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Michael Kaplan is an award-winning costume designer who designed the costumes for Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness.

His work on Star Trek earned him a Costume Designers Guild Awards nomination in the category Excellence in Costume Design for Film – Fantasy. [1] For his work on Star Trek Into Darkness, he was nominated for a Saturn Award in 2014. [2]

Career[]

Science fiction films[]

Kaplan is no stranger to the science fiction genre. His first motion picture project as a costume designer was Blade Runner (1982, featuring Joanna Cassidy and Edward James Olmos). Kaplan received the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Film Award for Best Costume Design for his work on this film.

He later designed the costumes for the 1998 sci-fi film Armageddon, which was co-written by Star Trek's producer/director, J.J. Abrams. For his work on this film, Kaplan was nominated for a Saturn Award from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films. Just prior to his work on Star Trek, Kaplan designed the costumes for I Am Legend (2007), whose cast included Salli Elise Richardson.

Other film work[]

Following his work on Blade Runner, Kaplan designed the costumes for Flashdance (1983, starring Michael Nouri. He then worked on the 1984 film Against All Odds, whose cast included Saul Rubinek. His other early film credits include Clue (1985, starring Christopher Lloyd and Michael McKean), Cat Chaser (1989, starring Peter Weller), National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989, featuring Miriam Flynn and Natalia Nogulich), and Malice (starring Bebe Neuwirth).

Director David Fincher has utilized Kaplan's talents in Seven (1995), The Game (1997, featuring Elizabeth Dennehy), Fight Club (1999, starring Zach Grenier and David Andrews), and Panic Room (2002). Kaplan's work on Fight Club earned him a nomination from the Costume Designers Guild (CDG) Awards in the Excellence in Costume Design for Film – Contemporary category, as did his designs for Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005, featuring Jennifer Morrison).

He also designed the costumes for such films as Pearl Harbor (2001, featuring Pat Healy, Glenn Morshower, Randy Oglesby, Leland Orser, James Saito, Raphael Sbarge, Cary-Hiroyuki, and Michael Shamus Wiles), Matchstick Men (2003, starring Bruce McGill), and Miami Vice (2006). He also worked on Lucky You (2007, starring Eric Bana).

Kaplan designed the costumes for The Sorcerer's Apprentice (2010) for director Jon Turteltaub and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, and Burlesque (2010). Further work as costume designer includes Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011, with Simon Pegg) and Akiva Goldsman's Winter's Tale (2014).

Kaplan reunited with J.J. Abrams to design the costumes for Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015, with Simon Pegg and Greg Grunberg), Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019, with Greg Grunberg and the voice of Olivia d'Abo). Abrams served as producer and executive producer on these films, and also co-wrote and directed the first and the third one. Kaplan also worked as costume designer on the 2020 series The Alienist.

External links[]

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