Every year, Heidi Klum, the reigning queen of Halloween, delivers an unforgettable costume. She turned into a sexy Jessica LapinA flamboyant peacockand even a grotesque worm. Always ready to surprise, Klum knew it had to transform into something unique for this year’s festivities. So, the day after last Halloween, the star immediately started thinking. “I knew I wanted to do something nostalgic,” says Klum. “I started looking down memory lane, thinking about the dolls I played with, the movies I watched, and some of my favorite childhood memories.” The model came across a mini figurine of ET, which was one of her favorite movies and characters as a child, and thus, a 2024 concept was born. “It’s my favorite childhood movie of all time: I’ve watched it a million times,” Klum says. “It’s a film that inspired me to dream and imagine the possibility of life beyond Earth.”

Of course, this isn’t the first time Klum has dressed up as an alien: see her look 2019when she was an alien science experiment gone wrong. But with ET, the star was excited to put a new spin on a classic Hollywood figure and ask her husband, Tom Kaulitz, to wear a couple’s costume with her. (Yes, there is two ETs) Their alien looks took an entire year to come to life. The process began in November 2023, when Klum called her favorite FX artist Mike Marino and his team; They immediately began discussing the execution of the costume. “There were many fittings and countless meetings,” says Klum.

Marino and his team of 30 artists began this laborious process by taking digital scans of Klum and Kaulitz’s bodies and faces. “We started by digitally printing their bodies and digitally sculpting the different parts of ET: arms, legs, feet,” explains Marino. “Then we put everything together to make sure they lined up and fit together. We 3D printed all the sculptures, molded them, cast them in latex foam, and reinforced them with spandex. We then glued the pieces onto their faces and blended them into the body. The team designed every detail from scratch, down to the otherworldly eyeballs, teeth, tongue and nails. “Everything was finished with a full airbrush job,” says Marino.

The main challenge, of course, was determining the exact scales of the ETs, which are meant to be mini-sized. “ET is much smaller than a regular human, so we had to create an illusion to position his body over both mine and Tom’s,” Klum explains. “It was tricky, but we figured it out.” To make things even more difficult, Marino and his team had the added challenge of creating both fully animatronic looks as well. “We had to design a head support that balances on their head without being too heavy,” says Marino. For Klum, this proved to be the hardest thing to deal with in costume. “Balancing the helmet was one of the biggest challenges,” she says. “It had to be secure without being too heavy because I was carrying it for hours. We also used detailed airbrushing to blend the costume perfectly with our faces; It was a long and painstaking process, but it was worth it.