Oscar Isaac’s Moon Knight has part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe for over a month now, and we’ve seen him rocking two different costumes. The Marc Spector personality wears the traditional Moon Knight ceremonial armor in battle, while the Steven Grant personality inadvertently conjured the Mr. Knight suit in the middle of fighting that jackal creature in “Summon the Suit.” Costume designer Meghan Kasperlik and her team adapted these looks from the comics for the critically well-received Marvel series, but each costume came with its own challenges in order to be fully realized.
I kicked off my recent conversation with Meghan Kasperlik about her work on Moon Knight (which you can catch up on with a Disney+ subscription) by asking which of these two costumes was the hardest to make comic-accurate. She answered that it was the main Moon Knight costume, explaining:
I would definitely say the Moon Knight costume. There were definite challenges in that, partially due to the fact that we were making it during a pandemic, and we constructed in London and were shooting in Budapest. So I couldn’t actually go because of quarantine, so I was sending the stunt people there and I was doing all of my fittings over Zoom. Then they would send the fabric and I put all the fabric choices together. So that was one thing that was a challenge, not to mention just making the suit fully functional and making sure that Oscar and the stunt people could definitely move in it.
Designing a costume is a hard enough endeavor, so the fact that Meghan Kasperlik was able to get the job done in a separate country from where the Moon Knight production was taking place is impressive! With the wonders of Zoom and some willing stunt people, she was able to figure out the sizing of the costume and pick the right fabrics to put together the final ensemble we’ve seen Oscar Isaac and the stunt people wear onscreen. After Kasperlik brought up functionality, I inquired about if it was difficult striking the balance between making sure the Moon Knight costume was functional, but still elaborate. Here’s what she had to say:
It was definitely a challenge, because the ceremonial armor that is underneath the wrappings, it’s just making sure to be functional in that. So that is another reason why it was great that the stunt people went because I made them completely do stunts in it on Zoom so I could say ‘What isn’t working?’ and ‘What’s happening?’ And it really worked to our advantage because once we got the suit on Oscar, he could totally move in it.
As for the Mr. Knight suit, that came into existence when Steven Grant was in control of the body and he had a different idea on what it meant to summon the Moon Knight suit. To be fair, he was falling out of a building when this happened, but Steven re-donned his Mr. Knight suit in “The Friendly Type.” Later on in my interview with Meghan Kasperlik, I asked which of the two costumes was her favorite. She responded:
I do love them both and I can’t choose a child in between both of them, but I was pleasantly surprised how the Moon Knight costume turned out. I was terrified of the Mr. Knight costume when we first started because it’s a three-piece white suit, which can sometimes go a little wrong. So I wanted to make sure there was lots of texture and it looked like a really creative costume vs. it just being a flat suit. So I’m really proud of both of them and my teams for making them, they did an amazing job.
Meghan Kasperlik then added that she made the Mr. Knight suit with an upholstered fabric because she was worried about the “wear and tear of it.” Thanks to the “amazing” work from her tailors, only two Mr. Knight jackets were split during the making of the Moon Knight series. That’s a great track record, and both the Moon Knight and Mr. Knight costumes certainly do a good job of closely resembling the looks from the comics, while still being infused with certain unique elements.
There’s just one episode left to go in Moon Knight’s run (and we already know where the final battle will take place thanks to Oscar Isaac), since it hasn’t been revealed yet if the show will return for another season. That being said, there are plenty of other upcoming Marvel TV shows to look forward to on Disney+, with Ms. Marvel next set to follow on June 8.
