The Boroughs is a dream ensemble. With Alfred Molina, Geena Davis, Bill Pullman, Alfre Woodard, Denis O’Hare, and Clarke Peters, the Duffer Brothers-produced and Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews-created sci-fi series features actors damn near impossible to look away from. In the hands of costume designer Cristina Spiridakis, these actors pop in the titular setting.
While the show is set in a facade of a community with monsters lurking beneath the homes, Spiridakis keeps the characters as grounded as possible. Their costumes have history and weight. Recently, the costume designer – who previously worked on Gemini Man and Difficult People – spoke with What’s on Netflix about defining The Boroughs’ wonderful ensemble.
Costume designing for the laid-back Jack (Bill Pullman), who everyone loves. How did you and Bill want to define a former hotshot weather guy?
Bill’s costumes are a combination of my boyfriend’s vacation style and Hilary Levitt, our executive producer. The only reason Bill doesn’t have one more button open is because we didn’t want to give up the heart scar, the big scar. It was this idea of easy—for everybody, really, but especially for Jack—he was an easy guy.
This is the guy that just shows up. His pants are always rolled up. He always wears sabas. The sabas came from Hilary because that was Hilary’s shoe of choice. When we first started putting Jack together and then we were looking at pictures and I was like, “Hilary, I love that Bill is some strange amalgamation of Hilary and my boyfriend.”
The Boroughs. Bill Pullman as Jack in The Boroughs. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2026
Plus, if your boyfriend gets to see himself in Bill Pullman, greatest feeling ever, right?
He is delighted. Absolutely delighted.
Alfred Molina as Sam, his suspenders and all, definitely looks like an engineer. How’d you want to define Sam?
Specifically with Sam, because he’s so new to The Boroughs, his color palette in general is much darker than everybody else. Because they’re living in New Mexico, it’s very bright. The whole palette of the show specifically is very bright. But Sam is new, very much stuck in where he was. He’s very not interested in moving forward. The fabrics are a little heavier, a little darker. He’s a lot more closed up than everybody. We’d always wanted to do suspenders.
The specific suspenders that he wears are called trigger snaps. They have this way they close: they clamp around your belt loops. Alfred had the costume designer who he had just done a play with, [Chekhov’s] Uncle Vanya, and she had introduced them to him and then he sent them to me. Not for nothing, trigger suspenders to me are an engineering feat. So it felt very, very good. It was a very natural thing, and Alfred loves to wear them in his real life.
I enjoyed Sam Cooper’s House of Blues T-shirt because you can imagine him and his wife going there for a concert date night.
For his T-shirts, anytime we could find something from Chicago, we did and cleared it. House of Blues was a vintage T-shirt that I bought online that we cleared, but I designed a lot of his T-shirts. What ends up happening is we need multiples, and if you find a vintage T-shirt, you can’t reproduce it legally. You can’t reproduce something like the House of Blues T-shirt.
Since the show does have a slightly retro vibe, drawing from the ’80s and a bit of the ’50s, how’d you want time to play a role in the costumes?
So the retro aspect, obviously the idea that we know the creators know Blaine and Annalise Shaw’s backstory and then also just very inspired by Ruth’s production design, the very everything, the mid-century houses and the downtown being very vintage New Mexico. So the thing was to vibe off that, which was like we did a lot of uniform work. I understand there’s a huge story to tell, but we had done a lot of uniforms for the people that work at The Boroughs and I’m hoping in the second season they get more airtime because we’ve put a lot of time into them.
But with all of the uniforms, especially for the people who worked at The Boroughs, I tried to do that same sort of thing. I’m hesitant to use the word retro because I didn’t want it to feel like, “Oh, we’re going to Johnny Rockets”—that’s not what I mean. It’s more just these silhouettes or ideas that are of another time, but the fabrics and everything are very now just to make it all feel very idyllic rather than we’re definitely a maximalist show.
The Boroughs. (L to R) Alfred Molina as Sam, Alfre Woodard as Judy in The Boroughs. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2026
How do you want to define the ensemble as unique individuals, but also, how do you want them to work together when they share a frame?
I’ll lay everything out for the scene, everybody’s costumes in a Keynote presentation because it becomes a little bit of Tetris. You want to make sure that your eye is moving around to the characters. You want to make sure nobody’s—unless you want them in the same color—you want to make very specific choices, and everybody’s on their own journey, and every character’s different. You want to make sure to honor that.
Very frequently, I would go look at the sets, or especially if you’re in a bedroom or a living room or whatever, you talk to the production designer to make sure: Are the sheets printed? Is there wallpaper? What are you competing with? You want to make sure that your actor isn’t going to disappear, and that you’re not interrupting the visual flow of the shot and of the group. It’s just about making sure it’s a puzzle.
It’s always a puzzle, especially with an ensemble cast because everybody also wants to feel their best. So you have to make sure that you’re able to present each actor with something that you know they’re going to feel great in, but that fits into the flow of the scene.
Costume designers almost always want to make the actors look great. You do, especially Denis O’Hare as Wally. It’s nice to see O’Hare looking suave in The Boroughs. How’d you decide to make him the dapper doctor?
Denis is a delight. We had so much fun doing Wally. My first job in the film industry in New York was as a costume production assistant on Eat Pray Love, and it was my very first job. The designer was a man named Michael Dennison, who went by Dixie. I believe he was from Taos, but he lived in New Mexico, and he unfortunately passed away 10 or 12 years ago. He was so influential to me and made such an impact on me.
And so, my inspiration for Wally was very loosely based on Dixie and my memories of Michael. It was never too dressy, but a lot of blazers and shirts. It’s this Southern gentleman who moved to the Southwest. Incidentally, our textile artist, Jesse Trevino, had mentored under Dixie. And so, that felt very special to me, to be able to honor Dixie in that way and have Jesse with me.
I have a deep, deep, deep love for luxury menswear, just dumb luxury menswear, as does Denis. All of his shoes are Manolo Blahnik. All the socks are from Paul Stuart. He has this ridiculous pair, absolutely ridiculous pair of Comme des Garçons pants and he wore them for the camera test. We never really found a place for them on screen, but you never know—maybe season two.
The Boroughs. Seth Numrich as Blaine Shaw in The Boroughs. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2026
Paying tribute to your friend, as well as your boyfriend inspiring Jack, how often do you draw from your personal life for costume designs?
Very often. You do tons of research and you fall down all these rabbit holes. Much of my inspiration comes honestly from Instagram. Pinterest has gotten so much better, and movies that I loved as a kid—a lot of strange references, but I do. I find I really like to draw from it personally. It’s not even intentional. Sometimes I just read a character and I’m thinking through it, “Oh wait, wow, this is like this person or that person that I grew up with.”
There was this guy, and I just told my assistant designer—I was like, when I was in elementary school and middle school, we went to Bar Mitzvahs all the time. This one kid always used to wear an open Nehru-collar shirt with a vest—a black Nehru-collar shirt, this flashy kind of vest, and a chain, because I grew up in New Jersey. I was like, “That’s what I want: the New Jersey Bar Mitzvah circa 1993.” I remember she just stared at me, and I was like, “It’s a thing. I’ll know it when I see it.” I think it’s like that for a lot of designers. It’s what’s there; it’s what lives in your brain.
Alfre Woodard’s character, Judy, is low-key dapper, like a lot of journalists are. Who influenced Judy?
For Alfre, I was actually more influenced by Judy’s personality and the way Jack describes her and her allure. To me, I wanted everybody to be effortless, everything kind of easy. But this idea that it’s not a try-hard, that’s just who Judy is. It’s these floaty kinds of fabrics where she doesn’t think she’s anything special to Jack, but with these colors and the way she moves, of course he notices her; of course people notice her. Alfre was inspired by Judy’s personality, by that sort of love triangle and love story.
As for her pot and shroom farmer partner, Art (Clarke Peters), were you looking at any Deadheads or famous hippies?
I can’t believe I’m doing this twice, but all the Thai fisherman pants that Clarke wears? It’s because my boyfriend lives in Thai fisherman pants. I was trying to figure out: What are the easiest hippie-dippy pants?
Clarke’s a tremendously spiritual person himself. I think that’s what attracted him to Art. We would talk a lot just about spirituality and jewelry. And so, there’s a jacket that he wears to Jack’s barbecue that is just a long piece of Ghanaian cloth that belongs to our New York team.
We had assistant designers based in New York. I love Albuquerque and it’s so beautiful, but for a show of our size, it doesn’t have the shopping infrastructure—the fabrics and everything that we need. So, we had assistants based here in New York.
Samantha, one of our assistants, went up to the African market in Harlem and found all this beautiful jewelry for Clarke. And then she found an incredible handwoven cloth. We draped one of them into a jacket for Clarke that we literally made on his body.
Art is 100%, unapologetically this guy. There was a lot of conversation about when he says he’s going golfing and everyone is like, “This isn’t a golf outfit.” I was like, “Art doesn’t give a fuck what other people are wearing on the golf course.”
[Laughs] Geena Davis, no surprise, looks very cool as a former music manager. How’d her backstory shape her costumes?
When I read the script, I sat there and thought, “I don’t want to put her in band T-shirts, jeans, and leather jackets.” It was about leaning into this cool femininity. It’s feminine but has hard edges. She’s got this great pair of motorcycle boots we beat the crap out of.
Her character’s very into jewelry, so there were a lot of local artisans and jewelers in New Mexico that we would source things from. In the show, Renee made them. We keep her rooted in the band world, but to me, if we were telling her backstory of when she got there to live with her mother, she could be in band T-shirts and jeans. Now, she’s found herself, and this is the new act of her life.
The Boroughs. (L to R) Denis O’Hare as Wally, Alfred Molina as Sam in The Boroughs. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2026
A major part of the appeal of The Boroughs is watching this ensemble. They’re just all heavy-hitters. What was really fulfilling as a storyteller building these characters with these actors?
I’ve been doing this now for 17 years, and you try to think, “I’m cool. I do this every day. This is my job.” But I think when you are in a room—or on a Zoom initially, and then in a room—with these people whose roles formed you, people you literally grew up watching, it’s surreal. Having the opportunity to work with people whom I have admired for so much of my life, and talking to the actors about the specific references that Jeff, Will, and our other writers put into the script—it’s just amazing.
When Geena’s driving her convertible in—I want to say it’s Episode 4 or 5—they didn’t want to ruin her hair for the shot. And so, everyone was like, “Okay, she’s got to wear a headscarf.” And Geena was like, “All right, okay. We can’t go too Thelma & Louise.” And I was like, “It shall not.” We didn’t want to take away from the story we’re presently telling and from Renee’s story.
It’s an honor. These are people who know what the fucking deal is. These people know how it’s supposed to be; they know it all. It felt so good to have such wonderful, open conversations and dialogues. Also, to know that they trusted me felt so good as a costume designer—to be like, “Okay, we’re going to do this. You know what’s good, you know what’s bad, you’ve been doing this a long time, and you trust me, so we’re going to do this together.” It’s the best thing I could ask for.
