There’s no doubt about it…Heidi Klum is the queen of Halloween!
On Thursday, October 31, 2024 Klum hosted her 23rd annual Halloween Party at Hard Rock Hotel New York: The Venue on Music Row. Klum and her husband Tom Kaulitz arrived as female and male versions of E.T. from Steven Spielberg’s 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The couples’ epic costumes include a glowing fingertip — an ode to the beloved movie — and a motorized headpiece with a movable mouth and eyes.
On the red carpet Klum revealed that she had just completed her final fittings for her E.T. costume on Wednesday!
“It’s gonna be very exciting,” Klum said in an Instagram video. “Just did my last fitting and it’s gonna be awesome. I hope.”
“See you all tomorrow,” she added before blowing a kiss to the camera.
Known for her extravagant Halloween costumes over the years, Klum knew she had to transform into something unique for this year’s festivities. So, the day after last Halloween (when she went as a grotesque worm), the supermodel started brainstorming up costume ideas.
“I knew I wanted to do something nostalgic,” says Klum. “I started going down memory lane, thinking about which dolls I played with, what movies I watched, and what some of my favourite childhood memories were.”
Klum stumbled upon a mini figurine of E.T., which was one of her favourite movies and characters as a child, and the 2024 concept was born!
“It’s my favourite childhood movie of all time – I watched it a million times,” says Klum. “It’s a movie that inspired me to dream and imagine the possibility of life beyond Earth.”
The process of turning Klum and Kaulitz into E.T.s began back in November 2023, when Klum called her go-to FX artist Mike Marino and his team. They immediately started discussing the costume’s execution. “There were many fittings, and countless meetings,” says Klum.
Marino and his team of 30 artists started the laborious process by taking digital scans of both Klum and Kaulitz’s bodies and faces. “We began by digitally printing their bodies, and digitally sculpting E.T.’s various parts – arms, legs, feet,” says Marino. “Then, we puzzled everything together to make sure they lined up and fit. We 3D-printed all the sculptures, moulded them, cast them in foam Latex, and reinforced them with Spandex. We then glued the pieces to their faces, and blended them into the body.” The team crafted every single detail from scratch – right down to the otherworldly eyeballs, teeth, tongues and fingernails. “Everything was finished with a full airbrush job,” Marino says.
The main challenge, of course, was nailing the exact scales of the E.T.s, who are meant to be mini sized. “E.T. is much smaller than a regular human, so we had to create an illusion to position their body on both mine and Tom’s,” says Klum. “It was tricky, but we figured it out.” To make things even more difficult, Marino and his team had the added challenge of making both looks fully animatronic, too. “We had to design a head rig to balance on their heads without being too heavy,” says Marino. For Klum, this proved to be the most difficult thing to navigate while in costume. “Balancing the headpiece was one of the biggest challenges,” she says. “It had to be secure without being too heavy, as I wore it for hours. We also used detailed airbrushing to blend the costume seamlessly with our faces. This was a long, meticulous process, but it was worth it.”
It took Klum and Kaulitz seven hours each to get into full costume – and, of course, the countless hours of preparation. “The process drives me a little crazy! But I love it,” says Klum. “This costume had so many puzzle pieces and layers that needed to fit perfectly for everything to work.” After years of dressing up, Klum admits that she’s used to the hours of commitment. “Most of my costumes aren’t comfortable to wear for hours, but I love the end result so much that I push through,” Klum says.
As for the end of the night? She tries not to think about the end of the night, either: “Getting out of the costume afterward is also a process,” Klum says. “It’s not something you can just unzip and take off!”
