Wonder Watchlist

Last year the world of Oz Cobb took audiences by storm, showing the dirty work that goes into Batman’s rogues gallery. A direct continuation of 2022’s The Batman, directed by Matt Reeves, the world created within that film already felt incredibly established. Within The Penguin’s 8 thrilling episodes, fans see sides of Gotham that have rarely been explored before, while watching Oz (Colin Farrell) fight for his spot at the top by any means necessary.

Production Designer Kalina Ivanov has a career that spans from Little Miss Sunshine to storyboards for Silence of the Lambs. With her versatility, it made her the perfect person to guide audiences through the streets of Gotham and even what lurks below. Her designs weave her love of The French Connection with her passion for Greek myths into the layered sets she creates, giving fans a visual feast that carries over from episode to episode, week after week.

I sat down with her to discuss what went into some most talked-about Easter eggs from The Penguin, her inspirations, and her upcoming work on Peacemaker Season 2. Enjoy.

Megan Loucks: Thank you so much for sitting down with me today to chat about your wonderful career, especially The Penguin. While I was doing my research for this interview, I couldn’t help but notice that you’ve been a part of some of my favorite films like Little Miss Sunshine, Uptown Girls, and you even did the storyboards for Silence of the Lambs. Looking back at your career, were there any prior projects that helped you prepare for your work on The Penguin?

Kalina Ivanov: I guess I would say Lovecraft Country comes the closest to that, but I’ve never before designed a comic book character. So it was always a surprise and a discovery for me.

Megan Loucks: The Batman has such a distinctive atmospheric aesthetic to it. What was it like trying to make The Penguin feel like it was in that same vein while also making sure it stood out as your own thing?

Kalina Ivanov: Well, you know, at first it was, it was very daunting at first. It was like complicated to get my head around, but then suddenly I, I got, I gathered that we were in New York and they were in Liverpool and London and we were on the ground floor and they were on the upper floors, you know, like the batman down on the world. And that liberated me quite a bit. And once I shook up, so to speak, metaphorically, I realized that I had an opportunity to create a world that we know, but we don’t quite know well. And so I went with Matt Reeves saying that he wanted to do French connection. And with the idea of, which immediately puts you underneath subways, right? I went with that idea of being under arches, under subways, and that was really quite liberating.

Megan Loucks: What kind of research did you do prior to making your designs? Were there any Batman films or comics that you dove into to get a feel for the character? Or was it just your conversations with Matt?

Kalina Ivanov: I know that Matt used Year One Batman. So I read year one, you know, and that was the only book I had as a reference. In general, I try to put away references when I design because they can be way too influential. And so, I really treated the Penguin as a real character. Lauren LeFranc, our showrunner, asked for authenticity and for it to be down to earth. That was very, It was very nice to ask me to do that because it grounded the character in reality. And it was very interesting to work that way. And so I didn’t go by the Penguin, I went by Oz. He was Oz. And where Oz lived or how he behaved, was, or his mother, it all had a very grounded look.

Megan Loucks: I’ve got to say my favorite set design in The Penguin has to be Francis Cobb’s home because it feels so incredibly lived in. What went into designing her home and also the neighborhood around Gotham, something that we really don’t ever get to see?

Kalina Ivanov: Exactly. That was the most interesting aspect. The different neighborhoods of Gotham and we based them having New York as a reference. We based them on New York but we created our own world universe. In terms of Francis, that is not her apartment he (Oz) has already moved her to that apartment that you know to be in secret but it gave me the opportunity to do the eighties, you know, we did that apartment before we did the apartment in the eighties that in the later episodes comes in his own house. And we were able to establish some of the things that we’re going to carry over from one apartment to the other. 

And one of those was the clock. I remember that was very important to Lauren, aside from the photos of the children. The clock was the other thing. But the third thing was the painting in the dining room, which is of a matador. And that was suggested by the actress(Deirdre O’Connell). And I really loved the involvement of the actors in the process of making The Penguin.

Megan Loucks: Could you tell us what stood out to you from the script? And did you already have ideas rolling around in your head while you were reading it?

Kalina Ivanov: I was given the first two episodes when I interviewed. And actually, that was what was on paper at that point, because I started very early. And I had some ideas, but I wasn’t sure. Before I spoke to Matt and Lauren, I wasn’t sure how they wanted to treat The Penguin vis-a-vis the Batman. And when I discovered that they wanted a new look, in a sense, a fresher point of view of the Penguin’s world, and that it is a gangster world, it is on the ground, it is in the lower depths, I was very enchanted by that, you know, and the opportunity to create a new look for the for the project, but still related somehow to The Batman and it was, it was quite a process. 

I started with the iceberg lounge. We had quite a bit of, you know, thinking about what we’re to show in the iceberg lounge. And Lauren had written the original bedroom. And so I really pushed for that because it allowed me to create a neutral environment of where he kills the character at the beginning that he kills and not to be so tied up to what it was in the movie because it would have blown our budget if we had to recreate. So it worked out very well for us and we kept that idea. The beginning was mostly based on doing the research of The Batman, which took months to receive from Warner Brothers, by the way. But I watched the movie and then from then on to be free to go into different directions.

Megan Loucks: Looking back at the finished sets for the show and seeing them in action as the episodes debut, what one sticks out as your favorite or what one was the most challenging to do?

Kalina Ivanov: Well, the most challenging to do was the trolley depot. That one, we didn’t know we were going to have a trolley depot at the beginning. We started going, you know, building dimension, et cetera, et cetera. But that was more something that you expected come episode four, we got episode five and everybody’s mouth dropped the trolley depot. And, I, of course was delighted. The producers had a really hard time trying to find the money for that set. I started originally, I designed a set that was 1200 feet. By the time we ended up doing it, practically it was 4500 feet. I attached it to a real location that we had scouted very early on and we had liked for Arkham.

But Matt told us that Arkham needed to be like in the movie. Then that location became available in a sense. And I remember it very well, Kingsbridge, the armory. And it was pretty spectacular. The armory itself is like huge. It is the biggest in New York. But it had the hallway with the arches and I wanted the same amount of arches as I did in everything else, but it was working men. It was working men class arches and I called it the temple to the working men, know, probably Depot, but I included in the set all the details from the lobby and that tied it so beautifully that you can’t tell what’s real and what’s not.

Megan Loucks: Yeah, I specifically really enjoy Oswald’s apartment in the show and how he goes from this pretty nice apartment to then hiding out in Crown Point with his mom, devoid of any kind of luxuries, and then to his penthouse at the end. What was it like capturing his journey through those different sets?

Kalina Ivanov: Well, that was the most important thing Lauren and I agreed that he will start on the third floor at the beginning of the project and by the end he will go to the top. But when he gets to the top, it’s not quite what he wanted to be. And therefore, I came up with the idea of him restoring the place. And I looked at for the ending, looked at Beaux-Arts architecture a lot. And I designed the building before, and I always thought that that was going to be a set. And I designed the building in the Beaux-Arts idea, and I gave it the name La Couronne, like which in the French is the crown. And Lauren went with it. So that’s the ending. The beginning on the third floor, it’s based on the Diamond District and in research that on the third floor always is where you go to repair your jewelry. And I ended up finding a photograph of a jeweler and his vault. And that vault became the bedroom for the Penguin. 

And it was, yeah, it was a nice apartment. But it also is the only set in Manhattan that we have. It felt right that it should be like Manhattan, the diamond district, but nothing else in the movie has that geography. Nothing else is a rid. Everything else is three corners, five corners, know, many corners because we were looking for that different kind of geography. And so the beginning is the jewelry repair shop. The middle part is where he goes and lives in Crown Point, which is the most devastated area in New York. And then we go to the end when he makes it. And as I said, the end is based on Beaux-Arts, and it’s also based on the hounds of Zeus, which is the Furies. And I wanted, symbolically, to have a lot of women being pissed off at Oz. So what we did for the end, we found a loft on, you know, it was downtown, but he was in historical building, it was an art deco building, and which would appeal to the Penguin, of course. And they were in the middle of renovating this penthouse. And we went for the windows, because the windows had tremendous amount of scale. 

And everything else that you see there I brought in. I did the columns, and murals, we did everything else, the chandeliers on the floor, everything. And we showed that it was in the middle of construction, basically. And the mother was in the room upstairs. We only did a wall to divide the room. It was incredibly beautiful. It was very stark and very basic, but very beautiful in that way. Anyway. 

Megan Loucks: Sofia Falcone is also a character that I absolutely adore and her wardrobe in the show is incredible. It’s just larger than life. It’s fur, it’s decadence. What was the collaborative process like working with costuming to make sure that your sets didn’t get washed out by these beautiful outfits and also your sets didn’t overtake the outfit?

Karina Ivanov: We worked very close and it shows. It really shows because we had a lot of conversations about it. But the design, the production design always comes first in a way, because we started earlier, basically. And a lot of it gets designed before she even gets there. But having said that, she was in solids most of the time, you know. And that really helped the elaborate wallpaper that I had, the elaborate textures that I had on the walls. And in the Falcone House it was based on a house in Lake Cuomo and it had the most wonderful frescoes. And so I used a lot of pre-raphaelite painters as an inspiration. And it really showed the Italian roots of the family.

Megan Loucks: Yeah, there’s one scene that sticks out. It’s a little flashback of her and her brother with her father and there’s this elaborate painting behind them. Can you tell us a little bit about that painting?

Karina Ivanov: Yes, that is called The Knight and It’s really beautiful and I wanted it because I wanted the painting to say, “I’m powerful, I’m here, this is my domain.” And it really accomplished that. That was a very important painting.

Megan Loucks: You know, fans are very quick to find any Easter eggs or some things that they think are Easter eggs. And they’re not, but in episode four, I know you’ve spoken about it on Instagram, the gloved hand that you said was open to interpretation. I was wondering if that was just a piece that you found while you were sourcing for the show or was that something in the script?

Kalina Ivanov: No, that was a piece that the set decorator found. That was a piece that he said, “Oh, I think that you’ll have that hand.” and I loved it. And we did it later and started getting interpreted. And I was like, well, Yeah, it could be. Maybe subconsciously we did it, but it wasn’t by design. But there was a painting there that was by design that was a mouth screaming. That was by design.

Megan Loucks: What is it like to see fans speculate on those little aspects of your designs? Have you ever encountered something like that before?

Kalina Ivanov: No. No, I mean, not to that extent. Let’s put it this way. It’s quite daunting. I don’t know how to react to all of that. I mean, I’m very encouraged and we did have some Easter eggs, but they were done mostly in graphics and mostly with the numbers. We played with the numbers with the, when the year the book was published, the year the first time Batman was published. Those were the kind of Easter eggs. But in general, I was not prepared for the fact.

Megan Loucks: I was looking at some of your interviews, like I said, and I see that you’re a big fan of fantasy and Greek myths, and you kind of talked about it a little bit in your designs already. But what were some of the ways that you injected your love of fantasy into The Penguin while still managing to keep the show so grounded in realism? 

Kalina Ivanov: Well, I wouldn’t say fantasy. I would say I heightened a lot of real elements. And because Lauren wanted it grounded, It always needed to start from a real point of view. But after that, I was left with the possibility of enhancing it. And I really leaned into that. For example, the wallpaper for the murder bedroom, which we called lovingly the murder bedroom, but it was the where the mother hangs herself.

The wallpaper for that bedroom was specifically designed by our graphic artist with me, you know, and it had these fountains, art deco fountains, but they were very striking and the colors were beautiful. And that is one example of how I enhanced the look. And in general, I designed a lot of my own wallpaper. You know, and that gives it a very special quality because it’s a wallpaper that you don’t see all the time. You know, that was one example of how, how we enhanced. Another example is looking for arches and that even when it’s a location like the restaurant where they eat, what Sofia invites him to eat in the first episode. That restaurant is very special, wasn’t on film for 75 years because it was a space where unions had meetings. But then it became a restaurant and nobody had filmed up to that point there. And I was very happy we got to feature it first. So those were the kind of examples of how I can influence and push a project in a certain direction. 

Megan Loucks: I think there’s even arches in the funeral scene where Sofia and Oz are talking and the camera’s pointed up so you just see these arches above them. It just makes it feel that much more grand and it gives it a lot more texture as well.

Kalina Ivanov: That’s the collaboration with the director. Also, Craig Zobel was our director of the first three episodes and he leaned into the arches. He understood the theme that we were doing, you know, and he leaned into that.

Megan Loucks: I know The Penguin isn’t your only DC project on your resume now. You also did the production design for Peacemaker Season 2. For fans of that show, can you give them kind of an idea of what to expect, at least in the visual aspect of the show?

Kalina Ivanov: Okay. I don’t know if I’m allowed to talk too much about the show because I can only talk about the sets that are in the trailer. I posted the Toymaker set. Well, that’s a funny story because they came to me on the third day I was on the job. I’d just gotten off the plane. And they came to me and they said, “oh, we need a set in two weeks.” And it was very unusual. The process of that was very unusual because the actors that are in that scene happened to be in Superman. And James Gunn was filming Superman while we were in pre-production for Peacemaker. So that said I want all the fans to know I had to create as fast as I can. And it had to be a set. And we had the crew of Superman build that set. I didn’t even have a crew yet. I mean, I had just gotten off the plane. I didn’t have anybody. 

Anyway, that’s a funny story behind that set to answer your question, what’s happening in the Peacemaker 2, well, you will see.

Megan Loucks: “You have had a tremendous career that continues to grow. How does it feel to be recognized for awards such as your ADG award?

Kalina Ivanov: I am bowled over by the fact that The Penguin has had, has resonated with people so much. I really am floored. I never expected it. I never thought I would be nominated, let alone win. I’m very grateful, you know, the work is the work.

Megan Loucks: And season two hasn’t been confirmed by HBO, fans want another season. Are you hopeful to return to the streets of Gotham to bring more of the city to life? Or are there any other DC characters in their worlds that you would like to explore?

Kalina Ivanov: I don’t know if there will be a season two, I hate to say it. It’s limited series. And we will stick to that. Although, much to my chagrin, I would gladly jump into season two of The Penguin. But I don’t know with Colin’s schedule how it will work out. Other DC characters, I’m not very versed in comic book characters. I mean, don’t kill me. But would personally do another, I would design a Batman. I really love Batman if I had to choose a character. But that’s a long way. 

Megan Loucks: My friend Scott would, he sent me a few questions. He’s the biggest Batman fan I know. He wanted to know what real world locations did you take inspiration from for your work on The Penguin? And did you have any other films or TV series that you took inspiration from? I know you kind of touched on that a little bit.

Kalina Ivanov: Yeah. Okay. What real locations I took inspiration from? Well, the biggest one is the trolley depot, you know. The inspiration came from the Kingsbridge Armory. And that was the lobby. And we created a booth where he commands the action from. That was probably the one really serious inspiration for me, in a way. And then we found these five corners in the in Yonkers where we ended the building, the street of Crown Point and all the destruction. And it had an empty lot where we dropped a house and we broke the house. So we wanted to show how the wave had demolished the houses. 

And I remember the day Rich Murray, the decorator came and said, you know “I bought a house.” He bought the front of the house from another show and we destroyed the heck out of it and put it in the empty lot and created our own destruction. But those are the kind of inspirations. The street was very emotional, I would say, because it was almost like the way you see it. The stores were really quite destroyed. And we just gave it that extra push to create the rest of the look. And every store we created and every sign we created, there was a lot of work that went into Crown Point to create that destruction. But that was one of the most challenging sets too. We dropped 40 tons of dirt and then the set froze.

Megan Loucks: Thank you so much for sitting down with me today.

Kalina Ivanov: I appreciate your time today. And tell your friend Scott good question.

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