Production Designer Scott Dougan Turns Chris Hemsworth’s “Crime 101” Into a High-Gloss L.A. Fever Dream
“It’s a special place,” production designer Scott Dougan says of Los Angeles during a conversation about director Bart Layton’s Crime 101, a high-stakes heist thriller set along Hollywood’s iconic 101 freeway. “And that’s not to say the crew is better or worse, but there’s something to the fact that there are generations of people who really know the business.”
That generational appeal is reflected in Dougan’s own journey. After getting his start as an art department production assistant on Flightplan (2005), he then stepped into art director and production designer roles, and two decades later, he reunited with former mentors on Crime 101, including set decorator Kathy Lucas (Tenet) and set designer Sam Page (Inception). Their task was to take a novella by Don Winslow, set in San Diego, and inject it with sweeping scope and vitality. “It’s a much smaller, more contained beach story, and Bart wanted to make this story bigger and embody the whole city of LA,” says Dougan, who worked with the director on American Animals (2018).
To do so, references to McQueen’s The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), American Gigolo (1980), and Collateral (2004) helped define the visual characteristics for a modern-day palette. “There are so many great Los Angeles films, and Crime 101 was really to showcase a broader swath of the city that I think people normally don’t see,” notes Dougan. The story’s action spans from San Barbara to downtown LA, with locations in Pacific Palisades, Venice, Redondo, Hermosa, Beverly Hills, and Echo Park serving as part of the backdrop for practical sets. “One of the most interesting things about Bart is that he comes from documentaries, so he has fresh eyes, and there’s no expectation of what things should be – he’s very good at seeing things for what they are.”
The characters gave Dougan the opportunity to add depth and dimension to the work. Chris Hemsworth plays Davis, a thief with a conscience who pulls off crimes without harming anyone. So much so, it’s part of his M.O. – at least in the eyes of the pursuing detective (Mark Ruffalo). Davis has got it all: expensive cars, designer clothes, beachfront accommodations. That image is reflected in the production design and costumes. But there’s another side to Davis: his time in foster care, along with a touch of social anxiety. Some of the best scenes involve the ridiculously handsome Thor actor lacking confidence around his love interest, Maya (Monica Barbaro). However, his orphan roots became a thread in the design, with his living spaces showing little signs of his past life. He’s a man on the run, moving from place to place until he can find that last big score.
Dougan scoured locations from Malibu to Redondo, and then Rancho Palos Verdes west of Long Beach to stand in for Davis’s beachfront digs. He needed to find three different houses and ultimately settled on a location along the PCH, another in Redondo Beach, and a third, which he built as a set for scenes between Davis and Maya. “We wanted to film at dusk, so that scene took place in London, but with photographs from Marina Del Rey. It’s a little bit of an imagined house,” he notes. For Davis’s foster home, Dougan found a practical house in Echo Park overlooking the 101 freeway. “With the house, Bart couldn’t get the exact angle he wanted from the doorstep to see the 101, so we built a tiny piece and scooted the door over about five feet,” he notes. “The movie has huge thematic themes about class and race, and those themes sometimes come down to moving a door a few feet when you’re production designing.”
Getting intertwined in Davis’s crimes is Sharon (Halle Berry), a career-driven insurance broker who sells policies to the city’s elite. She drives a white Mercedes, drinks smoothies, and practices yoga—a seemingly good life. But in the city of hopes and dreams, is it ever enough? “Halle’s character is struggling to find her place, and we wanted to bring a certain kind of aesthetic through her character to separate her from Davis. With him, you’re living in blues and greens. With her, she brings that quintessential Los Angeles, more earth tones, whites, and ambers to the world,” says Dougan. “Halle and I talked about all the things that the character would have in her house, down to the art on the walls and the books she’d be reading.” The designer ran with those ideas, building Sharon’s apartment on a set in London, while locations like the Carolwood Estate in Holmby Hills, California, stood in for the home for her soon-to-be-married client (Tate Donovan).
Los Angeles also stood in for other London locations, such as the first date between Davis and Maya at an upscale restaurant. As the scene plays out, Maya suggests they leave, and the two end up at a taco stand. Production moved to Lia’s Tacos, located at the corner of Sunset and Echo Park Ave. Dougan elevated the LA vibe further by clearing the famous “Sculpting Another Destiny” mural by artist Ricardo Mendoza across the street so it could be featured in the film. Additional Los Angeles scenes happen at Langer’s Deli, underneath the Sixth Street Bridge, and at Grand Central Market with Nick Nolte, who plays an inside man to Davis’s next score. Those scenes were shot at Sarita’s Pupuseria, the same spot made famous in La La Land (Robert Foulkes served as location manager on both films). “We tried to go into places where you wouldn’t know unless you live around the city, or scouted the city a million times,” says Dougan.
The story’s climax unfolds at the Beverly Wilshire, the hotel made famous by Gary Marshall’s Pretty Woman. Dougan combined its iconic exterior with an interior set built in London for more control. Before ending the conversation, Dougan reflects on how the film preserved Los Angeles history. “We started to scout in March of 2022 which is a long time ago and everything changes in Los Angeles all the time. The Santa Barbara jewelry store that gets robbed is actually a location near Pacific Palisades. It was one of the places that burned down in the 2025 wildfire. So there are little things like that in this film where you feel like you preserved a little memory of the city.”
Crime 101 is in theaters now.
Featured image: Chris Hemsworth stars as ‘Davis’ in CRIME 101. (Photo Credit: Dean Rogers)
