‘Ripley’ Production Designer David Gropman Creates a Stunningly Photogenic World for Murder

If you freeze any frame of Netflix’s Ripley, then you’re likely going to be presented with a visual masterpiece.

That is partially attributed, of course, to Robert Elswit’s gorgeous black and white cinematography. But you can also thank production designer David Gropman for setting the series in such fantastically photogenic and gorgeous locations. A mixture of found locations and built sets, Gropman’s designs for Ripley capture the eye in a way that few other designs this season have.

Gropman’s work along with other craft elements of the Patricia Highsmith adaptation deliver a fully Emmy-worthy presentation. Building and scouting for those amazing locations, Gropman felt that he was finally able to evolve his personal aesthetic into full-scale design.

“I’ve always used color very carefully in my work as a production designer. I’ve always wanted to have a theme that takes you from one end of the story to the other and not call too much attention to itself, letting the story and the world sort of exist for the actors and the words,” Gropman explained. “For me, finally doing a black and white film, something I’ve wanted to do for so long, eliminated that trick of color to help tell the story. I feel like I’ve finally arrived where I wanted to as a designer, just pure expression of light and shape in its purest form.”

Ripley, written and directed by Oscar winner Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List), adapts Patricia Highsmith’s original novel The Talented Mr. Ripley in an 8-episode limited series. In the series, con artist Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott) travels to southern Italy to convince trust fund playboy Dickie Greenleaf (Johnny Flynn) to return home and work for his father. After a series of questionable events, Ripley kills Dickie and begins to take over his life, leaving Dickie’s girlfriend Marge (Dakota Fanning) highly suspicious of Ripley.

Locations play a significant role across the series, not only in presenting picturesque and camera friendly scenes but in helping to define the characters in subtle ways. Early on in the series, Dickie’s gorgeous, seaside villa dominates the proceedings. This location was one of the first that Gropman and team scouted along the Italian Amalfi Coast since they weren’t going to build this on a soundstage as they did with Tom and Marge’s interiors. The space needed to reflect Dickie’s wealth and easy-going nature — something that relayed the dichotomy of extreme wealth with a bohemian lifestyle.

The villa is also filled with beautiful art (think Picasso) that helps attract Ripley to this lifestyle. The location says a great deal about Dickie as a person who Ripley so desperately wants to be.

“The important thing to understand about [Dickie’s] character is that he has great wealth, which Tom finds captivating. He has beautiful things that Tom finds captivating, but I think what he finds most captivating is the fact that Dickie is so easy living with these things. They are not the most important thing to him,” Gropman said. “The most important thing to him is this bohemian life that he’s made for himself and can afford in a beautiful villa in a beautiful town on the Amalfi Coast and with these beautiful things surrounding him. Tom, of course, is amazed by all this, but I think amazed most of all by the way Dickie lives with these things.”

After killing Dickie in a rental boat (Gropman acquired five variations of the boat, including the one that he purposefully sinks), Ripley flees to Rome flush with Greenleaf cash. He plans to spend his first night in Rome as Dickie Greenleaf in the Excelsior, a luxury hotel whose exterior is actually the Hassler Hotel located near the top of the Spanish Steps. The decadent interior, something that Ripley had yet to experience until meeting Dickie, was filmed at the Palazzo Ruspoli, a 16th century palazzo in the heart of Rome.

You can even rent the room now if you’d like to live la vita Ripley.

You’d likely spend more time there than Ripley actually does after nearly being discovered by Marge. He quickly leaves that hotel for a less attractive hotel called the Hotel Bolivar. Gropman chose that location because of the rain-drenched steps leading up to it and the fantastic sign that says Bolivar. The interiors were shot elsewhere.

Another fascinating aspect of Ripley is the characters’ relationship to art. Dickie collects art (such as the Picasso) and tries to paint on his own. Unfortunately, he’s completely devoid of actual talent. Ripley, though, becomes obsessed with art, particularly elaborate Caravaggio pieces. That inclusion comes directly from writer / director Zaillian who, according to Gropman, wanted to imbue the story with the same passion he felt for the controversial artist.

“You take the story of Caravaggio and how he was a bit of a scoundrel, a murderer, accidentally or not, and then you have the beautiful sense of light in all of Caravaggio’s paintings. Some people say one of the great shames about not being able to see Ripley in color is you don’t have a chance to see Caravaggio’s paintings in full color,” Gropman laughed. “But what you do get to have is all the beautiful light and shadow and composition that Caravaggio was so brilliant at.”

Ripley streams in its entirety on Netflix.