Liz Vastola: The Costumes of Twisted Metal Season Two

Based on the iconic Playstation video game franchise, the Peacock TV series Twisted Metal has been an amalgam of ridiculous comedy, deep characterization, and of course high stakes. While the first season was focused on establishing a new post-apocalyptic world and lovable characters, Season Two of Twisted Metal finally brought the infamous titular tournament, and with it a fan-favorite ensemble of players. Alongside John Doe and Quiet, old and new friends and foes faced each other in a sick game of death hosted by the mysteriously fun Calypso, dressed by the immense talent of Liz Vastola’s costume team.

We’ve all been through the nerve-wracking moment where either a television show or movie of something you grew up with is in development–dreading that the people behind the project are not going to do it justice. When watching Twisted Metal, you can tell that showrunner Michael Jonathan Smith and his entire team put an incredible amount of love and care into the project while balancing between paying homage to the hardcore fans and welcoming in new viewers. “The nice thing about video games is that you have a visual to start from, and then you make your decisions with the creative collaborators about how you want to divert or recreate … You kind of decide which characters you are really going to use to visually connect to the game and which characters you feel like you can maybe do something new or different with. That’s really where you have to start,” said Vastola, whose in-house, tactile approach harkened back to the 90s filmmaking feel that is at the nostalgic core of Twisted Metal.

John Doe’s Self-discovery

The reluctant hero of Twisted Metal, John Doe began his journey as a nobody (hence the name), but as the story progressed in Season One and onto Season Two, he is no longer a lone wolf. Not only did he find people to care about along his journey–but he also reunited with his forgotten past through his sister, Krista (aka Dollface). In the first season, Vastola explained that “the silhouette for him was a little bit looser, it really felt more ragtag. He’s literally and figuratively adrift. He doesn’t really have a place in the world, and he’s kind of finding that. For the second season, John is more comfortable in his own skin. He’s back on this journey, but he’s been through more, and so the silhouette for him is a little bit tighter, feels more hype-esque. We still wanted to keep the same basic shapes of the shirt, the cargo pants, his vest, his same sneakers but just hone it in a little bit more.”

The highlight of John Doe’s new outfit for Season Two is without a doubt the new vest–featuring the video game character’s iconic spider motif on the back: “We made it really big, aggressive and hand done–the idea being that his sister adorned it for him in a way that felt protective but also intimidating and again paid homage to the game,” Vastola said.

Quiet’s Upgraded Jacket

Similar to John’s self-discovery, the seven months as a member of the Dolls allowed Quiet to find purpose and move on from the pain and loss of the past. She is no longer shrouded in her brother’s jacket–the red garment is now part of her identity. Liz Vastola revealed that “there are details on it that speak to her journey, especially the metal shoulder with this sort of Mexican motif blazed into it to pay homage to Quiet’s heritage. There’s bullet casings hanging off of the front … it just feels like it’s been through some stuff! Dollface has probably tailored it for her and allowed it to be kind of her own version of the mask.”

The Iconic Sweet Tooth

Arguably the face of the Twisted Metal franchise is Sweet Tooth. Liz Vastola recalled there was plenty of anxiety and attention around the process of bringing the video game character to life in the first season–especially his iconic silhouette. For Season Two, the killer clown’s look remained nearly unchanged, except for the baseball patch on the mask, but there were a few practical challenges that were addressed.

The idea behind Sweet Tooth was that he needed to be larger than life, Vastola explained, so the initial approach was to incorporate lifts in the boots. However, Samoa Joe’s performance proved to be imposing without the need of the lifts in Season Two, and Vastola’s team “ended up ditching the lifts and didn’t lose anything from the character … it just goes to show you that sometimes the costume can try to overcompensate for certain things that you don’t need because the characterization is there.”

Believe it or not, Sweet Tooth is a real diva behind the scenes–his spiked red hair had a life of its own and quickly became a constant torture for Liz Vastola: “I almost felt like he needed a wash, dry and set every day because it would just go all over the place!” For Season Two, the costume designer trimmed down the wild hair and reworked the color texture, confessing that a Spirit Halloween-style replica of the mask was a source of inspiration for the latter. She said, “I noticed that instead of it being the way we did it, they mixed black with red fiber. This is the hair we’ve always wanted [laughs]!”

Dollface, John’s Sister

Krista, aka Dollface is an anchor character for many reasons, two being that she was able to help Quiet through her self-discovery and also a direct connection to John’s forgotten past. The original character from the Twisted Metal games was radically different (except for the iconic white mask), so Liz Vastola had to approach her different looks in a deeper way: “We really diverted. The only thing we seriously borrowed from the game other than the mask is that she always has these patches of armor pieces … I thought that was something interesting to play with and thinking about it through the lens of pattern pieces of clothing and how one puts clothing together. I never wanted it to feel like she just sat down at the sewing machine and didn’t know what she was doing and things looked nuts. I always wanted it to feel like she had a point of view, and she knew how she wanted to represent herself. And then, unlike a lot of these other characters, she had real agency with how she was going to do it.” She added that “the mask has always been something that I’ve questioned the genesis of. As a way to counteract that piece, I’ve gone the other direction with her wardrobe, not in a way that cancels out her shape but to sort of balance it all out and to make sure she and the Dolls did not feel hyper femme.”

Axel’s Denim

Season Two’s most anticipated character was Axel, and what a payoff for the fans! This live-action version is as accurate as you can get, and although on the surface his costume seems rather straightforward, Vastola revealed that finding the perfect denim was a daunting task. “[Michael James Shaw] tried on a lot of jeans [laughs]! He came back multiple times, retried things, sat in his rig for a bit … it was for sure a process. There was a moment where I was sort of like, ‘Are we building these jeans, or is he wearing Levi’s 501s?’ He’s either wearing the most iconic jean or a jean that nobody can have. We bought a ton of denim just to get a feel for things, and the one he ended up wearing was a very off-brand Canadian pair.” She added, “Then we overdyed them, but the fit and the general size and feel of the denim was perfect for him. Sometimes you just need to cast a very wide net and let things surprise you.”

Mr. Grimm

Another fan-favorite character making a live-action debut was Mr. Grimm–the soul absorber who brought a touch of the supernatural to Twisted Metal. Liz Vastola loved working on the gothic character, creating a theatrical costume that not only enhanced Richard de Klerk’s dark and comedic performance but also encompassed the antagonist’s history: “The costume is composed of these enormous boots, a jumpsuit underneath that is what’s left over from his asylum straitjacket, a massive leather duster that was his dad’s, and his gloves and helmet. All of these pieces had to work in concert together.” Vastola shared that the costume was a tremendous undertaking, built in-house from the ground up–taking inspiration from Harry Houdini and Captain Jack Sparrow and making sure texture and movement aided with the darkness of the garment.

Raven

The true boss of New San Francisco had to be visually impactful, spicing up the goth vibe of each look with custom accessories to reflect Raven’s attractive and lethal personality. The costume designer described her first look as “Victorian gothic business attire” while the flashback one was directly inspired by the in-game version of Raven. “When we get to the tournament, she accessorizes herself with belts, rings, jewelry, makeup. She’s aware of her sexuality, she’s aware of what she can use in the world as a tool but there’s also a very simple no muss no fuss approach to just suiting up in a jumpsuit and being able to fight,” Vastola said.

Vermin, Post-apocalyptic Exterminator

Another visually fun player of the Twisted Metal tournament is Vermin. For the character, Liz Vastola brought a campy style that really leans into the video game and allowed Lisa Gilroy to completely immerse herself in the comedic role. “The costume was always meant to sort of serve the characterization of Vermin. I really wanted to bring this toxicity to it … to get the idea that she was sort of stained with what she’s been working with.” The costume designer added, “For her cape, we worked with incredible textile artists to get a sort of blotched, toxic, almost poison dart frog-esque pattern on the back that was all hand painted in this grimy green color. I was happy with how we were able to be very intentionally artistic with it.”

Mayhem’s Teenage Angst

One of the most interesting new additions to the new season was Mayhem. She is probably the most realistic character of the entire show, especially in terms of costumes. Liz Vastola explained that the showrunner’s wish was to make Mayhem feel like a real teenage girl from the late 90s, early 2000s: “She’s wearing ripped men’s jeans and a jean jacket, a busted up white tee and a flannel, and her pseudo-Docs … they’re actually John Fluevog boots, but they have a Doc Marten feel to them.”

Besides putting together a recognizable silhouette, Vastola wanted to add a layer of detail to the fabric, working with plaids and distressing. She said, “We had one of our incredible breakdown artists, Emma, dip the plaid in bleach, and that’s how we got that half bleached effect for her waist-tied flannel, then we over dyed to get some of the blue back in. We went back and forth just to get the right levels, to really make it look like it was something that had happened to her along her travels.”

Mayhem’s costume also contains an easter egg that only eagle-eyed fans could spot: “She wears this little bracelet, which is a piece of fabric from her baby blanket. It’s subtle, but the pattern for the baby blanket is a secret nod to that 90s NBC logo with the shooting star,” Vastola revealed.

Calypso

At the center of the Twisted Metal tournament is the mysterious Calypso. This was another core character that Vastola and team had to nail just right. She confessed that creating the villain’s look was a combination of shaping the right silhouette and also focusing on counteracting the otherwise dark suit with accent colors and texture: “We chose fabrics that always had a little bit of a glint, jacquard, or even some texture so that he wouldn’t go super flat. I think it speaks to his theatricality and his own characterization which often has moments of comedic relief.” She added that everything was custom built and tailored for actor Anthony Carrigan, but brought a very sinuous, snake-like form to it to reflect Calypso’s presence with the line of his hair following the line of the suit.

Stu 2.0

The explosive finale of Twisted Metal Season Two surprised everyone with the unexpected winner of the first edition of the deadly tournament: Stu! Against all odds, this fringe character survived the unbelievable and eventually found self-confidence after his exile in space, which is wildly represented by Stu’s final armored look. “We wanted to put so much love and care into that look. It was a combination of myself and my incredible concept artist, Aurora Kruk, who drew a lot of different beautiful iterations with different detailing, and then also my assistant costume designers and our buyers who went out to thrift stores, antique stores, camping stores, and just bought a bunch of stuff that we felt like Stu would have picked up along the way. He is his own car at that point, basically. Everything has to get attached to him, but without losing the fun and excitement … we wanted the audience to follow Stu into his next steps,” Vastola explained. The result is one of the craziest, most fun looks that just feels like the ultimate video game player skin.

Twisted Metal Season Two was an explosion of fun costume creations that truly characterized each player of the deadliest titular tournament. Catch all episodes now on Peacock and make sure to follow Liz Vastola on Instagram from more behind-the-scenes and stories from the set.