Media365
The rising cost of actors’ personal entourages has become a major talking point in the film industry, with several filmmakers raising concerns over the additional financial burden. In a recent conversation with SCREEN, costume stylist Rick Roy, who recently worked on Kunal Kemmu‘s VIBE, has weighed in on the debate, revealing how actors’ demands to hire their preferred stylists and makeup artists can inflate production budgets and force producers to cut costs in other departments.
Sharing how he feels about the ongoing entourage debate in the industry, Rick Roy shared, “When people say entourage cost, it is when the actor is bringing their own people. Entourage cost is actually an arm-twisted amount of money that comes out of the producer’s pocket. That is what people are fighting against. Let’s say, when I’m doing the whole film, I get a certain amount of money because I am coming from the producer and the director’s side. I take up a project, I have a vision for a film, and I do the whole film. But the moment an actor says they don’t want to work with Rick and would rather have their personal stylist and makeup artist, the producer is forced to hire those people.”
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“We unfortunately work in a completely actor-driven business. Eventually, the person who gets the top billing is the actor, and when demands are made by the actor, the producer and the director sometimes don’t have the authority to counter it, and they give in to it. So when people are fighting against the entourage cost, it is fair. Every film has a certain budget, and actors need to understand that they are working with a team of creative heads. When you arm-twist the producer to get your own people in, and because those people are coming via the actor, they also charge very high amounts, and the producer does not have a choice but to pay those amounts,” Rick added.
Explaining how entourage costs eat into the budgets of other departments, Rick Roy said, “I feel that personal entourage costs are a huge added expense. Just because they are the actor’s friend, the actors feel comfortable around them. They bring those people and force the producers to actually hire those people for the film, which is unnecessary. Producers also need to be very mindful. Sometimes because they have to accommodate all these kinds of costs, they start cutting costs in other departments, which is also not fair. Let’s say I am being paid Rs 10 to style an entire film, while an actor’s personal stylist demands Rs 6 to style just one person. Since the total budget is Rs 10, the producer would ask me to accept Rs 4 so that the personal stylist can be paid Rs 6. So I only have to manage with 4 because that’s what is left in the budget. So those kinds of things are not correct. Producers also need to put their foot down in the correct way and see what is needed for the project rather than paying vanity costs to actors and their people.”
Rick Roy on working with Kunal Kemmu on VIBE
During the interview, Rick Roy, who has styled for films like Fashion and Desi Boyzz, also spoke about his latest project VIBE. He said, “For VIBE, Kunal gave me the script, and he just told me to come up with a look and an idea of what I see Hardik as. This was the first time I was working with Kunal. He basically wanted to have an idea of how I’m seeing the character. Initially, he had only given me a basic idea, like a character sketch of the four main people in the film. There was no brief given to me for the character except for the fact that he very nicely explained to me who the character is, what is going on in his life, and what is the kind of attitude he has. And then he said that I really want you to do something different with this character. Kunal wanted to create characters that look different from what we have seen in movies before.”
“Unfortunately, a lot of times we don’t get the option of creating iconic things for different reasons. But when I was doing the clothes for this film, I was very sure that once the film is out, people will be excited to see the clothes. We put in a lot more effort into the clothes, and I was given a lot of freedom by Kunal to do whatever I wanted. A lot of times I don’t get to experiment that much with the characters because a lot of directors and producers, they want to play it safe and they want to stick to the basic rules of how it is. But because Kunal is Kunal and he is very open to ideas, open to experimenting, he allowed me to do whatever I wanted,” Rick added.
Apart from VIBE, Rick Roy has several other projects in the pipeline. “I have a film called Diler with Ibrahim Ali Khan, which is currently being shot. Then I have a film with Wamiqa, followed by a South Indian film with Aditi. I will also soon begin working on another film with Rajkumar Hirani’s son Vir,” he said.
