VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Ruth Carter On Why She Loved Designing Costumes For Eddie Murphy In ‘Dolemite Is My Name’

From the beginning of her involvement in Eddie Murphy‘s new biographical comedy movie Dolemite Is My Name, Ruth Carter strived to ensure that the costumes she designed were authentic and as close to those that the main character — real-life entertainer Rudy Ray Moore —would have worn during his time.

The 59-year-old costume designer — whose credits include films like Malcolm X and Amistad — made history earlier this year by becoming the first African-American to win an Oscar for her work on the Marvel mega-hit Black Panther. The latest film Carter is working on centers on 1970s actor, singer and film producer Moore, who was known for playing the character Dolemite in several blaxploitation films during the time. Carter explained to uInterview exclusively how her immense respect for Murphy — who plays Moore in the film and whom she has worked with five times previously — as an actor also inspired her to make sure the clothes she designed for the famous actor were accurate.

“[Murphy] plays these characters so well and I have so much respect for him as a performer that I wanted him to really like my designs better than anything he’d ever worn before on camera,” said Carter.

“I admire his ability to create these larger-than-life characters and all of the nuances that he brings to them. I try to match it with bringing nuances to the clothing and costumes,” she added before revealing that Murphy had been wanting to play Moore for 16 years.

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Carter also explained how she also viewed Moore as a prolific costume designer who paid significant attention to detail in creating the various types of clothing for the character of Dolemite.

“This character that he created had such a look about him, so I really went into a deep dive in looking at so many elements and angles of his clothing in order to really recreate exactly what he was thinking when he created them originally,” said Carter of Moore.

Dolemite Is My Name is directed by Craig Brewer and also stars Keegan-Michael Key, Mike Epps, Craig Robinson, Titus Burgess and Wesley Snipes. It is now streaming on Netflix.