Suzie Davies is on a high. Fresh from the Oscars ceremony, where she was nominated for Best Production Design on Edward Berger's papal thriller Conclave, she's just wrapped on Emerald Fennell's eagerly-awaited imagining of Wuthering Heights, starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.
“Lucky me,” she says, describing the film as her dream project, before bounding off to her next assignment that involves four weeks of back-to-back work.
It's a busy pace but not one that alarms Davies, who started in the industry in the 1990s and says the work suits her rhythm – a few months prepping followed by an “intense” few months filming. “My enthusiasm and energy for projects fits well into this timeframe,” she says. “Because each project is so different, my drive feels pretty strong.”
It's all a long way from Davies's upbringing. She describes her background as “relatively conservative”, with an engineer father and a music teacher mother, and says no one could have predicted she'd have a life in film.
But it's testimony to her creative genius that some of the world's most esteemed and award-winning film directors, from Fennell and Berger to Mike Leigh, seek her out. A consummate collaborator, she pays close attention to a director's vision in order to create her own. Time and again, she has pushed the limits of what is possible.
Thinking big
Unable to enter the off-limit spaces of the Vatican for Conclave, she built her own version of the Sistine Chapel in the largest film studio in Europe, Rome's Cineccità, frequently used by the great filmmaker Federico Fellini in the past. “We had one of the biggest stages,” Davies recently told the film, art and culture platform A Rabbit's Foot, “but as every designer knows, you always want bigger. We filled every square inch of it with the build.”
She had a real setting for Saltburn, Fennell's 2023 dark, class satire about a social-climbing Oxford student who stumbles into an upper-class English household – and unleashes hell.
The story unfolds in a titular English country house loaned to Oscar-winning Fennell and Davies for the shoot by its current occupants. Davies, wanting to signpost the sinister powers at play in this ancestral home, commissioned a purpose-built hedge maze and a menacing sculpture of a minotaur. For the latter, she managed to find an artist who just so happened to be obsessed by minotaurs herself – only Davies could pull that out of the bag.
She's the first to describe herself as naturally curious, which plays a large part in the breadth and range of her worldbuilding. For the great extemporiser Mike Leigh, she has created settings of striking verisimilitude, both contemporary and historic, including the 19th-century costume drama Mr. Turner (2014), which won her another Oscar nomination, and Peterloo (2018), the British director's biggest budget production.
Attention to detail
Unable to find the right setting in contemporary Manchester, site of the 1819 massacre, Davies recalls how the director sent her hunting for period-perfect locations. “We trawled all around the country as Mike evolved his story,” she told The Times. “We looked at country houses, National Trust properties – anything that had red-brick, Georgian façades.” Unphased, the end result was a seamless setting – made from a patchwork of locations from the north to the south of England.
Leigh threw her a different challenge with the setting for Hard Truths (2024), his exquisite comedy-drama about two sisters dealing with depression and anger in their north-west London suburban homes. Once again, Davies went the extra mile to make the homes feel real, quizzing actors Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Michele Austin about their imaginary characters' tastes. Only then did she feel able to choose the props and clothes, the paint colours and furniture that the sisters would have lived with.
This off-the-scale attention to detail is Davies's secret weapon. It's surprising to discover that she was “unfocused” and “a mischief-maker” as a child. But then, surprising us is one of the things Davies does best.
First, congratulations on your recent Oscar nomination for Conclave. How did it feel?
It was amazing, exciting and a little shocking. The ceremony was fabulous – especially as so many other departments from the Conclave production team got acknowledged. A great feeling of camaraderie among Team Conclave!
Now, let's start with the basics: how would you describe what being a production designer involves?
I bring the world of the script to life. From choosing locations or designing studio builds to the detailed action props or cars the character drives, the dogs they have, the food they eat, the kitchen table they sit at and the bedlinen they sleep in… a whole reality. Or the spaceship they fly in, or planet they live on… a whole fantasy!
I have a set decorator team that oversees the furniture and fabrics and dresses the sets, a team of art directors and draughtswomen and men who draw up my scribble and work closely with our construction teams to build the sets.
Was this always the plan – did you always want to work in film?
Not really. I was a little ‘unfocused' as a kid – a mischief-maker and a bit naughty is probably a good description of me. I really had no idea about this industry at all. I actually graduated in agriculture, but in my first summer in ‘the real world' I worked for a modelmaker and a sculptor just to earn some cash, sweeping floors and making cups of tea while I went for ‘grown-up' job interviews. This first look at the industry lit a little fire and it just felt right.
How did you move on from that lightning moment?
I had two pivotal jobs, which both involved people taking a risk on me. First, I managed to get an interview, and subsequently the gig, on a TV series called Kingdom that featured [actor] Stephen Fry playing a solicitor in rural Norfolk. That first mainstream series just felt so right. I knew I was supposed to be there and I can remember almost growing into the role – finding ‘my way' of doing things and having a team that supported and enabled me to do that.
My second pivotal role was when Mike Leigh offered me Mr. Turner – I was a relatively new film designer in 2013, so I still can't believe he took me on. My collaboration with Mike has absolutely changed the way I design and make movies; he is the consummate storyteller and filmmaker.
You bring other people's visions to life. What comes first?
The director is my main point of focus. It's important that I fit with their vision and desires for the film. I try to get into a groove with them so my decisions are infused with their storytelling process at all times. Films can often get too diluted if too many people have an input.
Cinematographers are key and can make or break a designer (which works the other way too!), so I try to keep communication very open and clear. I'm mindful of making the sets and spaces ‘shootable' and ‘lightable'. Costume and make-up are all part of the collaboration. That's the satisfying element of filmmaking – the creative collaborations you get to have on every project; they all have a different dynamic.
You've recreated the Sistine Chapel for Conclave, built a zoo in the middle of Prague for The Zookeeper's Wife, portrayed 19th-century London for Mr. Turner. Where do you start in delivering on these ideas?
Artists, photographers, installations, galleries. I'm a magpie and am constantly taking photos of ‘things' or ideas I like. Discussions and research with professionals in whatever field I'm portraying are always useful – and an ‘essence' soon starts to form. I put images together on a photo stream and the director and I will constantly share ideas and thoughts. In the early stages of prep, it's just talk, talk, talk with the director and/or writer.
Saltburn was visually stunning and the country house it was set in felt like a character in its own right. Did you find working with a real house lived in by a family constricting – or liberating?
Saltburn was wonderful because the family really embraced our ideas and let me change and adapt some rooms (albeit temporarily) to bring more of our characters' lives into their property. That and the fact that it had never been filmed in before was so exciting. Properties like this one bring idiosyncrasies to the project that we were able to highlight – the square pond, the spiral staircase and so on.
When you get a brief involving a far-flung location or a fantasy or fictional location, does your heart sink – or soar?
Ha! It soars every time! I LOVE reading a script for the first time. I have learnt over the years to let my instinct drive me, so I jot down my immediate thoughts or anything that stands out on that first read. That then becomes the basis for my investigation, research and building of a visual treatment for a film.
Can you tell us about any props or settings that have been a particular pleasure – or an absolute pain – to create?
So many! Ten acres of grass in three months. A set that can flood. A house that can explode. An iced-over pond to skate on in the middle of summer.
What's the strangest brief you've ever been given?
Likely a few things that Emerald Fennell has asked me for – such as glass eyes and eyelashes for the suckling pig in Saltburn!
What do you think takes production design to the next level?
There is no perfect formula. A smaller-budget film forces the design in a certain way that can make you find solutions you wouldn't have discovered if you had a bigger budget. The script is the centre of everything though. It is the starting point. If that's not working, the design won't either.
We, the audience, lose ourselves in the incredible settings you create. How important is it that your actors do the same?
Ever since I worked with Mike Leigh this has become a very important element for me. I love it when the actor feels comfortable (or uncomfortable, depending on the story beat) to be able to perform in the environments we create without feeling restricted or disappointed.
What is the role of AI in filmmaking?
I think much of what we already do uses forms of AI and I'm fascinated by what more it can do – it could be another useful tool for humans. It's the next level of understanding that slightly freaks me out; AI being used by AI. When or where does it stop? But I also have faith that HI, Human Intelligence, will work it out.
As a woman in film, do you feel like a trailblazer?
I have seen so many strong, powerful women making movies, in all departments, so I'd like to think I'm part of that bigger picture. To get to a point where it's no longer about gender, just about telling good stories, might be years away – but we are on the right track.
You seem to push yourself to ever-greater creative heights. What's your secret?
Persistence, persistence, persistence, and saying “yes” to every opportunity – it has a knock-on effect. And in every project, you collaborate with different people and create different things, so you are constantly learning on the job.
