Production Designer Jade Healy Discusses the Visuals of 'The Green Knight' and Collaborating with David Lowery
In the medieval epic, ‘The Green Knight’, there is no mistaking the amount of detailed craft on the display from Healy, Lowery, and the filmmaking team.
Part of Director David Lowery’s great success falls on the shoulders of Jade Healy; production designer for all of Lowery’s films, save one. Healy has created cinematic worlds for some of the best directors working today like Yorgos Lanthimos, Noah Baumbach, and Marielle Heller, and is considered by many to be one of the best production designers in the industry today.
With ‘The Green Knight’, she was given the monumental task of creating an Arthurian world we’ve never seen before on a lower budget than most films like this have been made on. Yet, using her past experience with Lowery and others has allowed her to roll with the punches, be extremely flexible, and deliver some of the best work of her career. FilmSpeak’s Ryan McQuade had the privilege of chatting with her about The Green Knight, we collaborating efforts with Lowery, why she works so well with the director, and even got to talk a little bit about what her and Lowery’s next film, ‘Peter Pan and Wendy’, is going to be like. It was a fascinating conversation and will make fans of The Green Knight want to see the film again.
Ryan McQuade: First off, I have to say, I love this film. I've seen it. It's fantastic. I think it's sort of the culmination of all of David's work to make this epic masterpiece for everyone and truly my favorite film of the year so far. And I think what’s such a big part of my admiration is a lot of your work with him in this film. So I got to ask you, you worked with David before on a couple of his projects in Pete’s Dragon and A Ghost Story. Can you talk a little bit about how you guys met and what you love about working with David as opposed to other collaborators that keeps you coming back?
Jade Healy: Well, it goes further than that. We did Ain’t Them Body Saints together, too. That was our first one for collaboration. In fact, we did a small movie that David was doing sound on and editing, and we're all writing on it. We were with four people. I was acting it. We were all co-writers, and we shot in Costa Rica with Chris Ray. And that's how we met. We met at a fourth of July party, and it was sort of like, “this is David.” And then the next time we met was in Costa Rica, and we just really got along really well.
David can be a little shy at first when we get to know him, but not at all afterward. And we just got along really well. And when he wrote Ain’t Them Body Saints, he sent me the script and asked me if I wanted to design it. He was a fan of House of the Devil, and he was friends with Ty West. So he had asked me if I wanted to work on it? Of course, I said yes. The script is amazing. And that was the beginning of our collaboration, and we've really been working together ever since. The only reason I couldn't do The Old Men and The Gun is because I was on I, Tonya. Otherwise, I would have done it. And we sort of said that we would try not to ever miss another one. So I love working with David. I mean, I talked about this all the time but it’s very easy for me to wax poetic on my collaborations with David. He's a creative collaborator. He lets you into his creative process in a way that not every director does.
Every director has their own process of how they like to work. And I'm here to adapt to a director's way of working. But with David, he's so giving and he's so humble and he wants to hear what you have to say and you feel very welcome. And we've been working together now for almost 10 years, so we're pretty connected. And I don't have to worry about saying what I think about something. Of course, I still spend a lot of time writing an email when I'm sort of bringing up a note that might be a little difficult.
So I'm still delicate with when I approach David. But I do feel that I can. And that's what's really special, that I can go beyond the role of just designer. And I think in my role with David is I can be a soundboard. And that's what I like to be there for him and always. So I'm there from the beginning, with the first draft. Actually, I just found an email the other day where he sent me the first draft of The Green Knight and he said, “I'm just working on this thing.I have no idea if anyone will give us money to make this movie. Who knows?” And then you wrote just “maybe, just maybe.” And that's all the way to the end. In the edit, I watched every edit. That's just what I love. He's still family. He's a friend, and it's special. And we know that we'll be working together for forever.
RM: Absolutely. It's a great collaboration. Did you have any connection to the original source material? Obviously, everyone mostly knows the story. And it seems like David had a kinship or real wanting to make, this feels like a real passion project of his. And so I would just wonder if you did too and if that shapes your take on the world?
I guess I didn't have any real particular relationship with The Green Knight. But, of course, as a designer, when your favorite collaborator presents with a medieval movie, you're like, you sound a little bit like what, of course, yeah that’s amazing. But I have a kinship with nature. So for me, that nature is really important to me. It’s sort of my place of meditation and where I go. So just for the different themes that play The Green Night definitely spoke to me. And I was really excited to explore those themes. So that was a connection for me, for sure.
RM: So you speak about nature there. But was there any sort of jumping-off point in terms of maybe other literature or films or things that inspired you to sort of come up with initial designs? Was it just what you thought of what be cool to see in an Arthurian story nowadays?
JH: No. I think we wanted to kind of erase from our minds in some ways, everything you think of with medieval films. I think all the creative team, Malgosia (Turzanska, costumer designer), David and Andrew Palermo (cinematographer), we were like, “Okay, there's the medieval movie. What are we making?” And we knew we wanted to make something that I don't want to say stood alone. But we weren't trying to be historically accurate in some way. We were thinking of something more tonal. We weren't trying to be like “it's the 14th century, and everything has to be exact.”
We wanted to be able to sort of open it up to creative interpretations of what that felt like in this world. And we were thinking a lot of tone and color and mood, and we didn't speak a lot, honestly. It wasn't historical. Those weren't the big things for us, like history, history, history. It was more about the feeling of this time. You think medieval and 14th century and your brain sort of kind of goes somewhere. And I looked at a lot of paintings, art from that time period that was more inspirational for me. Of course, I looked at a lot of movies, but often I looked at medieval movies to see what I hated. What is it that I don't like about how this movie looks? And there were some clear things that sort of jumped out to me that I knew I really didn't want to go down those sort of tropes and creating that kind of medieval world. So, for me, the color, tone, and texture, I was really lifting from art, from medieval art, and looking at a lot of religious iconographies.
And then, of course, looking at the architecture of the time, especially for the Great Hall, because we built quite a few sets. But The Great Hall was a big set that we built. And I was really trying to figure out which architecture really spoke to me. And I think, as a designer, there's often what we call it AHA moment. Where the eureka a, where you sort of you're looking, you're searching, your researching, and then you see some tiny image in a book. You enlarge it, and you're like, “Whoa, what is this?” And then you dig down and you go down that rabbit hole. And that's kind of what happened for me on The Green Knight with Great Hall. And I found some of that spoke to me and made sense for the film and the story and the characters.
RM: Yeah, the whole look of Camelot is unlike, I think, anything we've ever seen before. I mean, even the roundtable itself looks so different. Like you think of it as a little round table that's, like your dining room table, is what we all have in our minds. And now it's sort of, like a horseshoe element that you guys created there. And it's very dark and almost modern in a sense. So I guess, talk a little bit about the approach of making something stand out. It's so modern, yet it does feel very much of the time. And each set looks very different in specific. So can you speak to the designs of Camelot itself and what you and David wanted to do with this iconic location in the lore?
JH: When I was trying to figure out what Camelot would look like, of course, anchoring it around the Great Hall and the tower, that's when I had the AHA moment while researching, and I came across this Cathedral called the Abbey of Thoronet, which is in France. And it's very Romanesque. And that's when I had sort of already started to go down the direction I was like, Romanesque is what I want. Very clean, simple, striking architecture, where sometimes in the medieval goth, it gets to be, like, lots of stuff happening. And there's something about the romance architecture that was so telling. And it made me think of The Green Knight has these amazing carvings on the door, very steep and sort of myth and just mystery in some way. Something about it with very simple, clean brick layouts. And Thoronet Abbey has this sort of pinkish sand color brickwork. I mean, if you look at reference images, you can see where I got the inspiration for the Great Hall, and it's just so clean.
And I was looking for shapes. I want something clean, angular, but that spoke to sort of the right time period and the architecture. So I started with that. And, of course, you have to remember, we're on a budget. Right. But it's impossible not to talk about the design process without talking about that because we hit the ground running. We had two months to prep, and we were building and we were limited to what the space we had. We had one stage where we had to build. And then we had to figure out how we could work in finding a barn and how we could use parts of that and build something else in there.
So it's a lot of finding. You always start with what you want it to look like in your drawings and your concept art and then you adapt and you find a place where it's never compromised, but you're actually buying something growing better from the idea of compromise. So with Camelot, it was really just about what is the scene in the Great Hall the first time we seemed to see the Green Knight, and that's how we came up with the shape of the round table.
We knew that the Green Knight I was going to come into the center, and we knew we wanted the round table to be wrapped around it. And I looked at a lot of references of Camelot and the round table and looking for something specific. I really wanted to be made of stone. I wanted to be something that was carved from stone, where you could have these sort of different carvings on it. So everything wanted to feel really earthy. I didn't want to have a lot of decors, and I didn't want it to be buffy.
I wanted to down to basics, really down for basics, which is sort of in the story of the core that down to dust to Earth to death and life. And I wanted the design to reflect that where I really didn't want flags and a bunch of these draped flags and the carpet that comes out that you walk in. I had zero interest. And that was the thing, “I was like, No, I wanted minimal. What did you have back then? What do you need it? You weren't like, “Let's decorate.” I was really just trying to find the bare bones of what this space was. And that's kind of how we approach sort of the design is creating this sort of stark and dramatic tonal world.
RM: I think that also blends into a different contrast when you're talking about the other Castle later the film, which is very fantastical and almost feels like a puzzle box. When I was watching, I was just like, what door is going to open to where? And there's this shot when the camera is going down on Dev as he's laying on the bed, and it looks like blue velvet curtains around him, and it just looks so lavish and different than anything he's ever experienced. So can you talk a little bit about that design in contrast to Camelot? A different experience for the character, obviously, and working with David, because within the confines of the film, it does feel like an entirely different location, obviously. But it feels different in terms of tone and everything that's inside that place as well.
JH: It's different in terms of time and period. Honestly, you're stepping into a new world, and we really wanted to play on that. And as he leaves, the safety of Camelot and goes on this sort of hero’s journey, adding the sort of fantasy quality of what he's actually experiencing. Is it real or an illusion? Was this Castle ever really there? Finding the sort of space to play with what this castle could be and really wanting it to feel like something he has never seen before. And especially even with the color at that point shift to sort of more Blues as we get there and creating something that felt that he would feel a little bit like a fish out of water in the space, in the presence of the Lady, in the presence of such a lavishness, seeing all these books and the grandeur of this location. So that's kind of where we're going with and we found this location and it had some amazing sort of ceilings and architecture. And we knew that it wasn't fourteenth century you're looking at.
But to us, we said, you know what, this is great because originally that wasn't where we were really going. That's sort of the beauty of when you are working on a film where you have to scout for locations because you can't build everything, sometimes something comes from that. And then you're like, what if and actually this works. This really works for us to create this sort of dreamy Castle that just sort of appears out of nowhere. And then was it really ever there? Was it just all in his head? So that's kind of where we are taking off point for the Lord and ladies location.
RM: Can you maybe speak a little bit about the collaboration once you guys are going to find things on location? You obviously are with David. You guys probably have the script or some version of that with you in your mind as you're sort of going from place to place. How long it took you to find all these different places something like the cottage or the woods?
JH: Yeah. For example, the only location we really interior that we found was Lord and Ladies, and we did the brothel interiors as well, part of that we built, but the rest of them were built. The cottage was a build, and the crypt tower was a build, and the Hall was a build. So I knew in my mind as I set out, my process is like, what needs to be built in order for us to get what we need? And these are the locations like we have to build these. We won't find these, it's just impossible. So we knew we were going to build those. And then as we were searching for all of our exteriors, really looking for the dramatic landscape that would lend itself sort of to the world, the dark world of this journey that he's on. They (the production team) scouted without me once because I was on another movie. And then we went in November a few months before, and then we set out in January, and we sort of had our locations.
And then we went back again to do some reshoots in some locations. We ended up replacing the exterior of Lord and Lady’s Castle because we didn't like it, and it just wasn't working because it was so sunny. You scale something in the winter and you're like it's great. And then by the time you shoot it, because of the actor’s availability, it's green and sunny and nothing looks like the way it did. And I just didn't have the same feeling anymore. So then luckily with David, we always know we carve out time to go back, and we figured it out, getting what we needed for being creative with how we would cheat locations to get that.
So it's a lot of looking around then with David and Andrew when we get somewhere, we just know you're seeing something. We spent a lot of time talking about it for me. For the Crooked Tower, we looked at a lot of castles, and that was something where I kind of step in. We found a barn, and I had to be creative with how we could make it work. And that's just [conceptualizing] and drawing and presenting it to David and always consider the light as it’s always a big consideration of where I can get light in for Andrew, for the DP.
But I think we ended up actually with a great set of figuring out how to make that work. And then we flipped that and built the corridor and the brothel later on. So David will sort of just send me a text sometimes, like, “I'm thinking of adding a scene. I need something like where he's going through some corridors.” And I'm like, “okay, okay.” And then I just kind of go, “okay, like this?” And I'll send him a picture. He's like, “Yeah, yeah, like that.” And then I'm like, well, where do we do this? How do I build this? And it's just a creative process of figuring out how to get what he needs. And I know his language enough.
RM: Yeah. It's almost like in sports when a team is played with each other for so long, they just know all the tendencies. And that's why that experience really shines through in the film. It would be hard not to speak about The Green Knight himself and speak about the design of that character, but also within the ending of this film, in which he becomes a giant centrepiece by the end of it. You're working with your design team and with the makeup team to figure out what this creature looks like and how do you work all together to make sure that all those boxes are checked off for everyone involved in terms of getting what everybody wants in that moment for that specific scene?
JH: You know, it's a work in progress, honestly. And getting the Green Knight right was something that we had our amazing costume Center working on. But we also had a concept artist that we brought in that did some amazing work as we were trying to really figure out what he would look like. And then, from there, we were able to start figuring out what the vines and the green would be. The Chapel actually was something we found, which is funny, because I forgot about, it's been two years now since I made this movie, but we were scouting another location, and our great AD Dutch, we worked with a ton, went for a bathroom break in the woods. And then he said, “Guys, there's an abandoned church over here, just covered in greens. You couldn't see it.” And we said “what?” Then we all kind of scurried over and we're like, sure enough, there the Chapel was. And we stood in it for a while. And the question was, is it too small? Is it big enough? We just fell in love with it, with the sort of the realness of this Chapel, almost a serendipity element of coming upon. It just felt so right. And we had these other options we were looking at, but nothing felt as right as that. And we built the river and the steps. And once we had that location, we could start to figure out how the Green Knight will stand there. Obviously, the actor, it's quite a long shot because of the time is passing and working with makeup, but also with WETA digital who I've worked with before and had a relationship with. And we knew they would move the vines. So it's just crossing your T’s and dotting your I’s and working it out really.
RM: My last question is that I know your next project is working with David again on his version of Peter Pan for Peter Pan and Wendy. I know you can't give too much away right now. Obviously, everything's under wraps, and wouldn’t want to get you in trouble with anyone, but I think that it's interesting that David's going from this to Peter Pan and you working alongside him. Are there sort of similar goals and tactics for that project that you can take over in terms of that lore and trying not to repeat because there have been so many versions of Peter Pan? How do you do that?
JH: Honestly, we always just try to erase. The process of how we work together is ingrained, but I try to erase anything that we did before and how we did it. And really just every new project is fresh and different. I think that's what makes it exciting. And David is really a director who's always challenging himself, so he doesn't want to do it the same way. And the more he grows as a filmmaker and the more the budgets grow, the more he's pushing and pushing to sort of go further and to try things.
And it's amazing for this one. It's like with Pete Dragon, I wasn't like, “let’s revisit all Pete Dragon.” I kind of separate myself from what that was. And it's always reading David's script and figuring out what are the themes. And then. to me, it's more going back to the source material, J.M Berry’s book and play and looking at the themes there as well, and what is the story we want to tell and how I was a sort of room with that and just really looking at it that way.
And it's always a story. And David gives so much in his scripts that there's always so much to work from. And I love working that way and really digging my heels and thinking about the character, so that's the same. That process is the same as just like, what's the story we're trying to tell, but trying not to spend too much time thinking about it again. I watched the Peter Pan movies just to look at what I hate (laughs).
RM: That's a lot of movies.
JH: Yeah, I looked skim through, and I was like, “Oh, no, no, no.” So a lot of them are already in my head, but I revisit them really just for that, just to see. But just erasing from my head kind of anything like that. I'm just trying to start from scratch.
RM: So awesome. Well, thank you so much for your time. And you guys knocked this out of the park.
JH: Oh, thank you so much. Glad you like it.