Behind the Scenes of Season 1 and 2 Set Design
by Hugh Hart | March 21, 2018 | MPAA.org
Simon Norton’s Large Hadron Collider No. 5 (2007). Image © Nicole Rivelli, courtesy of Michael Shaw
Three years ago production designer Mike Shaw needed a change of pace from the lowdown penitentiary aesthetic he created for Orange is the New Black. In Showtime series Billions, Dash went the opposite way by designing the deluxe milieu inhabited by super-rich hedge fund shark Bobby Axelrod (Damian Lewis). “One of the biggest challenges in designing Billions is that a lot of people know what a millionaire’s lifestyle is like, but the billionaire lifestyle is so much bigger,” says Shaw. Axelrod has so much money, the brash broker tells his estranged wife in season three (beginning Sunday), “We’re down to our last $330 million.”
For Billions’ first two seasons, Dash surrounded the show’s financier anti-hero with the types of shiny toys and architecture favored by actual Wall Street moguls. Axe, for example, takes a private helicopter to his sons’ baseball game and races around in a different six-figure sports car every opportunity he gets. “We’re showing that Axe has a garage somewhere with 25 collector cars that he drive whenever he wants,” says Shaw.
Continue reading How Billions Production Designer Created World of Insanely Rich – March 21, 2018
