"Cleo Was His Cleo. His Mother Was His Mother," Anna Terrazas On Clothing Alfonso Cuarón's Memories In "Roma"

Photo Courtesy Of Esperanto Film/Participant Media

I have a plethora of questions I want to ask Anna Terrazas. On "Roma". On "The Deuce", where I later, and to my dismay, am informed she won't be returning for the final season. She just had a baby.

"I'm in Mexico City. Let me know what day will be good for you."

"I'm in CET - Central European Time. Are you on Skype? Or, what's your number?"

"We can do it on Wednesday in the afternoon or Thursday morning. Maybe Skype will be good?"

"Your afternoon? There's an eight hours difference. My 8 a.m and your 4 p.m.?"

It ends up the reverse. Terrazas has to take her son to a doctor's appointment at 5 p.m.

She's on location shooting yet discloses nothing about the upcoming project. "Eh, what genre?" Alas, I'm given the Alfonso Cuarón treatment. Nada. She's glad to be home, however, in the city she was born, then raised in a tiny mountain enclosed town, an hour away from. Mexico is home, although she's lived, studied and worked elsewhere.

After an idyllic childhood, Terrazas moves to London and pursues a foundation in Art and Design at Central Saint Martins. In 2003,  at the Parsons School of Design, she's described as "dazzlingly talented", with observers ancipating what the future would hold for her.

"I start working for Bill Blass in fashion, then I decided I wasn't really evolving in fashion and I wanted to do something else," says Terrazas adding that she went back to Mexico and was offered a job designing for the theatre. Ensuing this event, she met a director and started doing commercials which eventually saw her return to New York where she landed work on "Rudo y Cursi" (2008).  "And that is sort of how I got into the film industry."

Later Terazzas discovered her love for motion pictures exceeded creating costumes for the theatre. The posterity aspect being more appealing. Albeit, she enjoys the process either way.

Sourcing pieces for "The Deuce" was an easier task than finding images reflecting day to day wear of the characters in "Roma". Terazzas also had to train her eye in order to transfer blue and red to the perfect shade of grey, while at the same portraying differences in the social class structure of 1960's Mexico. Certain levels of fashion could only be seen on the affluent as Terrazas remarks, "People couldn'the afford what was coming from the U.S. It was super expensive."

Arrestingly, there's one scene where Terrazas didn't worry about finding the appropriate attire. It occured when Cuarón focused the lense on the male antagonist stripped off his clothes demonstrating vigour. Why nude?

"Yeah, Fermín, I know. I guess to show the toughness of the guy. Who he is. I don't know. I actually never thought about that before. I have no idea why he decided to do that."

Be that as it may, Terrazas is impressed with what they accomplished. The movie. What it made her feel. She cried and went through the emotions as Cleo went through them. "It was shocking. I knew what it was about. Seeing it for the first time...It took me somewhere else. I was surprised."

What's more, it was tough doing the fIlm. Cuarón is a tough. Working with him means you have to give it your 150, challenge yourself, and bring in new ideas. "It's such a personal film for him. In that sense everything had to be exactly how he remembered things and that was beautiful trying to recreate his memory," recalls Terrazas of the director who sat her down, told her a story without ever showing her the script.