- yesterday
Join Architectural Digest as we explore the set of ‘Wednesday’ Season 2 with actress Emma Myers (Enid Sinclair) and production designer Mark Scruton. As Wednesday Addams (Jenna Ortega) returns to Nevermore Academy for another year, Scruton reveals how the show’s gothic set design brings the world of Nevermore to life—perfectly setting the stage for fresh mysteries and supernatural twists.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00I'm Emma Myers and welcome to Nevermore.
00:23We're in the Link right now, but this is kind of like the new quad.
00:27At the end of the last season, Enid finally wolves out, gets her powers going, then transitioning into this season, she's becoming more sure of herself.
00:36Behind me is a giant statue of a werewolf.
00:39It's not Enid, although I wish it was.
00:41I think this statue is a good reminder for her that she is now fully herself.
00:50Stepping onto a set like this helps you believe it more.
00:53Doing fantasy and trying to deliver the lines realistically is always hard, but being obnoxious and talking about werewolf things and, you know, hooded figures and crows attacking us and, you know, mysteries isn't so far-fetched when you're on a set like this.
01:08Jenna and I have been talking about every single little gargoyle and little monster statue and which one we would be and what we think their backstories are.
01:16Jenna would be that one, that pig guy.
01:19I said, where is he? I like the snake looking thing.
01:21I don't know why, there's a connection somehow.
01:24You don't notice it all at first, but when you spend more time on these sets, you start to notice the smaller details.
01:29Our huge new feature window ties into one of our big new locations, which is Charlieville Castle.
01:44So we play the interiors of some of Nevermore inside.
01:47You have the huge window in the hallway there.
01:49So we've replicated it here so that you can seamlessly move between this set and that location and you feel like it's one big cohesive space.
01:56We've now got little Nevermore shields and stained glass either side of the front door there as well.
02:00And all the gargoyles, we had a huge selection of gargoyle designs.
02:03They all reflect different characters within the school and different creatures that inhabit the world.
02:07Again, all hand sculpted, which is a theme with this show.
02:10It's all very much artisan driven, which is what I love about it.
02:12It gives it a heart as well, which I think is important.
02:14And then we have another new feature, which is the Telltale Cafe, which is the only place the students are allowed to go now as they're banned from going to Jericho.
02:22So we had to give ourselves a nice little franchise coffee shop.
02:25This is very much the Nevermore world, but you can certainly get your own little sachet of OB positive blood if you're in the vampire world.
02:32And then to give us some connection back to the real world.
02:35And I always try to make sets feel real and feel like they actually are real places rather than film sets.
02:40So we designed the whole set.
02:41So it actually has a view out into the real world and real hills that try and give you that feeling of Vermont.
02:46So this is very much a protected view.
02:47We've got a lovely cherry picker there because we're extending the set out.
02:51So we have an exterior now to come into, which we'll play later on in the season.
02:54A lot of time went into selecting the right spot to build the set in the first place to give us that view out.
02:59You know, we don't rely on blue screens or anything like that.
03:01It's all in camera, which is, you know, what we try and do all the time on this show.
03:13Tim's brilliant. He's very collaborative.
03:14When I just finished doing Beetlejuice with Tim, I was able to get in with him quite early on and start discussing what he had in mind,
03:21trying to nail down where we wanted to go with this season and the different ideas we wanted to try and get into the season and the different moods we wanted to get.
03:28So I would normally do some thumbnails. He would then tell me what was wrong with those thumbnails.
03:31We then go back. He would give me his little doodles.
03:33His doodles are fantastic because they say very little, but they give you all the information you need.
03:37They're very sort of descriptive in a few lines.
03:39The original Addams Family cartoons that Chad Adams did are very sparse like that.
03:43So they're great sort of visual cues for me.
03:45And in fact, some of the sets that we did Wednesday's Bedroom this season, which is sort of straight out of the Chad Adams cartoons.
03:51And it's very sparse and very minimal. It has like a chair and a desk.
03:54That's the essence of what we try to get to with the show.
03:57Wednesday's Bedroom and the dorm room is obviously the one that everyone loved from season one and was my favorite.
04:02It was the first one as it did in season one.
04:04And it was the one that stuck and it was the one that really stood out.
04:08Some of the sets are here.
04:09So this is the secret lab, which is sort of underneath, which is a big, big script point in the show.
04:20This is the entrance gates that we built on location.
04:23There's a huge sort of old seminary in the background that we designed the whole set to take these gates.
04:28It was all built in situ with a real road and everything else, which was a big undertaking for us.
04:32This is the Iago Tower.
04:34We sort of glimpsed it in season one.
04:36It's one of the three clock towers.
04:37And a few people commented to me why it was broken and smashed.
04:39And actually in this season, we find out why it's broken and smashed.
04:48It's one of our biggest sets.
04:49And we actually had to physically dig out this part of the stage to get the height in.
04:54And it had to solve a lot of things in our plot lines.
04:57And I literally only got the last few pieces of that now.
04:59So I'm having to sort of redesign some of this to fit in with some of the things it has to do in the last episode.
05:03It's such an architecturally difficult thing to build.
05:06It's all steel.
05:07It's all real.
05:08It all has to be its own self-supporting structure.
05:10Everything is the real deal.
05:12And it looks like when you're in there, you feel like you're in the incredible, never more collapsed Iago Tower.
05:17Hi, AD. Welcome to Morticia's Cottage.
05:29We set the bar quite high last season with fireplaces.
05:31So it was definitely something we knew we had to pay attention to in the show.
05:35We go through a lot of different designs for them.
05:37This one particularly was difficult to get hold of because we were trying to design something that could play for the Addams Family world, but also for the Thornhill world.
05:45So we had to change this through the show.
05:47So it starts off when it's all done in light oak and everything else.
05:50Then it goes dark when it becomes the Addams Family's sort of world.
05:52When we first come in, Marilyn's been living here and the environment is very pink and very fluffy and is full of chintz and doilies and everything else.
06:07Who decorated this place?
06:09A homicidal maniac.
06:11And the inspiration when we read that, certainly when I read it, I'd only not that long ago seen a picture of the Addams Family house and the TV show in the 1960s,
06:18which was actually completely full of pinks and pale greens and everything else.
06:22And it was only black and white when it went to screen.
06:24So we took that idea into here and we did exactly the same thing.
06:27So actually we did exactly the same wallpaper, which was designed by Eugene Grasset in an Art Nouveau style,
06:32and we changed the colorways.
06:34So we started off with the pinks and the greens, and then we went to the blacks and the reds,
06:38so that it almost changed its color overnight.
06:41And then the idea is that all the props have been brought in by Lurch.
06:45No Addams Family environment would be complete without having the taxidermy bear,
06:49but we didn't really want to have a real one.
06:50It didn't feel right to have a poor stuffed bear on our set for the whole time.
06:54So actually we spent a lot of time and effort recreating a fake one.
06:57So this bear you see is actually completely fake, but it definitely fits the bill for the Addams Family.
07:01We gave Morticia the deep rose and the scarlet color to match with the black.
07:05So she doesn't have a direct contrast with Wednesday, so she's more in her own world.
07:09And to keep that theme running with the gardener's cottage, I then picked up on the idea of the rambling roses
07:13and rose petals and red roses, which meant it could stay constant between the different sets.
07:18So in all the windows, you'll see there's an element of stained glass roses.
07:21So as you see in the kitchen, we have the same with the roses running through there.
07:24And then on the fireplace, you'll see you have the same idea of the rambling roses going through.
07:29And even on the walls, there's roses in the vines and everything else.
07:32We slightly went to town on this one. This was definitely the more macabre of our fireplaces,
07:37which I wasn't 100% sure about to begin with, but the design was so strong that we rolled with it,
07:41with this sort of spectral figure in the middle, which is all hand sculpted.
07:44And actually it's real fabric underneath all that and was actually hand draped by one of our sculptresses.
07:49It's the most beautiful thing I think I've seen on this set.
07:53How do you make a kitchen fit for the Addams Family, which still actually has to exist in the 21st century?
07:58So there's some modern appliances hidden amongst it all. This isn't a period set.
08:01It is a contemporary set. So theoretically, it's actually a modern fridge, but it still has the right vibes.
08:06This is actually one of the hardest bits to get right because it kept feeling too modern and yet it has to be modern.
08:11No Addams Family house would be complete without a conservatory of some description.
08:15And so we had to have this tacked onto the back of the gardener's cottage.
08:19And then we brought in a few of the nice elements, the ubiquitous fan chair, which has to be here no matter what.
08:24It's become synonymous with Morticia, so you have to have it.
08:27Morticia's lovely little carnivorous plant, which she's been nursing.
08:30My mother is a carnivorous plant aficionado. I assume I get my red thumb from her.
08:34The slightly dubious birdcage, which occasionally has a bird in it, depending on how we feel.
08:38But the whole point of this set was to sort of provide this very bright green pop that is visible through the very dark and gloomy reds and blacks of the other set,
08:45and gives us a little bit of respite in the color scheme.
08:53So this is Dr. Orloff's biology classroom.
08:55We wanted to dig into the world of the sort of underbelly of Nevermore and the creatures that inhabit it.
09:01So we spent a lot of time getting into the design and sort of the backstory of these creatures.
09:05So these little fellas, somewhere between a wood nymph and a cave troll, I guess.
09:09But we had to give this idea that Orloff studies the more peculiar creatures.
09:14Largely inspired, actually, when I went to the Natural History Museum in Dublin and saw creatures not 100 miles away from this.
09:20The whole space, I think, is generally designed to give it that slightly icky feel.
09:24His desk is made out of a mortuary slab, which we don't quite know where it came from, and we probably don't want to know where it came from.
09:29And then every time we come in here, we have a different set of drawings on the board and a different set of lessons that he's teaching.
09:35Presumably done by an assistant, because he hasn't actually got any arms.
09:38We've also got custom-milt lamps in here, which actually were from an Eastern European operating theatre.
09:43I saw a bit of reference, and I turned them into these sort of bat-wing lamps.
09:46And we've obviously got all the Nevermore detailing throughout.
09:49So much so that we even have all the original sort of pieces, and we have functioning bunks and burners and functioning taps,
09:55and everything is designed to work and feel like a real classroom.
09:58Even if it is a little bit more extraordinary than the normal one.
10:01You seem to are trying to murderers like most people cuts home.
10:06It's a gift.
10:14Here we are in what is now Principal Dort's office, previously Principal Weems' office.
10:18On season one, we were actually in a real-life building, and this was a real location.
10:22And we've now rebuilt it faithfully in Dublin, in our new studio home.
10:27It was a bit of a challenge, because obviously it was a very elaborate location we moved into.
10:31So we had to copy it in every intricate detail, because people would notice it.
10:34One of our biggest problems here was the very prominent Gorgon fireplace, which was hand-sculpted before.
10:40And I was slightly alarmed at the notion we're going to have to try and recreate it.
10:44But after a lot of phoning and a lot of conversations with people and contacts and everything else,
10:49we managed to find out that the actual original face did still exist.
10:52So mercifully, we have the exact same fireplace back.
10:55I haven't laid eyes on this in over 20 years.
10:58One of Dort's mandates is definitely it's a new beginning for Nevermore Academy.
11:02Steve Buscemi has brought an amazing energy to the role, and we've tried to give it a beginning to build that character on.
11:08Obviously, there's not much space in here to hide, so we had to spend a lot of time finding just the right desk for him,
11:13just the right chair for him, giving them those key objects to sort of ground the character, while keeping the set the same.
11:18It's a tricky thing to do from my point of view.
11:20Some of the designer pieces were very specifically chosen, but then we had to bring other things into it,
11:24like his love of golf and his sort of slightly more Poe-centric, I would say.
11:27You know, Edgar Allan Poe was theoretically the founder of Nevermore,
11:30and he's very much into restoring Nevermore back to what it was in days gone by.
11:33So he now has a portrait of Poe that he refers to.
11:36I think he slightly copies his hairstyle on Poe.
11:38Use your gift and get Morticia Adams and her beloved mother on our side.
11:43So there's a lot of those little details in here, while still keeping the same vibe.
11:47Would you like a sticker?
11:49Only if you have one that says, do not resuscitate.
11:51We're using some actual secret passages hidden behind some real library doors,
11:55which I thought was particularly good.
11:56I thought it was the best thing I found on this is real stuff to use.
11:59We don't even have to make it up these times.
12:01None of us really knew where season one would go.
12:04You know, we'd have invested a lot of time and effort into it.
12:07When we started it, we didn't know where we'd end up at the end of season one.
12:09But I think from my point of view and from Tim's, we were very keen that it didn't lose any of that initial momentum
12:15and the initial aesthetic that we'd set up.
12:17You know, I've always said I wanted to keep things very human and Tim was very much the same.
12:20We wanted to keep it a real place that is not beyond the realms of what could potentially exist somewhere.
12:25That's at the heart of a lot of what Tim does. It's that human quality to it all, even though it is fantastical.
12:30The four main clicks are fangs, furs, stoners and scales.
12:40So here we are coming into Caliban Hall, which is the new sort of area of Nevermore.
12:43It gives us the chance to dig into the architecture a bit more and explore the world a bit more.
12:47So this is architecturally following some of the rules set down by Charlieville Castle.
12:51So it means we can transition from there to here and keep it all in continuity and make it all feel cohesive again,
12:57which is what I've tried to achieve with this set.
13:00It takes us neatly into Pugsley's dormitory.
13:02Oh, Caliban Hall! My old stomping ground.
13:08This is the first time we see another dorm other than Wednesdays,
13:11which was interesting because we'd made Wednesdays such a special place.
13:15We had to try and do the same trick again.
13:17We went down the same avenue, so we pulled in different elements from Nevermore.
13:20So we have different types of windows, different elements,
13:23and all of which tied together with these bunk beds, which were designed to feel a little bit like a tree house.
13:28The nice details of the fireplace.
13:30Being Caliban Hall, we couldn't really have somewhere without Caliban.
13:33So the sculpture represents Caliban in his cave, with a quote, be not afeard from the Tempest.
13:38We've got Pugsley's little area down here with his Adam's family spiderweb duvet
13:44and some of his interesting props like the hand grenade and various sorts of gas masks.
13:49And manacles? No, small boys should be without these things in Nevermore.
13:53Eugene's area is over here.
13:55He's got his own custom duvet that his mum's made for him with the bees
13:58and all his insects and all his terrariums, which normally have a selection of real insects in.
14:02And then every little bed is meant to have its own little special detail,
14:05whether it's the round window, whether it's the stained glass.
14:08It's all supposed to be little special places for them to live.
14:12Perfect for late night munchies.
14:15They're pets, not snacks.
14:20And you also have some interesting things.
14:22We wanted to make the place feel like it was that eclectic world of architecture,
14:26so nothing is, you know, it's evolved, it's grown,
14:28so you've got different bricks and different walls and different arches
14:31all sort of intersecting as if it's been carved up and rebuilt over the years
14:34to give it a sense of history and past.
14:36The story with Wednesday's dorm was always that Enid was sort of on her own
14:40and had ended up top of the building in her own dorm.
14:42She was almost an outcast of outcasts on herself.
14:45And Wednesday was meant to be the interloper
14:46and that's why they ended up splitting the room in half.
14:49What the hell did you do to my room?
14:52Dividing our room equally.
14:54The reality is most of the students sort of share these dorms in smaller groups like this
14:57and they sit around the fire and they read stories and that sort of stuff.
15:00It's a safe environment.
15:01The line on this show is that even though these are werewolves and gorgons
15:05and people with special powers, they're actually normal, non-threatening,
15:08they're misunderstood and they are, you know,
15:10it's a safe environment for them to come and be nurtured.
15:22So I hope you've enjoyed our little tour of Nevermore
15:24and had fun seeing what we've got to offer
15:26but I've now got 41 emails I have to go and answer and torture to be done.
15:30Thanks very much.
15:32Have a good day.
Recommended
4:11
3:42
2:37
0:42
2:13
12:29