'The Revenant' Set Decorator Talks Frigid Film Shoot, Trying to Play It Cool on Oscar Night
Leonardo diCaprio in ‘The Revenant’ (Photo: Twentieth Century Fox via AP)
If set decorator Hamish Purdy collects a Best Production Design Oscar on Sunday night for his work on The Revenant (he shares the nomination with production designer Jack Fisk), he’ll have a special keepsake to remind him of a physically demanding shoot. “There were some days I found myself standing in a freezing river wondering why,” the Vancouver-based artist joked when he chatted with Yahoo Movies during An Evening with Canada’s Stars on Feb. 25 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills.
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It was his job to build and decorate “all the camps, the pile of bones, the [native] villages, everything around the fort,” which “was constructed traditionally, the way they would have constructed it [then].” Re-creating early 19th century Calgary was an ongoing tug of war vs. the elements, Purdy says, a rollercoaster of “freezing and melting.”
Hamish Purdy (right), with ‘The Revenant’ production designer Jack Fisk (left), at the Academy Awards nominee luncheon on Feb. 8, 2016, in Beverly Hills (Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
And with the heat turning up as Hollywood’s big night approaches, is Purdy now able to keep his cool? “The only way I’m able to remain calm this week,” he says, “is that I’m pretty sure Mad Max is going to take it. I met those guys last night. They’re fantastic people. If I have to go up on stage, I’m just going to wing it.”
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One of the most talked-about scenes in The Revenant, of course, involves Leonardo DiCaprio and a horse he uses as a temporary residence. We asked Purdy for the inside word: “That was prosthetic makeup. It was not a real horse. They could have used a real horse, that would have been easier. But I was very impressed with the guts they pulled out of that. I thought they looked good and heavy.” So, if you’ve ever wondered about the entrails of the movie business, now you know.
‘The Revenant’ production designer/Oscar nominee Jack Fisk on the lighting and working with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki:
