Oscar-Worthy Plastic Fantastic! “Barbie” Designers Sarah Greenwood & Katie Spencer Share Their Dreamhouse Secrets
*Ahead of the 96th Academy Awards, we’re re-posting our interview with Barbie production designer Sarah Greenwood and set decorator Katie Spencer, both of whom are nominated for Oscars. Barbie has eight nominations, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Achievement in Costume Design, Best Performance by an Actress and Actor in a Supporting Role, America Ferrera and Ryan Gosling, respectively.
“It was trying to find a solution to what makes a toy,” says production designer Sarah Greenwood about creating the charmed sets of Barbie alongside set decorator Katie Spencer.
“Drive-Away Dolls” Production Designer Yong Ok Lee on Transforming Pittsburgh Into the Whole East Coast
Ethan Coen’s solo directorial debut, Drive-Away Dolls, stars Margaret Qualley as Jamie, an unhindered Texan attached at the hip to her best friend and human hand-brake, Marian, played by Geraldine Viswanathan. The only trait these two twenty-somethings seemingly share is that they are both lesbians, but when an impromptu road trip to Tallahassee turns into a game of cat and mouse involving a couple of hired goons, Arliss (Joey Slotnick) and Flint (C.J.
“Lisa Frankenstein” Production Designer Mark Worthington on Reimagining 1980s Horror Comedy
In a send-up of 1980s slasher flicks, Lisa (Kathryn Newton), the anti-heroine of writer Diablo Cody’s and director Zelda Williams’s Lisa Frankenstein, spends too much time in an abandoned cemetery and accidentally calls up a deceased 18th-century hottie (Cole Sprouse) from the dead. Since Lisa is already in love with a living boy, Michael Trent (Henry Eikenberry), and her undead admirer is missing a hand and can’t speak, the high schooler finds herself at the center of a love triangle she’s ill-equipped to handle.
“Maestro “ Production Designer Kevin Thompson on Building the Bernstein’s Lives From Concert Halls to Connecticut
Bradley Cooper’s Maestro follows the arc of Leonard Bernstein’s career, but his rise from a lucky break at Carnegie Hall to becoming a household name as a composer and conductor is secondary in the film to the development of his relationship with his actress wife, Felicia Montealegre. The couple had three children and split their time between the Upper West Side Manhattan, where they eventually settled in an apartment in the Dakota, and a country home in Fairfield,
“Ferrari” Production Designer Maria Djurkovic on Building Enzo Ferrari’s World in Michael Mann’s Racing Epic
Ferrari raced into theaters this past Christmas, and the bright red color of the iconic racing cars featured in the film seemed perfectly timed for its holiday release. Based on the 1991 nonfiction book “Enzo Ferrari: The Man, The Car, The Races, The Machine,” and helmed by celebrated four-time Oscar nominee Michael Mann, Ferrari centers on the summer of 1957, a very difficult time for Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver).
Creating the World of “The Color Purple” With Production Designer Paul D. Austerberry & Set Decorator Larry Dias
For production designer Paul D. Austerberry and set decorator Larry Dias, The Color Purple was a challenge in grounding post-Antebellum South aesthetics with whimsical musical environments. Scouring every nook and cranny of Georgia, the town of Grantville provided seven shooting locations for director Blitz Bazawule’s retelling of the beloved story that follows Celie (Fantasia Barrino), a Black woman trying to find her identity while married to an abusive husband named Mister (Colman Domingo).
“The Boys in the Boat” Production Designer Kalina Ivanov on Jumping On Board of George Clooney’s Stirring new Drama
For The Boys in the Boat, directed by George Clooney, production designer Kalina Ivanov had to make England of 2022 look like the Pacific Northwest of the United States in the midst of the Depression. No easy feat, but one the talented filmmaker was more than prepared to tackle. Ivanov, who worked with Clooney on The Tender Bar and currently helped create the iconic Gotham for the upcoming The Batman spinoff series The Penguin,
“Wonka” Production Designer Nathan Crowley on Creating a Chocolatier’s Whimsical World
For production designer Nathan Crowley, whose impressive list of credits includes The Dark Knight, The Greatest Showman, and First Man, creating director Paul King’s deliciously appetizing Wonka musical was an exploration of “whimsical, nostalgic, and romantic” visuals inspired by Roald Dahl’s book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. “I’m used to doing practical films, and with Wonka, we had to find the realism of Roald Dhal and what that looked like.
“Poor Things” Production Designers Shona Heath and James Price on Going Gleefully Mad for Director Yorgos Lanthimos
When we first meet Bella Baxer, she’s a bit unusual. Not in a physical sense. All her arms and legs are accounted for, and playing the character is Academy Award winner Emma Stone so that you can be the judge of her beauty. But something about Bella is off. Turns out, she’s the creation of Dr. Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe), a renowned London scientist who reincarnated her adult body with the brain of a child.
How “Leave the World Behind” Production Designer Anastasia White Built a House for the End of the World
Leave the World Behind has five main characters. Four are human, and the other is the house where they find themselves holed up together as an apocalyptic event rages outside.
In the acclaimed 2020 novel by Rumaan Alam, the house has colorful interiors and a white picket fence. Not anymore. Sam Esmail, who wrote and directed the film, got Alam’s approval to use something more foreboding, according to production designer Anastasia White.
“Napoleon” Production Designer Arthur Max and Set Decorator Elli Griff on Bringing Bonaparte’s World to Life
Ridley Scott’s Napoleon takes on the general-turned-emperor who ruled France from 1799 to 1814 and presents him (Joaquin Phoenix) as an indefatigable military strategist but also a tortured everyman obsessed with, and forever a touch spurned by, his wife and subsequent ex-wife, Joséphine (Vanessa Kirby). Running in the background of this love affair are Bonaparte’s imperial conquests, his catastrophic losses in Russia, and finally, his banishment to Elba.
Scott’s portrait highlights a more intimate side of the former emperor,
How “Saltburn” Production Designer Suzie Davies Imbued a Palatial Estate With Sinister Detailing
Like so many of us, production designer Suzie Davies loved Emerald Fennel’s debut, Promising Young Woman. When she heard that the actress-turned-director planned a sex-drenched thriller called Saltburn as a follow-up to her debut feature, Davies, Oscar-nominated for designing Mike Leigh’s lush period piece Mr. Turner, threw her hat in the ring. “I was like, ‘Let me get in the room with Emerald!'” she says. “My agent got me the script,
“The Last of Us” Concept Illustrator & Designer Pouya Moayedi on Imagining a Deadly Green World
HBO’s brilliant The Last of Us is, inarguably, the most successful video game adaptation in TV history. The series is based on the critically acclaimed video game of the same name, which was created by Neil Druckmann and Naughty Dog, and when it bowed at the beginning of this year (adapted by Druckmann and Chernobyl creator Craig Mazin), it was an immediate sensation. Here was a slow-burn, character-focused zombie show that felt utterly different from any in the genre.
How “Saltburn” Production Designer Suzie Davies Outfitted the Vast Estate in Emerald Fennell’s Thriller
Like many who worked on Saltburn, production designer Suzie Davies signed a contract promising not to reveal the location of the sprawling country house where much of the movie was shot. Writer/director Emerald Fennell wanted a centuries-old estate unidentifiable to audiences, and she found one in the English Midlands that had never been used onscreen. But a Tatler journalist sleuthed out the location a few months ago, effectively voiding the contracts.
How “Killers of the Flower Moon” Production Designer Jack Fisk Created 1920s Oklahoma
Killers of the Flower Moon became a journey of inspirational research for production designer Jack Fisk (The Revenant, There Will Be Blood). He traveled to Oklahoma to visit the very homes of the Osage portrayed in the Scorsese film – a story that unpacks the painful history of the Osage during the 1920s, whose oil-backed wealth was methodically stolen from them under false pretense.
The screenplay was adapted by Eric Roth and Scorsese based on David Grann’s meticulous 2017 work of non-fiction.
“The Fall of the House of Usher“ Production Designer Laurin Kelsey Reanimates Edgar Allan Poe for Netflix
It’s October, the right time of year for an Edgar Allan Poe revamp. Creator Mike Flanagan delivers, with a contemporary mini-series adaptation for Netflix of The Fall of the House of Usher, Poe’s 1839 short story about the creepy undoing of wealthy but disturbed Roderick Usher. In Flanagan’s updated version of the story, Roderick (Bruce Greenwood) and his sister, Madeline (Mary McDonnell), are the filthy rich heads of an unscrupulous pharmaceutical company,
“Cat Person” Production Designer Sally Levi on Turning a Viral Short Story Into a Feature-Length Film
“Margot met Robert on a Wednesday night toward the end of her fall semester. She was working behind the concession stand at the artsy movie theatre downtown when he came in and bought a large popcorn and a box of Red Vines.” This is how writer Kristen Roupenian’s short story “Cat Person” begins, a vignette about a young college student, Margot, meeting an older man named Robert. It was published in The New Yorker and appeared online on December 4,
“The Creator” Production Designer James Clyne Fabricates the Future
When writer-director Gareth Edwards finished Rogue One, he took a road trip to his girlfriend’s home in Iowa. Along the way, he noticed a Japanese factory in the middle of a cornfield and started dreaming up a new story. Seven years later, Edwards has delivered The Creator. Set in 2065, the movie pits American humans against highly evolved AI robots from “New Asia.”
Starring John David Washington,
How “A Haunting in Venice” Production Designer John Paul Kelly Built a Possessed Venetian Palazzo
There’s a chilling haunt in Kenneth Branagh’s latest Agatha Christie adaptation of famed detective Hercule Poirot that will make the hair on the back of your neck tingle.
Following the success of Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile, this third whodunit sinks into darker waters and unravels a tale along the canals of Venice where the crime solver is asked by friend and author Ardiane Oliver (Tina Fey) to attend a séance with her to prove that the medium (Michelle Yeoh) performing the spiritual ritual is a fake.
“Winning Time” Production Designer Richard Toyon on Capturing the Lakers Highs & Lows in Season 2
A Los Angeles native and longtime Lakers fan, production designer Richard Toyon had a good idea of how the HBO series Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty should look. After all, he was there when it originally happened.
Opening in 1979, season 1 saw Jerry Buss (John C. Reilly) buying the Lakers and drafting rookie sensation Earvin “Magic” Johnson (Quincy Isaiah) in the quest for a championship.
