Tamara Deverell: Building Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein – Ship, Tower, and Monster Lab

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Award winning Production Designer Tamara Deverell joins me to unpack the production design of Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein with Oscar Isaac as Frankenstein and Jacob Elordi as the creature for Netflix—from an Arctic ship frozen in ice to a vaulted tiled crypt and a towering Medusa-watched lab.

Tamara has been collaborating with Guillermo for more than two decades, starting with Mimic and continuing through The Strain, Star Trek: Discovery, Nightmare Alley, Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, and Priscilla. In 2023 she won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Production Design for Cabinet of Curiosities, and her latest work on Frankenstein pushes that world-building even further. (tamaradeverell.com)

In this episode we talk about:

• Designing 119 sets across Canada and the UK

• Building a 135-foot ship on a gimbal and surrounding it with a hand-sculpted ice field

• Creating the tower lab with its Medusa wall, circular window, and massive battery columns

• Victor’s crooked Edinburgh apartment and the influence of Bernie Wrightson’s Frankenstein art

• The white, vaulted, moss-covered crypt where the creature is held

• Scouting Scotland, turning Lake Nipissing into the Arctic, and balancing practical builds with VFX

If you love production design, set decoration, and deep dives into how films are built from the ground up, this episode is for you.

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Hosted by Emmy-winning Set Decorator Kim Wannop, this podcast takes you behind the scenes of your favorite shows and movies. Each episode features in-depth conversations with the industry’s top production designers, set decorators, prop masters, and art department professionals, offering rare insight into the creative process of visual storytelling.

Whether you’re a film and TV fan, aspiring designer, or entertainment industry pro, Decorating Pages Podcast is your backstage pass to the world of production design. Learn how sets are built, stories are shaped visually, and characters come to life—one episode at a time.

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