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Production design for a television show can make the experience all the more immersive and engaging for viewers. Lester Cohen, who worked on the HBO limited series The Undoing, put thought into the details of the opulence for its New York City sets. Cohen has been in the biz for over 30 years, with previous credits including The Night Of, The Looming Tower, and White Collar. Cohen's work on The Undoing ties everything together so seamlessly (and gives us major apartment envy).
Cohen spoke to Newsweek about the process he underwent for designing the sets for The Undoing, along with giving some insight on why Donald Sutherland's apartment felt like a museum.
What was your process for designing the sets for The Undoing?
The process for me always is I start with the script, go through it, break it down, and then pull images, things that I feel relate to the character, and then share them with the director. Sort of hone in on an identity for each of the people. That's always the process.
On this project, we had a location manager named Lori Pitkus. When you shoot, upper class New York or the super wealthy New York, it's difficult. These people have so much money, that there's no amount of money a production could throw at them, make them notice in their bank account, so it's very rare that you get entre into these super exclusive spaces.
Lori had been on for a while before I came up in the project. The name really made some inroads, that in 35 years I had never been into in New York. A lot of those didn't end up being where we shot, but just getting into them and walking around was super important.
We added that into the process as well. We go and scout things, and photograph things, and be like, 'oh I love this bathroom,' or, 'look at that the way they've got this giant ballroom in their house — how does that happen?' Things like that. And then, in the end, for Franklin's apartment, we wound up combining some pieces of a location. Like when you see the balcony, and the hanging out on the balcony and all that stuff, that's one location. Then, along with building the big ballroom, and the bedroom, and the bathroom, the other bedroom where Henry is — Franklin 's apartment is a combination of two different places.
And then the townhouse was an empty townhouse we found in the Upper East Side where the Fraser apartment is. That was up for sale, and we were fortunate enough to get in there in between people living there, and make it into the home that you see in the show.
Did you pick the exact locations for the show, or were those outlined in the book? What locations did you/the show get to pick out specifically?
We deviated a lot from the book in a way. The thrust of the book is different from the thrust of the show. The thrust of the book is you have a similar set up, but most of the novel is about the woman putting her life back together. I think she goes to Maine or Vermont, or someplace bucolic, and sort of rebuilt her life.
[The show] is much more of a psyhco-drama, murder mystery, I would say.
I noticed that the Fraser's apartment was much more cozy and homey, while Franklin's was colder and felt like a museum. Why did you decorate these apartments like this?
The idea of the Fraser apartment in the first scene in the first episode is that these people are living the dream. It didn't want to feel as hard-edged or as severe as some of the other wealthy places we go to. It wanted to feel like a real home. Part of the reason I chose the palette I did is it's very earthy and deep and warm. That kitchen is a safe and enveloping space. It's a safe, domestic vibe. In that kitchen, which is actually the dining room of the place we were in, was almost like a service kitchen — it was really small. We wanted to have all that movement in the morning, to show this family waking up and being loose and open. So we took the dining room, added the brick wall and those beams, and the ceiling and everything, and made it into the kitchen.
But again, the exposed brick, it's just a more contemporary aesthetic [compared] to her father's, which is more old-money. Also colorwise: Franklin's place is very cool, we're very conscious of that.
I do find out as the show goes on, she didn't have the warmest relationship with her father. So we wanted to reflect that in the tones.
Based on who the killer is, did you decorate their home in a certain way?
No. I would say this, especially in a show like this with a mystery: you don't want to give it away. It's all about misdirection and keeping the audience on the edge of their seats. So, if there are tropes there you see that are typically a killer's interior, that would make the show not as effective as it is.
Franklin visits the Frick often throughout the show. He admires one painting in particular, "The Harbor of Dieppe" by J. W. Turner. Why this painting?
A couple things — one is, I think it's a painting that he wants, but he can't have, you know? And for a man with a pretty incredible art collection, it's that. When Susanne [Bier, director of the series] and I were talking about where does the money come from, we thought, they might be in shipping, or something like that. The seascape, and Turner is amazing. He walks that line between the classical and something slightly more modern in the way he painted things.
How was designing the sets for The Undoing different from other projects you've worked on?
A lot of the other things I've done have been more gritty than this. For instance, The Night Of, which is dark and brooding, and very textural like that. This was an opportunity to also use textures and also use deep colors. But, sort of in a more opulent world. That's how it's different from me, I typically do things that are more working class.
What was your favorite set that you designed for The Undoing?
I would say Franklin's apartment. We have 20-foot-high walls, 18-foot-high windows, we did all these elaborate paint effects on the walls, which you don't see but you certainly feel. That space is so large that we wanted to do wallpaper but we couldn't get that much wallpaper even if we had money.
So we basically handpainted this tree-ay on those walls and it worked really, really well. You definitely feel it, and it feels like there's fabric on the walls or something, but it's actually paint. The intricacy of ceiling, and the wood floor...that set was really fun to do.
The final episode of The Undoing airs on Sunday night at 9 on HBO.
