Architectural Digest
https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/inside-the-loud-and-vibrant-set-of-the-new-hbo-comedy-hacks
SET DESIGN
Inside the Loud and Vibrant Set of the New HBO Comedy Hacks
How production designer Jon Carlos and set decorator Ellen Reede Dorros created an over-the-top home for a character inspired by Joan Rivers and other dynamo comediennes
May 12, 2021
Hacks stars Jean Smart as a comedy legend with a Las Vegas residency, and premieres on HBO Max on May 13.Courtesy of HBO
“It’s so cool they let you move into a Cheesecake Factory.” This is what sullen young writer Ava (Hannah Einbinder) snaps to aging comedy legend Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) inside the sitting room of her palatial Las Vegas estate during a disastrous job interview—as seen in the first episode of the sharp new comedy Hacks (which premieres May 13 on HBO Max). Deborah retorts, “Is that where you wait tables? It seems like a better fit!” and the two continue to trade barbs until Deborah hires her. It’s the start of a tentative, albeit fulfilling, friendship.
Hacks production designer Jon Carlos (Westworld) can laugh about that punch line now. But he admits there were “many lengthy conversations” between himself and the show’s creators (Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs, and Jen Statsky) about what it represented. “There’s definitely a generational difference in that this 25-year-old is walking into an environment she’s never been akin to,” he says. “But I also wanted to make sure Deborah was never portrayed as tacky. There are loud and vibrant decor punches in the house, but we didn’t want any of the rooms to feel ostentatious or tasteless. It would take away from the gravity and some of the importance of why she is the way she is.”
Deborah Vance (Smart) interviews Ava (Hannah Einbinder) in her sitting room, which is “more formal with less comfortable traditional furniture pieces,” Dorros says. She calls it a “‘come for the party but don’t stay for too long’ moment.” Photo: Jake Giles Netter
Instead, he envisioned that the suffer-no-fools character—a mash-up of Joan Rivers, Elaine May, Debbie Reynolds, and Lucille Ball—commissioned a high-end custom L.A. architectural firm such as the Landry Design Group to create her immaculately landscaped 30,000-square-foot French chateau–influenced estate in the Las Vegas desert (where she’s enjoyed a long casino residency). “It’s a hidden oasis with a lush garden in the middle of this tepid climate and barren landscape,” he explains, adding that a private residence in L.A.’s Bel Air neighborhood doubled as the exterior.
For the interiors (constructed on two soundstages in the Paramount Pictures studios), he surmises that Deborah hired a private company and spent five years planning the contemporary-meets-classic look. “But she probably clashed with them,” he says, “and redecorated 90% of it herself based on her multiple trips to Paris.” To wit, Carlos and his team studied the aesthetic inside the United States Embassy in France (designed by a New York architecture firm) for design inspiration. “We used that heavy ornateness of the furniture and curtains as a baseline and then pulled away in terms of material and softer colors,” he explains.
The downstairs is considered her public-facing domain—where she entertains and a team of assistants and staffers tend to her needs. But Deborah, ever the workaholic, has an office adjacent to her sitting room. “The office is my favorite set piece because it has the perfect blend of dressing to illuminate her character,” set decorator Ellen Reese Dorros says. “She’s elegant, strong and playful.” It features a tiger-print chair—note the fierce-woman animal metaphor—that plays off a modern coral sofa, a modern vintage Artifort coffee table designed by Kho Liang Ie accented by a Stilnovo floor lamp, bespoke built-in bookshelves, and several gold French chairs to tie in the warmth of the wood tone on the walls. (The desk was sourced from Omega Cinema Props in L.A., with a custom-made smoked glass top from Motion Picture Glass.)
Behold Deborah’s salt-and-pepper shaker collection. ”Everything about Deborah is quality, so the lowbrow shaker is probably next to a $10,000 one,” Carlos says. Courtesy of HBO
True to her obsessive nature, Deborah also proudly displays an extensive salt-and-pepper shaker collection in her kitchen. “She takes such pride in that collection and wants everybody to hold it in high regard,” Carlos says. “That’s why the cabinetry we built for it is quality.” In the second episode, she asks Ava to track down an obscure one; behind the scenes, Dorros plucked the pieces via “a bit of fun shopping” in local antique malls and eBay. “I needed to find the right balance of kitschy and high-end to match her spirit,” she says. Elsewhere in the kitchen, Carlos notes the center island piece is the “pinnacle of movement and conversation.”
“The bedroom is where she can be a recluse and pull away,” Carlos says. Courtesy of HBO
Her retreat? The upstairs bedroom. With no hard angles to be found, “you want to feel like you can just let your guard down,” Carlos says, adding that she scolds Ava early on for wandering up there. “It’s almost like a rose where the branches are down below and this is where you find all the beautiful petals.” Everything from the color palette to the furniture to the textile to the artwork has a softness—including the custom-made bedding from Luxury Fabrics and Home Fabrics downtown.
But for all its gorgeous touches, don’t bet on Carlos ever choosing to live in such a stately mansion. “It’s fun to design, but with that volume of space, there’s no intimacy and can feel alienating and uncomfortable,” he says. “You kind of just have to admire it.”
Courtesy of HBO
Dorros selected the sitting room furniture from Warner Bros. Property, reupholstered them to fit Deborah’s color palette, and finished them “in a gold befitting of a Vegas mansion,” Dorros says.
Courtesy of HBO
Deborah holds court in her formal dining room, enhanced by chandeliers from Omega Cinema Props.
Courtesy of HBO
Deborah’s dressing room area: “The structure of the house is that you can walk from one framed door portal to another and look in at these little moments,” Carlos says
Courtesy of HBO
Her dressing room in the light.
#emmys #setdecorating #hackshbomax #SDSA #setdecoratorssocietyofamerica #productiondesign