Die Antwoord’s Stylists Had No Idea Cara Delevingne Would Be In The “Ugly Boy” Video

By now we know exactly what to expect from a Die Antwoord video: Ninja and Yo-Landi Vi$$er stomping around closed sets in facepaint and colorful clothes, keeping close, enigmatic eye contact with the camera. But for their first stateside video they managed to slip a few surprises in; Flea, Cara Delevingne, Dita Von Teese, Marilyn Manson, Charlotte Free, Jack Black, the ATL Twins, and an Aphex Twin lookalike in blackface all make brief, jarring cameos. We wanted to know how the hell this all happened, so we called up the on-set stylists—Hannah Greenblatt and Annie Castaldi of Annie & Hannah—to give us the scoop.

HANNAH GREENBLATT: Ninja talked about two models coming on possibly. We didn't think too much about it. The day off, we looked at the call sheet and we put two and two together. Like, Whoa, that's Cara Delevingne and Charlotte Free. Cara is one of the sweetest people I've ever met. She's just a 22-year-old girl. We totally clicked. All of the painted clothes are all hand painted by Ninja. The spooky white dancers' clothes are all hand-painted by Ninja, as well as Cara's shirtdress. Sourcing the clothes was a lot of just going to Downtown LA and buying triple XL oversized sweatpants and sweatshirts. We worked with a lot of people we knew because we had such a small budget. So many people were willing to help out because it's Die Antwoord's first video in the US.

ANNIE CASTALDI: We had to commission a costumer who works on American Horror Story. He helped custom make Ninja's tracksuit, the ATL twins' tracksuits, Jack Black's tracksuit. All of the hoodies that they're wearing are custom. The vibe on set was awesome; everyone was very creative, very hands on. It was a fun, intense set to be on, we shot it in two days. I'm totally a fan of Die Antwoord so it was kind of amazing and surreal to be behind the scenes of everything. And it didn't disappoint at all. And no, that is not Aphex Twin, but it definitely was modeled after him. They did get the mask from Chris Cunningham, but we can't say who's under it.