Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Christian Bale’s Kippah Malfunction

The Oscars are only two days away, and if you’re anything like us, you’re rooting for an “American Hustle” win in Costume Design.

This is the first Academy Award nomination for Australian costume designer Michael Wilkinson (whose credits include “Man of Steel,” “300,” “Watchmen,” and “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Parts 1 & 2” ), and come Sunday night, he’ll face fierce competition from the likes of “The Great Gatsby” and “12 Years A Slave.”

Much has been written about the film’s knockout 70s wardrobe (and the hair, the hair), but it seems Wilkinson deserves an Oscar just for getting through the shoot.

According to Racked, there was more than one mishap to maneuver around. David O. Russell’s spontaneity on the set, often required Wilkinson to think on his feet. Racked reports that Wilkinson had 40 different outfit changes for Amy Adams and Christian Bale alone.

When it came to Bale, who plays Jewish scam artist Irving Rosenfeld, Wilkinson had a whole other set of problems. During a shoot for a wedding portrait of Bale and Jennifer Lawrence’s characters that was to be featured in their bedroom, Wilkinson realized he had completely forgotten to pack a yarmulke.

“The yarmulke was key for the wedding portrait so I ran to the bathroom, cut up some paper towels and worked with bobby pins,” he told Racked. “It always makes sense to make friends with the hair department.”

“American Hustle,” a comedy/drama based loosely on the ABSCAM FBI sting operation, is nominated for10 Academy Awards.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.