Amazon Prime Video‘s “Road House” is the best kind of remake, a movie that captures the spirit of its predecessor but approaches the material from a completely different perspective; it retains the humor and kinetic fight choreography of the 1989 Patrick Swayze slugfest, but places it in a new location (the Florida Keys), casts a different kind of actor as the laid-back — until it’s time to “not be nice” — bouncer Dalton, and employs a more vibrant and tropical color palette. For costume designer Dayna Pink, one of the attractions of the movie was the ability to create a whole new look for the story. “I met with Doug Liman, the director, and I got really excited because he didn’t want to do what had been done before,” Pink told IndieWire. “A lot of times, you’ll do a movie with a number two after the name — or a number three or a number four — and you’re bound to what’s already been created. But Doug said no, we’re completely doing our own thing.”
In coming up with a look for Dalton, a one-time UFC champion who has left professional fighting behind, Pink looked not only to the character but to the actor. “Jake has been in so many things and looked amazing, so the question was what could we do that we haven’t seen him doing before? How could we serve the character and create something new and fun?” Pink felt that the character’s backstory provided the key to the costume design. “This is a guy who used to have some fame. He had some success. So at one time he had a little bit of money and probably some style, because those guys are flashy.” Pink wanted to give Dalton an iconic look and settled on patterned silk shirts that she crafted from vintage fabrics. “There were a couple things that were purchased, but a lot of his stuff was made because we wanted him to look like a guy who has his own look that’s fun and not recognizable.”
Another reason to make the clothes rather than buy them was that “Road House” is filled with elaborately designed action sequences in which Dalton and his various nemeses run, jump, and kick in a variety of outrageous scenarios. “This was not my first action movie rodeo, so I know that means multiples, multiples, multiples,” Pink said. “What’s cool about making the clothes is you can make as many shirts or pants as you want. When you’re buying something, you don’t have that luxury because there are only so many that are going to be available.” That’s a problem Pink ran into when she spotted a pair of magenta pants that she knew would be perfect for Dalton’s main enemy, Knox, played by Conor McGregor. “I saw those pants in a Tom Ford store in Miami and just said, ‘Those are the pants he’s wearing. That’s it, stop shopping.’”
Pink asked not only how many pairs of the pants were in the store but how many existed in the world. “We bought every single pair in every size because we either cut them down or added to them,” Pink said. “On an action movie like this, sometimes he’s going to be getting out of a car, and it needs to fit him perfectly because he’s not doing anything. Sometimes he’s going to kick or jump, and then we need room, so it’s a size bigger or it’s an inch bigger in the waist, or we’re adding some stretch fabric in a gusset so he can move in it. Sometimes he’s going to have a stunt double. I wish I would have taken a picture of how many of those magenta pants we had on the truck!”
The pants are one of several pieces on Knox that establish him as a peacock who loves to announce his presence when he comes into a room; as with Dalton, each costume is carefully selected not only to convey character to the audience but to aid the actor’s performance. “If I’m doing my job right, I’m helping these people not just step into these clothes, but into the character,” Pink said. “In Conor’s case, giving him something that makes him feel like a bad dude. My responsibility is to help them find their character.”
Part of the fun of “Road House” is that, although it’s populated by many, many tough guys who take on Dalton throughout the film, each of them has their own distinct look — another bad guy played by Billy Magnussen, for example, is defined by both his pink suit and a goofy robe-Speedo combo. “It was super fun to create these things, because they didn’t have to be entirely believable,” Pink said. “They could be a little over the top — though not too over the top.”
Although Pink also came up with some subtler looks for the women in the movie, giving love interest Ellie (Daniela Melchior) and Dalton’s boss Frankie (Jessica Williams) eye-pleasing tropical wear, what excited her most about “Road House” were the guys. “What was really fun about this movie is that it’s a lot of boys, and a lot of opportunities to make them all different,” Pink said. “We could create our own world in the hot weather, and that’s what I loved so much about it.”
