“Bezos chic” costume design speaks volumes in this Greek holiday thriller starring David Duchovny and Jake Whitehall alongside Carice Van Houten, who plays a fashion designer.
There is Greek holiday chic, then there is a fashion thriller. Malice takes two actors, Jack Whitehall and David Duchovny, and puts them into unlikely roles—between a woman, Nat, played by Game of Thrones actor Carice Van Houten, who is a successful fashion designer. The six-episode series, which premiered yesterday on Prime Video, shows Duchovny as Jamie Tanner, a wealthy businessman, an Whitehall as Adam Healey, a tutor, who get caught up in a deadly love triangle (as Duchovny says in the series, “She has the taste, I have the money”).
The costume design of this dark series was by Buki Ebiesuwa, who previously worked with Patricia Fields and Nick Gordon, among others. The series starts off on a luxury Greek holiday for the Tanner family, until a charismatic, creepy Whitehall disrupts the mix.
The series was shot in the Lefkada island, off mainland Greece, near Ianos Bay, and Duchovny as the weather Jamie Tanner gives off a Jeff Bezos vibe. He’s stylish but in a “I don’t really care about style” way. He wears patterned shirts, simple attire and commanding blazers.
“We worked with our costume designer Buki, who has tremendous style. I personally have very little style. I don't trust my style. Let's just put it that way.”
He does notice the contemporary cuts of menswear, however. “In the series, I’m wearing this kind of like, classic cut, that finance people seem to wear now, it was super tight,” said Duchovny. “Everybody wears suits like they’re going to a prize fight now. and they' have to strip off this suit that's just so fitted.”
It could even be called “Bezos chic,” that sense of effortless style. “Well, it's on the right network, then,” he adds.
Shooting in Greece was profound for Duchovny, who had never visited the country before. “I had never been to Greece before, but I was an English literature major, so all the stories, all the plays, they're all in there,” he said. “Their mythology is our mythology, it’s the mythology of Western cultures. I was there at this place where it all began, and also that how small it was, it’s just amazing to think about this small place. A few thousand years ago, it created this vibrant storytelling culture that we're still grappling with.”
Duchovny is also the host of a Lemonada podcast called Fail Better. The topic of failure is central to this series, too. “Failure is the great teacher, its the only teacher, I think,” said Duchovny. “I think what we realize through the podcast is that success, it kind of numbs you, in a certain way. It doesn't make you more inquisitive. It doesn't make you more alive to the world, but failure does.”
While Duchovny is a Golden Globe-winning actor known for his dramatic roles in The X-Files, Twin Peaks and Californication, Whitehall, on the other hand, is a comedian. He does has written and performed five standup comedy tours, he plays roles on British series, like Fresh Meat and Bad Education, and even shot a Netflix travel series with his father, Michael Whitehall (an acclaimed author and theatre agent), called Jack Whitehall: Fatherhood with My Father.
“It was a real challenge and, as an actor, you can get a little bit typecast and I've had a lot of fun doing comedic roles, but I've always really pined after the opportunity to get to do something completely different,” said Whitehall.
“The biggest challenge was that it was quite a demanding part in terms of playing a character that's very competent at a lot of things. I'm used to playing characters that are quite incompetent and are fools, kind of light.” Like Adam, Whitehall speaks different languages, recites poetry, is in great shape, a great cook, bartender and dancer. “There was a hell of a lot of prep and a lot of trying to make sure that I could be adapted, all of those things on the screen. So, it was quite exhausting from that point of view, and it definitely left you going, ‘Oh, yeah, it's a lot easier to play sort of idiotic fools.’”
But there is a lot of depth to comedy, as well. “It’s quite technical and analytical and that's certainly the way that I've always approached it,” he said. “So, I was definitely able to use some of those tools for how I approached this part and also, you know, the show is dark and there is some dark humor and wit to it, as well.”
The costumes that Whitehall wore in Malice were dapper and chic. “We really wanted to get his look right, his style showed how he felt ‘set apart’ from the family. They're in all their designer clothes and we wanted him to feel like he is the outsider.”
Adam’s style in the series is simple, dapper and understated. “He is this sort of interloper that comes into the Tanner family’s world and makes sure that he had a distinct look against the kind of palette of the Tanner family; he was the cuckoo in the nest.”
Some viewers may draw a parallel between Whitehall’s character of Adam and the role of con artist, Tom Ripley in the 1999 film, The Talented Mr. Ripley. “That was definitely a reference,” said Whitehall. “When you look at the lives of wealthy families and the people that bring them down, that was certainly one. I also referred to 1980s thrillers to draw inspiration from, as well as The Hand That Rocks the Cradle and Hitchcock’s Psycho.”
There is one memorable scene where Whitehall dances for a local Greek village. It was a specific folk dance to Greece, which he trained for weeks. “I worked with Patsy, our choreographer, in the studio in the UK, trying to get all the moves right. But when we filmed in that actual Greek village, we invited all the local townsfolk down to be extras and to be part of it, so it felt authentic,” he said. “Suddenly, I was surrounded by lots of people that knew this dance far better than I did, and they were interjecting and trying to give me tips on how to put it off and how to make it feel more authentic.”
Whitehall remembers one moment: a local village man said to him: “You know the key to unlocking this dance? You need to have a couple of shots before you do it because no one has ever attempted this dance sober.”
Whitehall took a couple of shots of Ouzo, “which I knocked back,” he said, “and then the next take, everything was so much better, like, I freed up all my body and I think that was the one that ended up using.
Coming from an entertainment industry family, Whitehall has looked up to his father throughout his career. The best advice that his dad has given him about the industry was this: “My best advice that my dad has given me is probably your career is defined by the jobs that you say no to, as much as the jobs that you say yes to, which I think, was a way of just getting me to be thoughtful and selective about the work that I do.”
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