Star Trek Came In Handy For Guillermo Del Toro's Cabinet Of Curiosities
After decades spent firmly in the zeitgeist, the pop cultural legacy of "Star Trek" shows up in some unexpected places — like an episode of Guillermo del Toro's horror anthology directed by "Mandy" filmmaker Panos Cosmatos. In a recent interview with Variety, production designer Tamara Deverell described the process of building the set for "The Interview," an episode of "Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities" that takes place largely inside a hazy, orange, retro-futuristic room.
Fans of "Cabinet of Curiosities" will remember "The Interview" as perhaps the show's trippiest installment. The hour stars comedians Eric André, Steve Agee, and Charlyne Yi, plus actress (and future "Rebel Moon" star) Sofia Boutella, actor Michael Therriault, and screen legend Peter Weller. In what appears to be a curious slow-burn experiment, a group of disparate people — including a psychic, novelist, record producer, and astrophysicist — are gathered together in a drug-filled mansion and asked to take a peek at a mysterious space rock.
'A crazy pipe environment'
If you've seen "The Interview," you'll know that it doesn't end well; by the time the credits roll, there's more than a little bit of blood all over that gorgeously designed mansion. Variety spoke with Deverell about the process of creating the dream-like space, and in the process, revealed that a key feature was directly inspired by her time working on "Star Trek: Discovery." Deverell said the production team looked at "reference images from the '70s," including some with "sunken living rooms" and a brutalist design. But there was also "one of a pipe chandelier," a fixture that rang a bell (or pipe) in the industry veteran's mind. "The crazy chandelier in the ceiling was made from a bunch of pipes," she told the outlet. "That was something that resonated with me from my time working on "Star Trek" because I've done something similar with copper pipes."
"I had done a pipe set on 'Star Trek: Discovery' with Michelle Yeoh as Empress Georgiou and her alternate universe queen," Deverell said, referencing a plot point from that show's first three seasons. She continued: "I was using shades of Michelle Yeoh in a crazy pipe environment and [Cosmatos] was pulling from his research and it all came together." The final room design features a ceiling covered in striped, pipe-like patterns which all lead towards a central pipe chandelier — all of it colored a deep, burnt orange. In both "The Interview" and "Star Trek: Discovery," the pipe chandelier lends a powerful, austere, otherworldly feeling to a space, but the full-ceiling design in "The Interview" adds a disorienting element. In the characters' drug-addled haze, the space can turn from sleek to sinister in an instant.
A brutalist nightmare
Elsewhere in the interview, Deverell spoke about Cosmatos' influence on the set. "Panos Cosmatos said he wanted to do brutalist," she shared. "He had a series of meetings and I'd bring in my team. We'd meet and chat with him and we'd show him the models working on this crazy round room with the lights and tunnels." Set designers also made replicas of face sculptures made by Birgitta Ljungberg-Cosmatos — an artist who also happens to be Cosmatos' mother — and placed them around the room. And, of course, there was the set's unforgettable color scheme, which Deverell described as "orange on orange."
It's not surprising that "Star Trek's" influence would show up in a sci-fi-tinged horror story; the long-running franchise has inspired everything from runway fashion to a whole host of technological innovations. Still, "Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities" might be the only one with exploding heads.