Peacemaker production designer Kalina Ivanov reveals the creative lengths she went to illustrate key locales in an alternate world.
Production designer Kalina Ivanov creates set designs on HBO Max’s Peacemaker that help ground us in the show’s wildly different worlds. The series follows John Cena as the title character finds an alternate dimension containing live versions of his father and brother. The series, largely thanks to Ivanov’s designs, creates a sense of unease that’s hard to explain but is also appealing in its own way.
Some of her greatest touches include a gorgeous mansion that also has some of the corniest jokes for the distinguished eye to find. She also imagined murals that appear inspiring but hide fascist messages and the importance of wrapping up your money. These details are what make this world work, and Kalina Ivanov talks to The Contending about how she achieved it all.
The Contending: Looking over this season, Auggie Smith’s mansion was the biggest new set that I saw. It encapsulated what was so different about this world from Chris’s homeworld. It not only showed wealth but also a sense of class and dignity. Except for maybe that version of Chris’s room still had that immature attitude. What went into creating that set?
Kalina Ivanov: That was the biggest surprise of the season, not only that it is a mansion and has the trophy room, but with Chris’s bedroom it opened up a lot of places for jokes. I have a feeling that comedies are not very different from dramas. The same things happen in the same rooms, some are dramatic and some are comedic. So I approached the trophy room as a normal trophy room with British aesthetics except that the objects in the room denoted fascism. Some of the little things around that set were definitely German so those with a trained eye could start to see it. It gets more obvious as you get more into the show, but when you first see the house you can see why Chris is enamored with it.
Then he sees his bedroom and at first it doesn’t appear to be humorous. The wallpaper is plaid Ralph Lauren and the bathroom has Gucci wallpaper. But when you see it all together you have the tacky lamps, the gaming chair, the sliding bed. It shows Chris as this big child. Then you see his closet is fabulous. It’s the closet everyone wants, but it’s all full of tacky shirts. Then also in this room is where James Gunn wanted things for the fans to notice. There was a poster for Hanoi Rocks, which is a real band that Gunn is friends with, but in this alternate world we spelled it Hanoi Roxx. Then we did Def Leppard as Deaf Leopard. We also had Pour Some Honey on Me instead of Pour Some Sugar on Me.
Then Andrea (Doyle), our set decorator, came up with the idea of having a bust of Chris for his jewelry. The whole thing was very funny, but it was a light touch of funny. Some people might think his room was classy, it depends on your taste. A lot of fun was had with that set.
The Contending: In terms of the alternate world in and of itself, when you first get there and you’re outside the mansion you get the sense that something is off even if you can’t quite put your finger on it. What kind of touches were you able to make in the alternate world to and at that unease, and in particular did you have anything to do with the giant Hitler mural when things become much more clear?
Kalina Ivanov: The murals in that world were some of the biggest things I had to do with! The town mural, which became the logo of the show in a way, was very tricky and how to portray the Top Trio–Auggie and his two sons–as heroes and yet hint at the fascism. So I decided to use very photorealistic mythical human figures, but the background was very flat with just stripes and stars. I was always struck by people saying that if fascism comes to America it will be draped in stars and stripes. So that is what we tried to do. Then the Hitler mural in Argus, we had a big discussion about how to have it and how not to have it. I thought of having Hitler in front of the Capitol building, so throughout the series mostly we just see the Capitol building and we hide the Hitler part. Then near the end we reveal that it’s actually up against Hitler. It was done by my scenic artists with me helping with the composition to make it more photorealistic. We had to look through a lot of references from that world to get that mural.
The Contending: A moment I liked was when Chris goes to audition for the Justice Gang, the building is filthy, there is trash on the ground, there’s just this little stool for Peacemaker to sit on. Even the superhero judges do not look like they’re sitting in a particularly nice place. This is not what you think of as a place where the world’s greatest heroes are, but it does add to the humor and conflict of the scene. How did you come up with the idea for that space?
Kalina Ivanov: So, I have a very funny story about this. We shot this in Atlanta and I live in New York so when I get off the plane they tell me I have to do a set in two weeks. Because James was shooting Superman, and the actors who played the heroes were in that film and we only had them for the weekend. So, I asked what kind of store for the set? They said an abandoned store. I asked what kind, and they said toy store. I had to drag the words out of them! Atlanta is full of defunct malls and literally ten minutes away there was one, but I had to find an exterior to design that interior. James wondered why we bothered because we were going to shoot that part later. I said the doors need to match and I need to know what it looks like!
So I chose that spot, hired the art director, the supervising art director, the whole team all in two weeks. James had a drawing of what he had in mind. Now drawing is a luxurious word; he sketches like a 12 year old but it was also very clear. They spent all their money on the wall that divides the store but they didn’t look at anything else. So that’s how it went, and I told my team this is a litmus test, if I pass, okay, I got a job. Well, James loved the set and everything was great. It was actually funny in its way.
The Contending: So, it’s a comic book show but a lot of the show has a very grounded feeling to it, like we are in the real world. The one place that isn’t like that is the Quantum Folding Chamber. So, what went into the process of giving that a distinct comic book feel?
Kalina Ivanov: I inherited the original chamber and they did a great job but I felt it was too dense and had too many objects, and you were bumping into stuff so it didn’t have a flow to it. When the show was originally written they mentioned there were 99 doors, so I went with three chambers that were three times bigger and spread the doors out. I really simplified the shapes in a way that made more sense to us. They had put caution tape across stuff at first and I didn’t like the feel of that and tried to make the world more slick. Then when we were working on all the doors that had been inspired by the doors in Monsters Inc., going through them and being in so many different worlds. And originally I was puzzled, wondering if every door was supposed to be different, with some being small, some being round, and James said it was just a door, nothing distinct. So I went to an antique store and I got all 22 doors because we had 22 universes shown within the show. The alien world door ended up having some issues because the actor playing the alien was six feet tall and the door was barely five foot six so he had to duck down as he went through!
The Contending: Another distinct place was Vigilante’s house. It is this perfectly lovely home, and even in the alternate world he sees just the minor set pieces that are different. It is his lair that makes it distinct, and the fact that it is full of drugs and all these piles of cash gives it a very distinct and funny feel. What went into creating that great contrast?
Kalina Ivanov: We built the whole thing as a set from the whole steps down, but we needed to know what the location looked like. I had designed a set before we had the location because we were shooting out of sequence. But for what was inside the lair, James had written the drugs and the money and the Beanie Babies in the script from the beginning. So all I had to do was bring it to life. It had a particular logic to it, and the fact that Vigilante is very orderly and probably on the spectrum, so we had piles and piles of cash but it was all wrapped up and clean, looking almost like boxes. We laid it out very carefully in terms of how you entered and the depth of the set for James and he loved it.
The Contending: Is there any other production design moment that you feel like you should mention?
Kalina Ivanov: So many of the characters are down on their luck and they live on the edge. John Economos tells Leota, “You’re living in the worst level of Grand Theft Auto.” The decay was very important to James, that they all live in hotel rooms or the dumpiest place possible. But I thought Harcourt was very interesting because she goes out to fight with men, and the scene when she goes out at night to fight with a guy was done in a church. It was the worst and best location all at the same time. Because I could close the door, board up the windows, and leave the bar sign on and create fake walls so she can go in to fight. There is so much in this show that at first you think, this is impossible. but then you think it’s at night and you figure out what you can actually see and you’re able to make it work.
The Contending: You have now done two DC shows, The Penguin and Peacemaker. Is this a world you wish to continue with? Or are you ready for something else?
Kalina Ivanov: I have done something very realistic recently, but I really like to mix the genres. So I wouldn’t be opposed to doing more DC. It just happened that I did one after the other. I am an accidental DC designer in a way because I never thought I would be doing a comic book show. But when The Penguin came I just thought it was so interesting and so well written, and Colin was very real in how he portrayed Penguin. Peacemaker is different, being much closer to what we expect from a comic book show. The two shows are worlds apart totally. So to answer the question, absolutely why not! What do I have to lose?
Peacemaker streams exclusively on HBO MAX.
