Category: 2023. The Killer

Dressing to Disappear: Cate Adams Reveals the Secrets Behind ‘The Killer’ Costumes

Spencer Williams
December 8, 2023
The Art of Costume

How does one design a costume for a character, who does not want to be seen? Costume designer Cate Adams unveils the meticulous process behind crafting the enigmatic costumes in David Fincher’s ‘The Killer.’ In an exclusive interview with Spencer Williams, Adams shares behind-the-scenes stories, from deciphering Fincher’s vision for a character who effortlessly blends into the background to the awe-inspiring challenge of outfitting the incomparable Tilda Swinton. Join us as Adams takes us on a journey through cities, layers, and hidden Easter eggs, providing an intimate look into her creative process and the transformative power of costumes in film.

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Behind the Making of The Killer

Gina McIntyre
December 6, 2023
Netflix Queue

For his muscular new thriller, David Fincher worked with many of his closest collaborators to develop inventive approaches to the film’s cinematography, with Erik Messerschmidt ASC, editing, with Kirk Baxter ACE, sound, with Ren Klyce, and score, with Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross.

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Kirk Baxter on Editing David Fincher’s The Killer

Kirk Baxter and David Fincher enjoying some downtime at Miraval Studios.

Iain Blair
December 6, 2023
postPerspective

David Fincher’s The Killer is a violent thriller starring Michael Fassbender as an unnamed hitman whose carefully constructed life begins to fall apart after a botched hit. Despite his mantra to always remain detached and methodical in his work, he lets it become personal after assassins brutally attack his girlfriend, and soon he finds himself hunting those who now threaten him.

The Netflix film reunites Fincher with Kirk Baxter, the Australian editor who has worked on all of Fincher’s films since The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and who won Oscars for his work on The Social Network and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

I spoke with Baxter about the challenges and workflow

How did you collaborate with Fincher on this one?

I try not to weigh David down with too many background questions. I keep myself very reactionary to what is being sent, and David, I think by design, isolates me a bit that way. I’ll read the script and have an idea of what’s coming, and then I simply react to what he’s shot and see if it deviates from the script due to the physicality of capturing things.

The general plan was that the film would be a study of process. When The Killer is in control, everything’s going to be deliberate, steady, exacting and quiet. We live in Ren Klyce’s sound design, and when things deviate from The Killer’s plan, the camera starts to shake. I start to jump-cut, the music from composers Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross comes into the picture, and then all of our senses start to get rocked. It was an almost Zenlike stretching of time in the setup of each story then a race through each kill. That was the overarching approach to editing the film. Then there were a thousand intricate decisions that we made along the way each day.

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“The Killer” Camera Department: Dominican Republic

Notice the VFX foliage in the out-of-focus foreground.

The Killer: Michael Fassbender

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC UNIT
Director of Photography: Erik Messerschmidt, ACE
A Camera Operator: Brian S. Osmond
A Camera First Assistant: Alex Scott
B Camera First Assistant: Brian Wells
A Camera Second Assistant: Jonathan Clark
B Camera Second Assistant: Matt Gaumer
A Dolly Grip: Dwayne Barr
B Dolly Grip: Mike Mull

Idea and BTS Video: Cate Adams, Costume Designer
Location: Dominican Republic
Editor: Leonard Zelig (The Fincher Analyst)

‘The Killer’ Costume Designer on Dressing Michael Fassbender’s Assassin Like a German Tourist

David Fincher “did not want him to look cool at all, like a typical assassin,” explains Cate Adams.

Esther Zuckerman
November 30, 2023
The Hollywood Reporter

At the opening of David Fincher’s The Killer, Michael Fassbender’s unnamed assassin describes his look as based on a German tourist he saw in London. It’s a convenient disguise for blending in on the streets of Paris because, as he explains, no one wants to interact with a German tourist. But what does that look like off the page? That task fell to costume designer Cate Adams, working with the exacting director. “David had a lot of ideas about how he wanted him to look,” she says. “He did not want him to look cool at all, like a typical assassin.” The solution? Bucket hats, Skechers and “lazy people clothing.” 

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Happy Sad Confused: Michael Fassbender talks “The Killer” & “Next Goal Wins”

Josh Horowitz
November 30, 2023
Happy Sad Confused

It’s been 4 years since Michael Fassbender was on the big screen but he’s making up for lost time with 2 new movies, Next Goal Wins and The Killer. Josh and Michael catch up on it all including his passion for race car driving and quoting movies.

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Here’s Every Sitcom Code Name Michael Fassbender Uses in ‘The Killer’

The titular assassin of the new David Fincher thriller travels the world under a few familiar pseudonyms.

John Dilillo
November 10, 2023
Tudum by Netflix

What’s a hit man without a code name? James Bond is 007; The Gray Man’s Court Gentry is Sierra Six; even Get Smart’s Maxwell Smart goes by Agent 86 when he’s on the clock. In David Fincher’s new assassin thriller The Killer, the titular professional has more than a few pseudonyms, and they all have a shared origin. Played by Michael Fassbender, this killer has a taste for television — every one of his aliases is borrowed from a classic sitcom. “He may have been raised on [television],” says The Killer screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker (who previously teamed with Fincher on their shared breakout Se7en). “It may have been more of a parent to him than any parent.”

The running gag originated with an earlier Fincher/Walker collaboration. “I was doing a polish on Fight Club,” Walker tells Tudum. “Fincher and I realized that Edward Norton’s character had to have little name badges on, or sign up sheets for his support groups he would go to. And Fincher was like, ‘Well, let’s just use names from Planet of the Apes, like Dr. Zaius or Cornelius, etcetera.’ ”

When Walker began working on The Killer, he decided to similarly sneak casual sitcom name-drops into scenes where the main character introduces himself, as a subtle Easter egg for particularly discerning viewers. Fincher persuaded him to blow the idea up further. “I started even more obscure than they are now, with characters like Mr. Mooney,” foil to Lucille Ball on her ’60s vehicle The Lucy Show, Walker says. “It’s the genius of Fincher that he was like, ‘OK, here’s your kind of silly little hidden joke. Let’s bring it forward.’ ”

Under Fincher’s watchful eye, the production made sure to spotlight each and every alias. “When he was shooting a lot of the car interiors and doing a few tiny reshoots and inserts,” Walker says of Fincher, “he shot close-ups of plane tickets, close-ups of the driver’s license, he made sure to show every single name first and last.” You can see each of those names — as well as a handy guide to which sitcoms they spring from — below. 

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