‘Emilia Pérez’ production designer Emmanuelle Duplay on creating a modern-day ‘operatic’ film
If you get an opera vibe while watching director Jacques Audiard‘s new Netflix film “Emilia Pérez,” you’re not imagining things. As production designer Emmanuelle Duplay tells Gold Derby during our Film Production Design panel, the team initially “went scouting in Mexico” for sets and locations. However, after some “casting and timing issues,” they ended up going “back to Paris,” which is where they focused on making the modern-day film “much more operatic” by using studios. Watch our video interview above.
Early in the film, crime boss Juan “Manitas” Del Monte (Karla Sofía Gascón) kidnaps Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Salda?a) and brings her to a van, which proved to be a unique set to create. “At first, we were wondering, where could Manitas live?” Duplay recalls. “And we wanted something that was constantly in flux, in movement. It was very important for things to move as the van was traveling.”
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She continues, “On top of that, it was really great to have this enclosed area, and to break down all the walls, and what would remain were the props.” The dynamic of the van set “illustrates our desire to go from a very realistic location to a very abstract location,” Duplay explains, “and we used it in many different scenes.”
The Bangkok medical facility is the setting for one of “Emilia Pérez’s” many production numbers, and Duplay reveals it was inspired from a set they scouted earlier in Mexico. “When we decided to build it in a studio [in Paris], I recreated the set as a circle and we worked with special lights with Paul Guilhaume, the director of photography,” she says. “It was really conceived for the choreography and for the movement” of the actors.
Also in our video interview, Duplay talks about how the London restaurant set showcased how “Rita had really reached what she was trying to reach as a successful lawyer,” how being an architect helped her come up with the interior of Emilia’s house, and how the banquet tables were “reinforced” for safety purposes during Salda?a’s iconic dancing scene.
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