“Wuthering Heights” production designer Suzie Davies was excited to get a call from Emerald Fennell, since she’d worked on period dramas from this era before — not to mention on Fennell’s lavish “Saltburn.”
“I thought it’d be fun,” Davies says. But Fennell had a different vision for adapting the Emily Bronte classic. Not only did she want the world built on sound stages, this was a story told through the lens how Fennell’s experienced the story as a 14-year-old. “That opened the treasure trove for me, and we could go in all different directions,” Davies says.
From building Wuthering Heights to Thrushcross Grange, and even a doll’s house, Davies was in heaven.
Here she breaks down the film’s key sets and why surfaces needed to be moist, reflective and sweaty.
Wuthering Heights
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Jaap Buitendijk
Wuthering Heights, which is in Yorkshire, needed a stable, an upstairs and a kitchen. Even though Davies built it on a soundstage, nature still needed to be ever-present.
“That’s why we have a courtyard of rock around the house,” Davies explains. In addition, the arch leading to the house was inspired by Gothic architecture.
Davies raised the set by two feet so she could build a drainage system. “We wanted practical effects. So there are rain rigs punched through the ceiling and there’s a tank underneath.”
She kept the colors of the Wuthering Heights interiors muted and almost bruise-like.
The idea of Wuthering Heights was for it to feel bruised and heavy with a brutalist vibe.
During her research, Davies found the Trefor granite quarry in Northern Wales, which was abandoned and near a “big brutal structure on top of a hill.” Davies says, “It’s got nothing to do with Yorkshire, but it has the essence that Emerald wanted. Once we found that, then we started sort of layering on elements of the Yorkshire vernacular, of those big tiles.” The tiles were wet and shiny. She goes on to say, “There are a lots of modern materials used in traditional ways, and traditional materials used in unconventional ways. Everything’s flipped on its side, just to make the audience feel more uncomfortable.”
Thrushcross Grange
This was the Linton family’s estate, and excessive in every way. It also presents itself as this grand luxurious place, but metaphorically is a prison for Cathy.
The Skin Room
Jaap Buitendijk
When Cathy is introduced to her bedroom, it’s boasted that the walls are like her skin.
Again, it’s an uncomfortable moment for the character.
Davies had swatches and fabrics around her desk. She happened to have a piece of latex. “I think we used it on ‘Saltburn,’” she recalls. It was skin-toned and Davies felt there was something there.
Once she knew she was onto something, Davies asked Robbie to “send high res images of her arms and veins. We printed it. We’ve slightly accentuated her veins.” Davies adds, “We had a go at doing her belly button as well above the fireplace, but that looked a little bit too weird, believe it or not.” The images of her skin were then printed onto the fabric that’s used for the padded wall panels of the bedroom.
Davies adds that at the end, as there’s an overhead shot of Cathy on the bed as she is dying, her veins are prominent. “We printed her veins and everything into the carpet as well, just for that top shot, which is even more weird and uncomfortable.”
The Hands
Jaap Buitendijk
Take a careful look at “Wuthering Heights” and hands are everywhere, whether it’s shots of the actors, or as part of the decor. “There’s something really sexy about what they’re up to and what’s going on,” Davies says.
For the hands above the fireplace, Davies says she took casts of the art department’s hands to make the ceiling roses in the fireplace and in the panels of the library. “We’ve got the shadow puppets that play another subconscious little story going along in on the top of the library. So they’re sort of placed everywhere in the hope that they’re little subconscious things. Some people will see them. Others won’t.”
The Dollhouse
Jaap Buitendijk
The dollhouse was created by the Mattes and Miniatures crew. They built a 1/12th scale version of the Grange. Davies had the model built first, before building and designing the lifesize Thrushcross Grange, flipping her typical design process.
Fennell also had the idea that she wanted the Grange to reflect how Edgar liked collecting things.
In designing the Grange, Davies had a rule that everything needed to be ordered and symmetrical. “The windows are far too big. The doorways are far too big. The ceilings are really high. The ceilings are polished plaster. The floors are polished.”
Davies went to town on the garden. “We had real trees and real flowers,” so it smelled like a real garden.
Sweat
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Jaap Buitendijk
If the film looks moist and the surfaces looks reflective, that’s exactly the look Fennell and Davies were going for. “We always wet down those city streets on night shoots to make them look lovely, and we just wanted everything possible to look like it’s sweating.”
In “Wuthering Heights,” Davies and her team rigged water to drip down the rock face and into the house.
At Thrushcross Grange, Davies says, “The skin starts to sweat when she gets ill in the dining room.” She adds, “The baubles are contemporary, plastic spheres that we stuck on the wall in a Regency pattern, but they look like they’re dribbling and falling down the paneling and onto the floor.”
WIne Bottle Tower
As Cathy’s father Mr. Earnshaw continues to drink himself to death, Wuthering Heights starts to show cracks. Two wine towers feature in the kitchen to reflect Earnshaw’s state of mind.
Davies says, “Emerald said, ‘I want a mound of bottles to show, obviously, that Earnshaw is this wreck and ruin, and is drinking himself to death.’” With that directive, Davies built a tower of wine bottles that were five feet high. “She said, ‘No, ten feet high. I just want to see a wave of bottles.’” Davies and her team built in in a way that cinematographer Linus Sandgren could light through it. “The power of that scene when Martin Clunes is on the floor with those two massive green piles of mountains of booze – Everything with Emerald is ‘keep going and maximalist.’”
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