Art Directors Guild Awards 2020
We really did not coordinate our outfits! But we are just so in-sync.
Russian Doll was nominated for an Art Director’s Guild Award for Outstanding Production Design for a Half-Hour Single Camera Series.
Russian Doll’s Production Design Michael Bricker and Art Director John Cox, were both on location in Israel, so Jessica Russian Doll’s Set Decorator and I were able to attend to attend the Art Director’s Guild Awards Ceremony in Los Angeles represent Russian Doll’s Art Department!
Jessica and I were both in NYC deep in the craze of filming The Flight Attendant but took nighttime Friday flights cross-country and flew back on Sunday morning the first weekend in February.
Here’s our fun fill packed weekend and my first time attending one of the Hollywood industry awards ceremonies:
for all women, awards ceremonies mean full on pre-show primping
Jess getting ready
classic Jess, just fitting in a little bit of work where you can after she was done with Hair and Makeup. Hey you don’t become an Emmy Award Winning Set Decorator this early in your career by just talent alone. It is called serious. hard. work. that Jess is so good at pushing out.
Thanks to the studio who covered our car service for the night!
our first red carpet together
Yes, my first official red carpet and the carpet is not even red. !!!!?????!!!! I mean, it is scripted “red carpet” how did the set decorators mess up so colossally on this floor covering??? hah.
Anyways, the beginning is an open bar cocktail hour and it was a lot more people than I expected. So many unfamiliar faces and then we saw David Schelsinger, a fellow New York City based set decorator who Jess has worked with, and who was nominated for two different projects (John Wick 3 and Knives Out) that night!
Even though I’m from California (I hung out with my parents Friday night and Saturday morning and afternoon), in that space we definitely felt like “New York people” out of water.
Tip to my future self and anyone reading this: drink more at the cocktail hour, cause it is no longer open bar after dinner!
So then it is dinner time and it is like a wedding banquet/reception people seated in round tables in a hotel ballroom. We were lucky to be seated with the John Wick 3 people so seated with David and John Wick Art Director Chris Shriver who I know because we worked on In the Heights together!
We thought there was a good chance that Fleabag or Glow would win. …but Russian Doll won!
Thanks to David Schelsinger’s wife Leslie and Kevin Kavanaugh’s (production designer for John Wick 3) wife for taking the photos of us on stage for us. They are both moms so they were thinking like moms when they generously took this photo for us. I’m sorry I’m feeling very anti-feminist for only remembering them as their husband’s wives but that was the context in which I was meeting them. It’s shameful, I know.
looking out into the crowd, it was very very white. filled with older white men. when we exited the stage, it was so exciting to see the friendly and familiar face of Nelson Coates! The Production Designer of “In the Heights” (that’s how I know him) and “Crazy Rich Asians “and so many more things!
Nelson is also the president of the Art Directors Guild so he was there to greet us as winners, and it was so nice to hug someone I actually knew in such an unfamiliar setting and my first time at an experience like that.
AND THEN IT WAS PARTY TIME!
Jess and I vowed to dance it up at the after party like we did at the Broad City Series Wrap Party (still the funnest wrap party I’ve ever been to).
Here’s Nelson and I on the dance floor. …as you can see I’m quite sweaty from the dancing.
An “In the Heights” Art Department reunion on the dance floor! Sorry I don’t know who the lady is, Nelson the Production Designer, Chris Shriver the Art Director, and then me the Set Decoration Buyer hahhaha—we missed you Andy (Andy was the “In the Heights” Set Decorator).
The afterparty was fun. It was also surreal. At one point I was in the bathroom and a stranger came up to me and said “congratulations” and I did literally look behind me because I didn’t realize she was talking to me.
Some highlights include:
-TALKING TO THE GAME OF THRONES PRODUCTION DESIGNER DEBORAH RILEY (I was seriously fan girling because I watched each and every behind the scenes on the Game of Thrones sets and she is LEGENDARY. She was the nicest, most gracious, and down to earth person.)
-Jess and I both realizing we didn’t have any money with us and thus realizing we couldn’t get any more drinks (see previously mentioned note about drinking more early on)
-At the end of the night, we are getting in the elevator and Catherine O’Hara, YES that Catherine O’Hara: Kevin’s mom in Home Alone and Moira Rose on Schitt’s Creek", is standing inside with the other passengers and says to us “HEY you guys won tonight! Congratulations!”
people I wish I made an effort to talk to but was too busy dancing to have thought about this in a more intentional way:
-Parasite Production Designer, Lee Ha-Jun
-Taylor Swift’s Music Video Production Design Team (dream job)
-Taylor Swift’s concert designers (ok yes, I’m a total Swiftie!)
The coach turned back into the pumpkin. End of the night back in our hotel room.
the next morning in LA as I heat up some hot water for my morning ritual of warm water.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH
on the flight on the way home to NYC
Jess and I were both at set at 6am Monday morning in NYC.