Be really good with budgets because they keep getting smaller.

Every project starts with a story.

Chicago is partly a fairy tale because it's inside one person's head, so that part of it's made up and the rest of it is reality.

If I'm doing something contemporary, for sure I'm very aware of what's going on. Personally, I like fashion trends, but when I'm doing a movie, it doesn't affect what I do particularly at all. I don't relate to it in that way.

The whole switch from film to digital has changed some of the ways I use color and the juxtaposition of light and dark. It's getting better with digital, the separation's gotten better, but I still feel like it's really flatter than film, so I do a lot of screening and subtle textural printing and painting on clothes for film to get it not to look flat.

Costumes are the first impression that you have of the character before they open their mouth-it really does establish who they are.

Inspiration comes from everywhere: books, art, people on the street. It is an interior process for me.