Apple TV’s Palm Royale may have am embarrassment of riches among its cast, but its the comedy’s impeccable craftmanship that provides a truly immersive viewing experience. Set in Palm Beach, Florida during the late-60s, production designer Jon Carlos and his fellow artisans were tasked with finding the balance between whimsy and historical realism, creating a memorable look for the show that added to an often times over-the-top comedic experience. Carlos was recently Emmy-nominated for the show’s season two production design, and he kindly sat down with Screen Speck to discuss everything from Slim Aaron photographs as a touchstone for the Palm Royale look, constructing sets for musical numbers, and why he is most proud of the Dellacourte’s trophy room.
Screen Speck: The show has obviously has a distinctive look, and season one spends time establishing it. How do your conversations evolve into season two to either up the ante or keep it challenging for you all?
Jon Carlos: It’s a great question. I think season one, there were a lot of fundamental design philosophies that we instituted between Ellen Reede, the set decorator, and Alix Friedberg, the costume designer. So we set up these architectural rules, color palette rules, compositional and shape rules for each of the characters. We really, I think, felt our rhythm in season one. We were finding our voice, and I think about halfway through the season, we realized how loud we were. I think we all joked by episode eight of season one, when there was a beached whale, that we just knew that the eccentricities of the show were just gonna be evident. So we made a pledge coming back to season two that we would run with that. I think for us, it was always really important to find a sense of grounding, so that we didn’t become fantasy. There really is an eccentricity — it’s just a word I will keep on using, because it’s really what describes Palm Beach of 1970. It was evident there. And so we continued to dive into a lot more research that we didn’t really touch on from season one. There were these select piles that we had, in our archives that we just never got a chance to explore. We had this catalog that was historical gatherings, but then also just an innate understanding of the property itself at this point.
And I think one of the challenges that we really faced during season two that we didn’t really have season one was Abe [Sylvia] started to fall in love with the idea of musicals. We ended the season [one] with the big Beach Ball. We sort of spoiled production, because that was a script that we got a little bit toward the end of the season, and with only six weeks to develop the set for. From initial napkin sketch to actual first day of shooting on episode ten. So, they saw what we could pull off very quickly in terms of scale and musical number, in terms of our collaboration with Brooke Lipton, the choreographer, and costumes, and so Abe just started peppering in musical numbers left and right, like it was just no sweat, starting with what we call the drug dream, the big Ricky Martin number.
So, this season, I think one of the challenges was starting to design for musical choreography. Abe is a choreographer, his background is dance and musical theater, and so even the way he shoots or he moves through spaces is like a dancer, and so the sets started to be designed with the idea of reveals, and theatrics, and revelations, and fluidity. I think just understanding our core group and the family that is Palm Royale, and how we could all just push each other into a sense of maximalism.
Screen Speck: You touched on this, but I want to ask more specifically about that craftsmanship between you and the other departments, how you make the look feel so unified. Could you talk a little bit about how you work with the DPs and Alix Friedberg in costume design to achieve that?
Carlos: I think Alix, Ellen, and I realized we were each other’s people when within, like, two weeks of being on season one, we were talking about the width of the stripes on the chaise lounge chairs at the pool to make sure that they didn’t conflict with the scale of pattern on the women’s bathing suits. So, everything was analyzed in terms of color palette to make sure that everything would correspond with each other, scale of pattern, type of pattern, and that’s in terms of relationship with costume, but as well as with Zack [Galler], because we always want to make sure that patterns weren’t moiréing, and getting the weird, static crossover effect on screen. And he was developing certain LUT packages, filters that we were seeing live on his monitor, that would crunch colors and contrast in a certain way to get a bit more of a retro feel. So we were doing a lot of color tests early on as well to make sure that those colors, like greens were shifting, blues were shifting, there was sort of this chromatic nature that was coming out of them that we wanted to make sure was staying in tune with the show, and that our colors weren’t shifting too much with each other. Also, in terms of the choreography, everything from [whether or not] surfaces [were] slick enough for costumes to slide across, [if] the door openings [were] wide enough for dolly cranes and techno cranes to move through, or, [which] walls are moving out of the way as a camera passes through it to be able to get the rest of the base past it. So, there was a lot of very specific conversations about that relationship between all of us.
Screen Speck: You keep returning to these musical numbers and the challenges of filming them. Could you talk a little bit about what goes into making those sets functional for the performers, especially if you have pieces of furniture that are having to be moved, or danced on, in some cases.
Carlos: Yeah, so for example, in the drug dream, all of those tables had to be built at certain heights to make sure that they were ergonomic for the dancers, and we were doing multiple tests on just the surfaces of, like, Maxine’s table that Kristen Wiig was on, because she had to be on it, and it had to be spinning. So we had to figure out the perfect way to keep the shine, but make sure she [doesn’t] slip off. The fringe around the outside was actually added as a safety layer so that she could hold on and it would be a little bit of a grip for her hands or her legs, but it wouldn’t actually scuff her, because she was bare skin. And then the control of that table, because it had to move forward and backward and spin, so all of that was highly tested, and then we had to build proxy pieces that were given to all the dancers to rehearse with. We had talked about how do we transition from there into the sanitarium? And so we talked about the transition being, as she’s spinning, she’s lifted up, and she’s hoisted, and she’s lifted down onto a gurney, and it travels through the room, and the curtains part, and there’s the elevator that opens up, and the elevator shuts. So we were actually combining multiple sets and multiple locations for that shot, to make it feel like one continuous move. But the elevator was built on stage, and then traveled to a location that opened up onto the lobby, so we were having to figure out what fits on stage, what fits in location, what’s wide enough for a gurney, is the track able to still go into it, because the table has to recede past it. So there’s a lot of moving parts, pun intended, for a dance number, but there was a lot of conversation about safety and balance, and making everything look effortless. So that was really important as well.
Screen Speck: When you were doing your initial research for Palm Beach, I’m curious if there was a piece of surprising history or Palm Beach gossip that you simply had to add into the production design in some way.
Carlos: There was a lot in season one. I think the very first anthologies that I went straight towards was the Slim Aarons photograph books, because that was something that was discussed with Alix and I early on in the design process about [how] this is the inspiration for this series. Every shot wants to be a Slim Aarons. And so, doing that in terms of style, fashion of the environments, that gave me the vibe. But in terms of the architectural grounding, I went straight back to the early architects of Palm Beach, you know, Addison Mizner of the 1920s, [John L.] Volk, there was quite a few that [were] grounding. Their styles would change from the 20s and 30s, when you see Moroccan influences, Spanish influences, Spanish colonial influences, and then you start to see, as they moved a little bit more progressive into the 50s and 60s, you see a bit more of the mid-century influence. And so that was something that we started to hit on. You can see with, like, Dinah Donahue’s (Leslie Bibb) house, in season two.
But in terms of getting gossip and lore, early on in season one, Tate Taylor and I traveled to Palm Beach, and we actually met with the Palm Beach Historical Preservation Society. For me, I was going straight in for architectural history, that’s my go-to. Tate wanted the gossip. He’s like, spill the tea. And so they started talking about how, in the mid-century era, like 50s, 60s, when a lot of the beachfront properties were being demolished to raise the mid-century condominiums towers, a lot of these estates would have these fire sales, before they got knocked down. So, you would have people running into the estates and grabbing sconces off the walls and candelabras and silverware. So, we kind of joked that of all the characters in our Palm Beach world, that the Kimberly-Marcos would be the ones who would do that. So we always joked that if we ever developed their spaces, you would definitely feel like it was the pillaging of other Palm Beach spaces. And we got to do that in season two. We went and visited their house, and we put in a lot of antiquities that were mix-matched and felt like they were from other people’s lives, but then, like, Raquel (Claudia Ferri) put her stink on it. Like, there was this Greco-Roman statue, and there’s spider plants pouring out of her hair. There was a tiger skin rug that was on a floor, but we actually put it on the couch, so it was sitting next to Dinah Donahue, as if she’s the prey inside the living room, and you see this, like, tiger head right next to her where her purse is.
Screen Speck: In season two, the comedy does feel a lot more over-the-top and even more audacious than season one. However, you mentioned not wanting it to go too much into the realm of fantasy. When you’re designing and dressing these sets, how are you balancing a sense of historical realism while also considering how the sets can add to that heightened sense of comedy?
Carlos: I think I’m very blessed with an incredible team, and specifically my partner, Ellen Reede, the set decorator. She has impeccable taste, and her team of buyers has impeccable taste, too. They were able to shop incredible furniture pieces, trinkets, and we would create stories. I remember when we were doing the tunnels, which is so ridiculous, but, like, bootlegger tunnels, it kind of makes sense, right? But we sat down, and we’re like, how are we gonna do this, and how are we gonna make it Palm Royale? And so we started just coming up with ideas of what would be these little vignettes in the tunnels that make it not just dusty tunnels that you’ve seen before, like, what makes it our show? We’re talking about, well, when there’s a chandelier that someone in their house doesn’t like, they just, like, throw it down into the basement. Well, the tunnels are the basement for them. So that’s why you see all these ridiculous chandeliers gracing the entrances with these iron gates to each of the mansion’s tunnel entrance. We had a little area outside the Rollins, because her mansion was sort of on the southern part of the island, probably closer to the Kennedy estate. So, we had a little daybed, and an old side table, and a champagne coop, with a little scrawling in the wall that said JFK plus it was like these little stories that we created for ourselves, and probably would never really see on the film. But it was these fun, like, “this could have happened in Palm Beach,” and let’s just make it ours.
One of my favorite vignettes that we put down there, my mom, she grew up in New York, but she moved to Palm Beach when she was in her high school years. And she talked about [how] you would go, and you would get these little baby alligators, and you’d put them in your bathtub, and then when they got too big, you would let them go. So we were saying, well, someone probably had a baby alligator, and they probably put him down in the tunnel. So, we had a full-size, replication of alligator bones in a cage, with all the hook meats from where the kid would have gone down and fed their alligator once it got too big. So that was probably my favorite little motif down there.
Screen Speck: In episode eight of season two, the show sets off for Switzerland, and it’s obviously still maintaining this sense of grandeur with amazing sets, but certainly still a bit of a change of pace from Palm Beach. Could you talk about what some of your intentions were in those set designs?
Carlos: Yeah, it was really a breath of fresh air for us. Because we had been in this, like, sun-soaked landscape for so long, and, I think from a design point of view, in terms of environments and decor, as well as for costumes, we got to flex a little bit and explore a different realm of the Slim Aarons photography. So again, first thing we did is we went back to the Slim Aarons photography and started tagging all of the Gstaad and St. Moritz [photos], and finding our favorite moments. And we were also expanding to some from Aspen and other, like, US-based stuff, where there [were] waiters on skis with full-fledged pheasants on platters. We took the best of the 1970s ridiculous après-ski culture and pushed it into one space. We just started a board of everything that we thought was hilarious and fun, and we wanted to do. Like, a mountain of snow piled up with just caviar and champagne bottles basically jammed into it. We started crafting the idea of these little vignettes. We filmed at Mount Hood, [at] Timberline [Lodge], up in Oregon, as our dupe for Switzerland. And so when we went up there and we scouted, we first went up there when it was late fall, so there was no snow yet, and we started taking these vignettes with Abe and talking about how we can craft some of these different spaces to come to the vignettes. We went up to visit once again, prior to filming, and it had snowed. Some of the vignettes we had picked in certain areas were no longer accessible to us, because there was such a huge dump of snow that you couldn’t actually go out onto these terraces. So we had to regroup what that was. But it was a lot of fun. A lot of the crew was staying at the lodge that we were filming at as well. So we were both living in the experience and creating the experience at the same time. It was a lot of fun.
Screen Speck: You’re designing these sets for these very well-known performers playing these very big characters. Do you have any examples of how some of these character arcs over the course of season two informed the set design, or even vice versa?
Carlos: I think we knew early on that Evelyn Rollins (Allison Janney) was gonna lose her house, and that she was gonna move into the disgraced socialites apartment, and that was also gonna be something that Maxine started in. So this safe haven for these women was also sort of like a cage. Once you’re socially outcast, these women would go to live there in recluse. And so, at first glance, that space felt very beautiful. And it was really important for us to feel like a jewel. But at the same time, a lot of the women that resided there were basically hiding. So, all of the windows in there were an obscuring glass. It was like an old vintage glass that you can’t see out of unless you open the door. So, when you shut it, and it had all the lattice lead work, it felt like a bird cage, like it kind of trapped you in. And that was a motif that we really wanted to play with early on, because season one, we established that Evelyn Rollins was the keeper of birds. And that was a fun thing, like, Evan [Regester] and Ellen and I just had this idea, like, let’s just throw a bunch of birds in there, we think it’s hilarious, because we knew that she was gonna be revealed as a former showgirl at the end of season one. And so we’re like, well, she’s like a peacock, and she’s always peacocking herself. So we threw a bunch of birds into her space, and it became such a thing that Allison loved that she started ad-libbing with it. When she was moving out of the house and she’s grabbing the birds that was just something she loved, and then the writers started writing in season two, like, her new shipment of birds. So the whole idea of the birdcage, even though the space wasn’t specifically designed for her, we knew it would become hers.
And even furthermore, Ellen, in a discussion with Abe, knew eventually that there would be an attempted murder in there of her, and then the subsequent murder of Jed (Ryan Dorsey) in that space. And so when Ellen was designing the bed canopy for that space, she really wanted it to have that very regal, overhead, draped canopy, and we had incredible drapers on the team. But she wanted to make it fang-like. So if you look, there’s these tipped fangs at the top of the crown, and the idea of that is it’s almost like a Venus flytrap. So, Evelyn’s luring him in, and once he gets in, boom. You know, any man who makes it to Evelyn Rollins’ bed is in danger.
Screen Speck: In season two, was there was a set that you were most proud of? Maybe it was one that was your favorite, or it was the one that was most challenging that you were happy to have pulled off in the end.
Carlos: I think my favorite set is different than the set I’d want to live in. I’d want to live in the Donahue-Rosenhips house, the mid-century modern. That’s so my jam. So I was happy to explore that, because it’s such a style that I really have an affinity towards. But I think the set that I’m the most proud of would have been the trophy room, which is the second floor of Norma Dellacortes’ (Carol Burnett) [house], where Robert (Ricky Martin) was healing from. I think that was taking some of the Tony Duquette references that Ellen and I were inspired by in season one from the parlor, and really crafting a space that was more aligned to his eccentric style. And there was so many layers in that space between, like, the latticework and the grass cloth on the backside of the bookshelves, to, like, even the ceiling was grass clothed and fringed and mirrored, and, there was so much detail poured into that space, and I think Ellen and I are really appreciative of [how] it’s both restrained and maximalism all at the same time. It was really hard, we had to be very careful to not push it too far. [There] was so much stuff in there, but very well curated. The team did such an impeccable job of the refined artistry and craftsmanship, and dressing that, I think at the end of the day, it’s just…it was such a beautiful space to walk into. As much detail and as many objects as there were in the space, it still felt very zen at the same time. So, it was a space that I knew from our early inception, when I started seeing the development from all the different department members putting it together, I’m like, this is gonna be a really special space, and it didn’t disappoint when I saw it completed.
This interview was edited and condensed for brevity and clarity.
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