun.
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