Calvary - Costume worn by Brendan Gleeson as Father James

Brendan Gleeson, as Father James; Cassock etc.
“It was actually the vestments for mass that gave me the first real goosepimples.
When Eimer fitted them on me I felt like I was suiting up for war
and that whatever I feel to be truthful and kind was now under my
protection. There was a clarity of distinction between good and evil I hadn't
felt since childhood. Whatever I now felt to be worthy was distilled into
something pure. It did not necessarily mean purely Catholic; for me it meant
purely good.
All of this was transferred to the wearing of the cassock. But the cassock
also had a real sense of movie imagery to it. I immediately thought of Trevor
Howard in Ryan's Daughter. I love that performance and the figure he cuts in
the film. I felt I had been given a visual image that gave a real sense of the
heroic allied to a vulnerability - something in the softness of the cloth. It was
also unapologetic; it invited vitriol and whatever else the people needed to
throw at it, including hope and despair. It was a uniform. It stood for
something. But the anachronistic nature of wearing garb unquestionably out
of date made it a very individual choice too. Very Father James. Very John
McDonagh.
Also very Eimer Ní Mhaoldomhnaigh. Good costume design, like everything
else in film-making, demands individual creativity in the service of the
narrative and the film as a whole. The cassock does all of that. Simply”.
(Brendan Gleeson).