We wanted the space suits to be...
...very, very firmly based on existing spacesuit technology that people have seen...
...and believe it.
The spacesuit has a NASA aesthetic...
...that's a little bit more modern, a little bit updated...
...as opposed to a slick sci-fi aesthetic.
THOMAS: You couldn't identify it as something that comes from the NASA missions...
...but you feel like it's of that world.
NOLAN: We wanted to always be tapping into...
...that history, we wanted to always be seeing a classic astronaut figure...
...not too futuristic an idea.
ZOPHRES: In conceiving it and doing the first sketches, even in sourcing the fabric...
...everything, it was always like, "What is really useful about this ?"
So everything on the suit, to me, has a purpose.
Nothing's really decorative. Like there's pockets for things to go in.
The backpack is functional, the clips in the front are functional...
...so the backpack can hook in. Like even the padding along the edge...
...it's there, bonk, in case they knock themselves.
I constantly had to check myself on, you can't go too slick.
It also helps, we were all working in the same production office.
You don't go in a direction that no one else is going in.
You're all kind of in sync.
In fact, when we were first developing the suit, we wanted portions of it to be quilted...
...we had a piece quilted, and both Nathan and Chris were in there...
...and they liked it, and Nathan was like, "I want that on the set."
It's all over the set.
It makes the costume and the set tie in so well together.
They made our astronaut costumes a little slicker...
...a little slimmer, a little more fitted.
BENTLEY: It seemed more functional than a modern NASA suit.
Thinner in the arms, and near the joints so that you can still move around in them.
ZOPHRES: We realized very early on that we weren't gonna pressurize the suit.
That's what you gives you that big, massive puffy quality.
But we wanted an implication of pressurization, so that's why it has bulk to it.
There were moments when emotions are running high...
...or things are difficult, wearing a suit that wasn't the easiest thing in the world to wear...
...really helped the performances.
The first time I tried on the suit in my fitting, I was surprised by how heavy it was.
These things weigh 30 to 35 pounds.
It was heavy and it could get very, very hot. Especially when you were strapped in...
...to the rigs that you had to wear for the zero G stuff.
Because we shoot on these warmer stages, we have a cooling shirt...
...that goes on underneath the suit.
These fantastic undershirts that had tubes and you could put ice water through them...
...to keep them cool. ZOPHRES: That's very similar...
...to what the real astronauts wear. It can get hot.
[INAUDIBLE DIALOGUE]
The development of the helmet, it was a painstaking process.
People have to breathe in this.
That's how the air goes into the helmet. There's a fan in the backpack.
It goes up the tubes and then air comes down in here...
...so the actors can breathe.
We had microphones in the helmet so that the actors could communicate.
And we actually recorded their voices through the helmets.
That worked extremely well so that even when we were out...
...in very challenging circumstances, on a glacier, huge winds and so forth...
...the actors could speak to each other clearly...
...as they would be able to in a real space suit.
You hear everyone and also, if you're in the helmet, you can hear Chris...
...give some direction in the ear.
You know, and work that way.
THOMAS: And what was fantastic for us was also that we've been shooting...
...with these enormous IMAX cameras that are incredibly loud...
...and very difficult to use for dialogue scenes.
For that reason, the helmets meant that we were able to shoot dialogue scenes suddenly...
...with these loud cameras.
Which really allowed us to not have to do any kind of dialogue replacement at the end.
It was something you had to work really hard to be able to wear and not fall over...
...or pass out in or any of those things. But as Matthew and I kept saying to each other:
"This is tough, but we look cool."