Veteran Production Designer Eve Stewart On The Danish Girl & Women in Film: An Interview
Entertainment
As public focus on diversity in the film industry intensifies, it’s more important than ever to highlight the work of the amazing and talented women who have devoted their careers to film production. This is why I jumped at the chance to interview Eve Stewart, an Oscar-nominated production designer who has been working in film, television, and theater for 20+ years. Her latest project, The Danish Girl, is—visually speaking—a masterpiece. And that’s hugely thanks to her.
A production designer’s job is to oversee all visual elements of a film and help shape its visual theme. While the screenwriters and actors tell a story on camera, so must the production designer. The Danish Girl, for example, tells the story of Lili Elbe, the first trans woman to ever undergo gender confirmation surgery. As the plot progresses and evolves, so do the visual elements of the film (something Stewart took great care to ensure).
Before talking to Stewart, I didn’t fully understand what a production designer does. After talking to her, I think it’s one of the most exciting jobs in the world. Stewart is part historian, part designer, part treasure hunter, and part cajoler. No day is the same and with every film comes more unique challenges.
Below you’ll find our conversation (lightly edited for clarity).
Jezebel: Jumping right in, I thought The Danish Girl was so visually stunning and I was really taken by the color choices—all those royal blues and saffron yellows. I was wondering if you could talk me through your process—what goes through your head while reading a script, what stands out to you, and how you come to those visual decisions?
Eve Stewart: My first point is to always talk to the director—Tom Hooper—and then I start doing an awful lot of research. I dug into archives and photographs of Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener. I even went to the hospital in Dresden where Lili was treated, so I did lots and lots of things like that, but what mostly appealed to me was their art. I found that that was the key into the whole project and that’s how I formed my palette.
At the beginning, you’re right—there are lots of blues and greys. We looked to contemporary artists of the time who were working in Scandinavia—in Copenhagen. There was one particular one called Hammershøi and he painted a lot of architecture. That’s really where Lili and Gerda’s apartment came from because I felt it expressed where they were at that time. And later, when Lili starts blossoming, that’s when we looked to Gerda’s paintings because they’re so interested in Lili and so fascinated with her. And also they represent a real color shift in their lives and that’s what we tried to do—reflect that.
In the press notes, you mention how the art nouveau styles in Paris—where Lili and Gerda move after Lili starts living more openly as a woman—were much more feminine. Hearing it put that way—it was something that I emotionally registered, but didn’t register logically, which is very cool.
Oh, great! Because ostensibly, you’ve got to hang back. You know, I’m not a big egotistical designer. I tried to support the characters and the story wherever I could. They did come from a rather buttoned up society in Copenhagen and when they get to Paris—it was at the height of art nouveau, which expressed the higher echelons of the artist society in which they began living. It just hit so many buttons. The curvaciousness, the—as you say—femininity, the warm soft colors—golds and pinks. It just summed up a time that I haven’t seen that much on screen. I’m so excited to show that slice of European history.
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