Join us in a master class level Inside the Set with SETDECOR video conversation: Academy Award-winning Set Decorator Jan Pascale SDSA with the profound and delightful team of Set Decorator Alessandra Querzola SDSA and Production Designer David Gropman of RIPLEY.

They touch on their in-depth artistic and realistic depictions of 1960s Italy, on location and on stage: Rome apartments, Venice palazzo, hillside/seaside village, hotels, train stations, exhaustive and accurate use of original art from Renaissance to contemporary, Caravaggio to Peggy Guggenheim’s collection of modern...and throw in a gaspingly clear depiction of a snippet of New York.

The conversation also explores the deep collaboration with Writer Director Steven Zaillian and Cinematographer Robert Elsworth, which plays out in almost every frame. The conversation in full is in the video here, a few images below...

Tom Ripley’s SRO, NY: The pay phone in the hallway is where we first glimpse Tom Ripley’s slick conman abilities, painting word pictures for unknowing people’s ears, donning various characters from taxmen to wealthy scions...while standing in a decrepit corridor outside his tiny room. Courtesy of Netflix.

Tom’s SRO Room: Buildings in the Lower East Side with Single Room Occupancy usually offered a room with bed, desk/or dresser, and a chair. Bathrooms were down the hall, shared with the other occupants. For these evocative sets, Production Designer David Gropman reveals, “We were on Stage 5, the Fellini stage in the Cinecittá, Rome ...Tom's sad SRO life was on one side of a dividing green screen and his magnificent Rome apartment on the other.” For fascinating stories behind these sets, click on the video above!] Courtesy of Netflix.

Tom’s Rome Apartment: He has rented this furnished apartment. Set Decorator Alessandra Querzola SDSA reveals that, per the script, the area of Rome where the apartment was located was one restored by Pope Sixtus V during the Renaissance period. “The whole area still has the character, the flavor, the atmosphere of the old Renaissance palaces. So, that was my first direction...All the paintings are originals...The one that you see on top of the of the fireplace is from La Escuela de Filippino Lippi, which is a little bit earlier.” [There was such dedication to the art in this film, watch the video conversation and be mesmerized, as we were.]

Tom’s Venice Palazzo, Bedroom: The essence of Tom’ bedroom in every setting is as Alessandra describes, “Simple, severe, monastic, with a focus on light and the contrast...always contrast!” This is purposely explicit in the sets throughout the series, mirroring the duality of his character. Courtesy of Netflix.

Tom’s Venice Palazzo: Alessandra notes, “A relaxed approach” to antiques in these palazzos and apartments which have been in a family’s possession for centuries, with furnishings of that time and decades that followed. Living among antiques is an accepted part of life. So outsiders rent rooms or apartments that are already long furnished, they just add some pieces of their own. Thus the exquisite settings of Tom’s choosing, his taste determined, of course by Alessandra and David, and confirmed by Director/Writer Steven Zaillian. Courtesy of Netflix.