‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ production designer Jack Fisk: ‘I love history, I love research’ [Exclusive Video Interview]

Jack Fisk calls himself “one of the luckiest designers around” because of the directors he’s worked with, and it would be hard to argue with that kind of statement. Since starting out in the 1970s, Fisk has served as the production designer or art director for acclaimed filmmakers like Terrence Malick, Brian De Palma, David Lynch, Paul Thomas Anderson and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. 

But until “Killers of the Flower Moon,” Fisk – a two-time Oscar nominee for “There Will Be Blood” and “The Revenant” – had not gotten to work with fellow ‘70s legend Martin Scorsese. As Fisk tells Gold Derby in an exclusive video interview, it’s possible the two had never even met.

“I knew that Marty had other people he worked with, so I just discounted it,” Fisk says of the possibility of even joining the new project. In fact, frequent Scorsese collaborator Dante Ferretti was initially hired for “Killers of the Flower Moon,” the New York Times reported, but a change in the film’s scope and the long production schedule due to the coronavirus pandemic left Scorsese in search of a new production designer. It was Anderson, who made “There Will Be Blood” and “The Master” with Fisk, who suggested the 77-year-old.

“When I got that call, I got very excited. I read David Grann’s book [on which ‘Flower Moon’ is based] and I love making films about American history – our early history, and particularly about the assimilation of the Native Americans into this invasion of the white world that came into their lives,” Fisk says. “So when I met Marty – he used a lot of films for references. And I liked him immensely. But he mentioned about 15 films. And some of them I hadn’t heard of, but he’s such a great historian that I talked to the producer afterward. And I said, ‘I don’t remember the names of all the films.’ She said, ‘I’ll send you a list.’”

Fisk says Scorsese’s hope was to make “Killers of the Flower Moon” a Western that also told the story of Osage Nation as “honestly and truthfully as possible.” The film focuses on the Reign of Terror, where hundreds of Osage men and women were murdered by white settlers who wanted to gain ownership of the tribe’s lucrative Oklahoma land. 

“I love history. I love research,” Fisk says. “In a way, documentaries excite me as much if not more than then narrative movies, because I’m interested in character, and these people are real. And the challenge for me became to find out where people like Mollie Kyle [played by Lily Gladstone] lived and how her family and all the people – the Osage people and the white people – were living in the 1920s.”

Since his first collaborations with Malick, including “Badlands” and most famously “Days of Heaven,” Fisk has been known for recreating the American landscape. He does this by actually building homes and sets in real locations, the result of which is an authenticity that can’t be faked on a soundstage.

“For the actors, when their characters are living in a house out on the prairie, and you’re actually in a house out on the prairie, I think it helps,” Fisk says. He should know: He’s married to an actor, Sissy Spacek. “I’m always thinking about characters and actors and how they might appreciate things being as real as possible. And that’s why I also like to build sets in 360 degrees. So you can go outside the house, you can walk completely around it – and that helps in lighting and stuff too. Because if you want a backlight, you can shoot the back of the house, you can shoot the front of the house, you shoot the east side, or the west side. You’re just giving more options to the director, you’re giving more options to the actors to get into the story. Since ‘Days of Heaven,’ it has kind of been my signature to build real houses out in real locations. And thank God Marty wanted to do that and called me on this film.”

“Killers of the Flower Moon” is out on October 20.

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