Because I want everyone to see it, lack of period costumes be damned! But the real star is Jude Hill, who plays 9-year-old Buddy, and the story is told through his eyes.
His family is Protestant, and they live in a mostly Catholic neighborhood, which is under attack by Protestant gangs. It feels remarkably well balanced. Branagh won a well-deserved Best Original Screenplay Oscar for this movie his first Oscar after five nominations too. But everyone looks right for the time and place. Walter did her research, as she said in a Focus Features interview:. Because of what was going on, there are a lot of photographs from that period I could find online.
There are amazing photographs of everyday life, as well as soldiers in the streets. I remember some remarkable shots of kids in jumpers, shorts, and shoes with holes in them talking to uniformed soldiers. She also used a lot of vintage clothing. In Filmmaker Magazine , Walter said:. The fabric of the original clothes was very particular. It was a time when manmade fibers were just starting to be popular. Because they were not natural, they had a sort of three-dimensional feel to them.
They were quite harsh in a way. Walker also talked with the writer-director about how his family would dress, since this film is semi-autobiographical. They wanted to dress slightly like the people they saw in films, but obviously within their boundaries of what they could afford.
Not only did Walter use vintage clothing, she used vintage fabrics. Make-up artist and hair designer Wakana Yoshihara also researched the period to create accurate looks for the actors.
