Discover the Historic Art and Design Elements in Hedda

Oonagh Guinness’s Luggala estate, Lauren Bacall’s bedroom, Salvador Dalí’s dinner parties—the inspirations for the design of Hedda, director Nia DaCosta’s lush 1950s-set modernization of Henrik Ibsen’s 1890 play Hedda Gabler, are as titillating as the story itself. Streaming now on Prime Video, the film takes place on one fateful day as the profoundly bored, caged antiheroine— portrayed by a magnetic Tessa Thompson—hosts a lavish housewarming in the English countryside attended by the peers of her desperate-to-please academic husband, George, portrayed by Tom Bateman. Viewers watch on as Tessa’s more hedonistic, artsy circle of friends and Eileen, her former love interest-turned-professional rival of George, mix and mingle throughout the suspense-filled evening.

Here, production designer Cara Brower and set decorator Stella Fox take Galerie inside the creation of Hedda’s world, from finding the ideal location for her manipulations to the painting of original mood-setting works to adorn the manor’s walls.

On choosing filming locations…

After photo-scouting roughly 200 estates, Brower knew Nottinghamshire’s Flintham Hall was impossible to top for its grand staircase, stunning conservatory, two-tiered ballroom with secret nooks for private tête-à-têtes, plot-essential lake within view, and flexible owners who didn’t have an 18-foot-tall portrait of an ancestor that they refused to move. “It was built as a party house, so it was perfect,” Brower says of the estate, which dates back to the 10th century and was remodeled in an Italianate style in the 1850s. “There’s something very romantic and dream-like about its architecture. Some of the stately homes are very stoic and imposing on the outside, and this just has a charm to it. In the script, Hedda says she decided on this house on a whim. I could imagine one would walk past Flintham Hall and be intrigued.”

Brower’s research into the lifestyle of mid-20th century socialites led her to photos of Oonagh Guinness’s Luggala estate in County Wicklow, Ireland. “In the 1930s and ’40s, she transformed Luggala into what’s been described as a ‘Gothic fantasy’ with a romantic and almost fairytale-like atmosphere famous for its guests and week-long parties,” she says of the haven for musicians, writers, and artists. “Her house was so wild to me because it was full of color. Her bedroom had rose-colored carpet, hot pink and bright purple satin around her four-poster bed, and pink-and-purple-pattern wallpaper. Her living room had a chartreuse green carpet! When I saw that, I thought, ‘Oh, this is exactly the type of person that I can imagine Hedda being.’ She would come in and put her stamp on it: ‘I hang out with artists. I hang out with Bohemians. I’m going to create my own modern world.’”

On curating the art…

Whereas Oonagh’s jewel-toned palette was joyful, Hedda’s is darker. “I kept looking at these historical paintings of rotting fruit, thinking they’re still gorgeous colors but they’re a little bit off and uncomfortable,” says Brower. That visual guideline was something she and Fox passed along to team members sourcing textiles, and to artist Thomasina Smith, who painted an estimated 27 works for the production, pulling inspiration from Georgia O’Keeffe, Helen Frankenthaler, Franz Kline, and Hans Hartung, among others.

Hedda would have spent her time as a newlywed collecting or being gifted paintings from different artists, using them to transform her home and shock George’s colleagues. In reality, a graphics team mocked up paintings “in the style of” the era’s rebel artists and presented them to Smith. “We had that complete creative freedom to produce bespoke pieces that were exactly the right size that I needed for a room, exactly the right color palette,” says Fox. “It was almost like creating wallpaper designs for each area. The art was a huge part of the canvas of each of those sets.”

A Cubist portrait of Hedda in the dining room makes the first impression, as she is questioned by authorities about the evening’s tragic turn in the movie’s foreboding opening. The painting hangs on top of a mirror in homage to a portrait in Luggala. “It just felt as bold, and decadent, and ostentatious as Hedda herself,” Fox says of the mount. Brower stepped in to do a rough iPad sketch of Hedda’s portrait, which was improved upon by a collaboration of minds, she says: “I was very inspired by the painting Head of a Woman by Georges Braque. The dimension used makes it feel sculptural and almost alive. Nia loved the idea of having this very aggressive, angular portrait of the mistress of the house looking over her guests.” In fact, the director now has the portrait hanging in her own home.

For large, prominent paintings in the main ballroom, Fox imagined Hedda had gone to a gallery looking for two complementary pieces. Because the ballroom is next to the conservatory, it made sense to bring in a botanical theme and combine the feminine sensuality of Georgia O’Keeffe with Arthur Dove’s evocative use of color.

“I’ve been to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, and you think of her as a stalwart of American modern art, but, at the time, she wasn’t accepted into the art world because it was very avant-garde to be so overtly sexual,” Brower says. “I love Thomasina’s painting because you can read it as a flower, but there’s something very anatomical about it as well. The sharp angles make it feel aggressive, and that is something that Hedda would be attracted to. Even though it’s beautiful colors and a beautiful painting, it does feel very ominous in that space.”

The sense of unease carries upstairs to Hedda’s bedroom, where intimate confrontations take place in front of a green gestural abstraction reminiscent of Hans Hartung. “Hartung’s paintings are characterized by dynamic brushstrokes and a tension between chaos and order,” says Brower. “His color palette is limited but powerful—smoky grays and putrid greens and burgundies. Art can be such an emotional backdrop, so we really let our intuition guide us.”

Also impactful was Hedda director of photography Sean Bobbitt’s fascination with Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi’s mastery of grey-blue light, which Brower and Fox translated in the design of the bedroom’s cool, muted colorway. Knowing Hedda was still a sensual character, they looked to images of Hollywood’s Golden Age actresses at home and became smitten with Lauren Bacall’s lavender boudoir. After an exhaustive search for wallpaper, they decided on Divine Savages’ Botanize collection in Heather. “We loved the floral motif juxtaposed against this dusty, desaturated lavender,” says Brower. “The pattern also features calla lilies, an existing motif in the conservatory, which has gorgeous historic sconces in the shape of the flowers. We loved tying in to that, even if it was something that might not be noticed.”

The hero pieces…

Brower and Fox had to be daring themselves at times. Fox had always assumed they’d need to build their own epic bar that could serve as an elegant showstopper without blocking too much of the architecture surrounding it. While browsing on a German antiques website for references to fabricate, she came across a cherry-wood, ribbon-shaped beauty from the 1950s that was going up for auction in Berlin. “It had to happen. We made a bid on it, we won, and then we had heart attacks trying to get this bar from Berlin to the U.K. on time for filming,” recalls Fox.

The design team faced a bigger challenge convincing DaCosta that leopard print should be layered into the decor. Brower and Fox were keen to pay tribute to fearless French interior designer Madeleine Castaing, but they also knew that leopard print was the “height of decadence” in the 1950s. “It would have been everywhere: on cushions, on fabric, on rugs,” says Fox. Once she got the greenlight on using Cole & Son’s Pavo Parade peacock wallpaper in Metallic Bronze on Midnight to frame the grand staircase, the choice was made to pair it with a leopard print carpet. “Nothing too over the top, but you do see it,” says Fox. “I even managed to sneak a little bit of leopard print into the bolster cushions in the men’s drawing room, so I was pleased.”

Look closely, and you’ll spy other examples of the home’s running animal motif, a metaphor for primal impulses. A black panther was purchased through the company London Taxidermy. “Again, we went back and forth: Can we afford it? Is it a vital object?” admits Fox. “The kind of wildness and dream-like quality of this film allowed us to think, ‘yeah, we’re gonna put a black panther in the hallway on the top of the stairs, why not?’ The humor in the film allows you to be quite playful with some of the dressing.”

More serious business was the home’s lighting. While vintage market finds were secured for Hedda’s bedroom, and traditional fixtures rented for George’s study, reproductions were purchased for the iconic starburst pendant and impressive shell chandeliers—one of which was scripted to come crashing down. Fox designed the doomed chandelier to be made out of a sugar glass resin. The buyer in charge of scheduling its delivery and installation had “the eternal nightmare” of regulating both how long it could hang for filming and the temperature needed to keep both it and the tropical plants in the conservatory happy. “We had a percentage of extra chandelier shards to hang if they broke, but everyone knew it was one take. So we were really quite relieved when the chandelier smashed to the floor and we could just be done with it,” says Fox.

A parting gift…

Flintham Hall was returned to its more traditional glory when filming wrapped. But at least one remnant remains. The owners took a shine to the new Christian Fischbacher silk drapes in Georgia’s study. “They were made to fit the space, and they were absolutely exquisite fabric,” Fox says. “Those were kept.”