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PHOTO: CHUCK ZLOTNICK. © 2024 MARVEL. 44 SPRING 2025 before branching out. "I was fortunate enough to be hired as the assistant to the Head of the Workroom in the days of live TV and variety shows, before stretch (stretch fabric did not exist). And I learned so much from those wonderful women. They were rough on me, but I learned a lot because it was variety." Madsen has had an extensive career that includes several series of Star Trek; The Bodyguard; Introducing Dorothy Dandridge; The Hunger Games franchise; The Lone Ranger; Mank; and a decade's list of the Marvel films and television series. "As a manufacturing foreperson, you're there to make the designer's vision and the production's vision real. Sometimes you need to change for every situation and be adaptable and open. Also a Manufacturing Foreperson, I try to lead and protect. So if there's problems, it stops with me. It doesn't spill down to the extraordinary hands, because we're nowhere without those extraordinary hands that can put it together." Can you tell us about your role as a Manufacturing Foreperson? How did you delegate the work and what costumes did you specifically focus on to build? MADSEN: How things are delegated depends on the size of the show, and it's usually the Designer's discretion. If it's Marvel, there are so many departments, you need to coordinate with and you also have to coordinate with the Specialty Costumers and the mold makers. And as far as delegation, we just work it out as a team. I like to hold team meetings. I keep everyone informed, because if they don't know what's going on, it just gets messy. So I would say, 'This is what we're up against' and I'd make calendars. Our crew would say, 'I'd like to do this or that,' and we'd talk about it so we were all pulling together. How did your preparation process and research impact your paern making process? MADSEN: Agatha's hero look was an opportunity to study. I studied all sorts of riding jackets and period pieces just to figure out what it needed to be. Then there are all the crow references. I had books on crows and Daniel got us the tarot deck that's based on crows and he would come in every morning and we'd pull the cards. It was very coven-like. What were your favorite costumes to work on? MADSEN: I think the hero Agatha look and Lady Death were some of my favorites. When we first found out that Lilia was Patti LuPone, I had to make her outfit in four days so that Daniel could fly to New York to do the first fitting. And then it became this intricate jacket, taking fabric apart and re-piecing it to make all the shawl collars with the Tarot pieces. Personally, I sewed every one myself leaving the window for the tarot cards and sent them to the Georgia workroom for the tarot embroidery to be completed. For ghost Agatha, it was amazing to interface with a company in Milan. The costume is organza with optical light threads in it so ghost Agatha Attention to details like the tiny pin tucks on Agatha's blouse took days to produce.