“We wanted to bring it into the light,” declares Emmy-winning production designer Keith Cunningham (“Mare of Easttown”) on the lighter visual palette he designed for “Perry Mason” Season 2. Cunningham is nominated alongside art director Ian Scroggins and set decorator Halina Siwolop in the Best Narrative Period or Fantasy Production Design (One Hour or More) category for the third episode of the HBO detective noir drama’s second (and final) season, titled “Chapter Eleven.” For our recent webchat Cunningham adds, “The decision moving forward with Season 2 was literally to open up, expand, enhance the look and feel of the show,” he says, by bringing “Perry into the sunlight and embracing California — the warm sun, vast expanses of space and appreciating the sun, sky and sea.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
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“Perry Mason” was originally created by Rolin Jones (“Friday Night Lights,” “Interview with the Vampire”) and Ron Fitzgerald (“Friday Night Lights”), shepherded by Team Downey co-executive producers Susan Downey and Amanda Burrell, with Michael Begler and Jack Amiel coming on-board as new showrunners for the period drama’s second season. Based on the novels by Erle Stanley Gardner, which were most famously adapted in the classic CBS television series (1957–1966) starring Emmy winner Raymond Burr, the series stars Emmy winner Matthew Rhys (“The Americans”) as the titular criminal defense lawyer, with Juliet Rylance, Chris Chalk, Shea Whigham and Justin Kirk co-starring. Its neo-noir first season traced the origins of the famed defense lawyer over its freshman season, as a down-and-out and divorced private investigator struggles with his trauma from The Great War. Season 2 opens in the wake of the high profile trial involving a kidnapped child, as Mason begins to establish himself professionally, while a dark cloud of crime and conspiracy begins to loom over a bustling Los Angeles.
Cunningham took the reins this season from production designer John Goldsmith (who won the Emmy in this category last season). He fondly recalls telling the show’s producers Downey and Burrell that he’d been waiting all his life to do a project like this. “I do remember saying that it was an incredible opportunity to do this period in L.A.,” he smiles. “That’s always a treat to actually work on a show or a series or a film in the actual location where it takes place. I mean, what a great opportunity! And what a challenge! L.A., you know, every year it sort of denudes itself of its history, right? So, finding things, finding the space, finding the architecture and these places is a great challenge,” he explains. “It was so in my wheelhouse. I really did feel passionate about it, and I couldn’t have wanted it more.”
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