From Stripper to Canadian Tuxedo — How ‘Umbrella Academy’ Transformed the Hargreeves Into Civilians for Season 4
In the fourth and final season of “The Umbrella Academy,” the time-jumping, world-saving saga involving the Hargreeves siblings comes to a dramatic close as Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), Ben (Justin H. Min), Diego (David Casta?eda), Five (Aidan Gallagher), Klaus (Robert Sheehan), Luther (Tom Hopper), Viktor (Elliot Page), as well as Lila (Ritu Arya), come back together for one final reckoning with patriarch Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore). This time, however, the once-powerful members of their father’s Umbrella Academy have been forced to embrace a new normal after the fallout at the end of Season 3.
“The siblings no longer have their superpowers,” costume designer Megan Oppenheimer told IndieWire, explaining that at the onset of the new season, things are far from what audiences have seen thus far.
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According to creator and showrunner Steve Blackman, that means these formerly adolescent characters must embrace adulthood — and realize just how much growing up they had to do to face real-world problems. In the case of Viktor, it’s running a bar, while Diego and Lila try to navigate a suburban life with kids. Elsewhere, Allison is a working actress with an angsty teenager, Luther is getting by as a stripper, and Klaus — cloaked in layers of outerwear and plastic gloves — is struggling with an overbearing case of germophobia.
So, to bring those characterizations to life visually, Oppenheimer had to “de-transform” the siblings by embracing Blackman and co-showrunner Jennifer Cecil’s more subdued, muted look of Season 4.
For Oppenheimer, that largely meant taking what was provided in the scripts and “imagining what that would be for the characters as it exists, and then what could be fun to try.”
But in order to do that, the costume designer—who took over for Christopher Hargadon after three seasons—worked closely with the show’s longtime actors to get their thoughts on where these characters were in their new, normal lives and match that with the show’s needs.
One example is Diego, who starts Season 4 at a stagnant place in his life, begrudgingly fulfilling his responsibilities as an overworked family man who despises his job as a delivery man. “So, [he’s] not gonna be the sharpest, most handsome delivery guy that you ever saw,” said Oppenheimer, who outfitted Casta?eda with a small prosthetic belly to accentuate Diego’s new dad bod.
Meanwhile, Viktor is living in Canada as a bar owner. And in a nod to Page’s real-life background of being born and raised in Nova Scotia, Oppenheimer found him an iconic blue-gray sherpa-lined trucker jacket that she textured with motor grease (under the assumption that this Viktor rides ATVs or motorcycles).
“That also was kind of the joke we made. Like, Elliot is from Canada originally, and we wanted to do a play on the Canadian tuxedo of denim on denim,” Oppenheimer said, noting that one of the first times audiences see Viktor, he’s clad in “denim on denim on denim on denim, which was pure magic for me.”
Luther, however, probably experiences the most unexpected transformation when Hopper finally gets out of the prosthetic ape suit. While this allows the actor to show off his real, fit body onscreen for the first time, it also allows the character to embrace his lost years as a half-gorilla.
And considering that he’s now a stripper, that meant putting Hopper into a spaceman outfit as he danced on stage. Describing it as “full camp, over the top, shiny, shiny, absolutely ridiculous,” Oppenheimer went for a full bodysuit in a rusty metallic finish that tore away to reveal slinky matching underwear.
But since it’s a nod to Luther’s time on the moon, the outfit is full of Easter eggs, with Oppenheimer revealing that “we designed the actual outfit and all of the elements of that outfit directly off the original space suit… Many of the design details are identical.” Except for the fabrication, which gave it a “disco” vibe.
Luther’s look early on in the season is not the only one that offers a nod to the past.
When Five first appears in Season 4, he is in full-on “Taxi Driver” cosplay, with Oppenheimer saying that they “tried to absolutely mirror” the veteran character played by Robert De Niro. “In the costume department, we nerded out a little bit harder on that one… We were trying very deliberately to make it a brand-new Five that no one’s ever seen,” she said, noting that his departure from his clean-cut nature doesn’t last very long.
Normally, Five is seen wearing an all-black school uniform. But in Season 4, he finally trades that schoolboy look for a three-piece suit and tie, which reflects his adult, working life.
“For his character, that has been such a tight and specific looking design for all the seasons,” Oppenheimer said, revealing that Gallaher was very focused on getting the fit of Five’s suit exactly right. Consequently, “we tried so many black three-piece suits and plain white dress shirts and black dress shoes” so that the actor could “get all the elements of it right,” from being able to pull weapons from his pockets to his appearance from different angles in the mirrors.
But in the end, Oppenheimer said, “It was exactly the way that he had envisioned it.”
With all of the Hargreeves siblings, Oppenheimer succeeded in creating silhouettes that “turned superheroes into regular people” — a far cry from “the other seasons that were very fantastical” but also in keeping with each character.
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