Visit Grizelda Garza at home on a lazy Sunday afternoon and, despite spending her professional life dressing movie stars, she’s unlikely to be ready for the red carpet.
“I’m a big T-shirt kind of girl,” Garza told the San Antonio Report during a recent interview. “I live in yoga pants. I’m quick to just throw on my PJs and lounge on my couch.”
Despite her glamorous Hollywood career as a costume designer, Garza is just like everyone else when the weekend comes. When she’s on a film set, however, she takes a less casual approach to her work.
In her latest movie, “The Deputy,” which hits limited theaters and VOD platforms on Friday, Sept. 25, Garza, a 2002 graduate of South San High School’s West Campus, dresses actors Duke Nicholson (“Us”), Stephen Dorff (“Blade”), Tiffany Haddish (“Girls Trip”), Oscar nominee William H. Macy (“Fargo”) and the rest of the cast.
The film, which was shot in Natchez, Mississippi, last year, follows a young sheriff’s deputy (Nicholson), whose job takes a dangerous turn when the dead body he’s watching mysteriously disappears from a crime scene.
“When I read the script, my mind just took off creatively,” Garza said. “I started visualizing each character.”
In the past, Garza has dressed everyone from “Despacito” singer Luis Fonsi for the romantic comedy “Say a Little Prayer,” which was shot in San Antonio, to Oscar-winning actor Al Pacino (“Scent of a Woman”) for the horror movie “The Ritual.” She also worked in the costume department of “Killers of the Flower Moon” from Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese.
For “The Deputy,” a contemporary crime thriller, Garza wanted to capture a distinctly small-town look without making the film feel specifically like a Western or giving it a “Texas vibe.”
“We definitely leaned into that small-town look with the costumes,” she said. “We wanted every costume to feel very authentic.”
Working with a small crew that included a costume supervisor and wardrobe stylist, Garza said the production involved plenty of overnight shoots and close collaboration with director Matt Sukkar, who was making his feature directorial debut.
“Matt had a vision for every character — from the thugs to the girlfriends to every role you see,” she said. “He was very much involved and gave me description of what he was looking for.”
During pre-production, Garza also collaborated with other department heads and crew members, including production designers and propmakers. Together, they worked to ensure the film’s visual elements were cohesive.
“We all knew what colors we wanted,” she said. “We went for tans and browns instead of blues. William loved the idea of having a western hat and cowboy boots.”
One of the most challenging but fun parts on “The Deputy” was taking a duplicate of a costume and “distressing” it, or intentionally making the garment look worn, dirty and lived-in. Garza and her team had a specialized kit filled with tools and materials for adding dirt and grass stains, as well as other signs of wear and tear, to a garment.
“We would even spray paint the costumes to look like it was covered in real mud,” Garza said.
While Garza has built an impressive list of professional film credits over the past few years, she hasn’t needed to move to Los Angeles to pursue them. With film incentives increasing in Texas, she sees even more reason to remain in San Antonio while traveling wherever the work takes her.
“When I first started, it was my dream to live in Hollywood, but Texas is really blowing up when it comes to production,” she said. “Working from San Antonio has been a good thing for me and beneficial in many ways. I feel like a lot of opportunities are coming to Texas and that I can stay here forever.”
