Films include The Crying Game, Gangs of New York, Velvet Goldmine and Far. She has won Oscars for Shakespeare In Love and The Aviator. Sandy Powell studied theatre design at art school but left halfway through the course to design in fringe theatre, before moving into film. Her early break in cinema came courtesy of Derek Jarman. She has also designed for the forthcoming The Other Boleyn Girl and Young Victoria.

The job of the costume designer entails providing the clothing for everyone seen on film – principal or extra. Obviously, this doesn’t mean just keeping them from being naked. The most important aspect is to create characters; make them believable to the audience. The time spent on a film depends on scale or budget, anything from 12 weeks to one year.

The best thing about the job is researching and getting to know different periods. Sometimes it takes until the end of the job to understand fully a period and at that point I’m ready to do it all again, but better. Since the internet, it is now possible to cover a wide area without leaving your desk. However, it’s always better to look at the real thing. The recent Holbein exhibition at the Tate was the main reference material for The Other Boleyn Girl. For Young Victoria, I was lucky enough to see and touch some of Queen Victoria’s clothes, including her wedding dress. Obviously, working with the actors is a crucial part of costume design. Quite often they have researched and thought about their character more than you, and can therefore contribute a lot to how a costume evolves.

As far as things that can go wrong – costume designers have to be resourceful and be able to think on their feet, without wasting a minute, as anything that holds up shooting is liable to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars or pounds. Actors or directors might change their minds about something and want to see an alternative immediately, the schedule could suddenly change due to weather, a costume could get damaged or fall apart. The disaster scenarios are endless, always stressful but ultimately satisfying when solved.

I like to make as many new costumes as possible. It may be there’s no choice as with The Other Boleyn Girl– there were no costumes available to rent as they were all being used on the HBO series The Tudors. Consequently, we had to make every single costume.

There’s no point in qualifications, as in certificates, but it’s essential to understand the cut and construction of clothes and so it’s useful to have some cutting and sewing abilities.

Also it helps if you can draw, not necessarily beautifully, but enough to convey or demonstrate what you want to your cutter. The things I look out for in someone starting out are resourcefulness and a willingness to do or try anything.

The job is hard work and unglamorous most of the time, and very often boring. You have to be prepared for any eventuality.

Also 80 per cent of the job is psychology, and only about 20 per cent art. You should be of the temperament to deal with all types of people and understand very quickly how to get the best out of your department, get your own way with actors and fulfil your role helping to create your director’s vision.

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