As production designer on , Martyn John’s first job was to find the right house. The Guy Ritchie Netflix series, a spinoff of his 2019 action comedy feature of the same name, is centered on the ridiculously posh English manor owned by the Hornimans, a blue-blooded group of British aristocrats with a dirty secret: They’re getting paid by a drug baron, who is using their land to grow vast amounts of marijuana. stars as Eddie Horniman, new duke of the manor, who takes over after his father dies and in the process learns about his predecessor’s nefarious business dealings.
“When I got the job, I knew I had to find something a bit like , where the house becomes another character in the show,” says John. “I needed something that was so iconic, architecturally, to stand out, but also had enough scope and space to last us eight episodes.” John knew what Ritchie would be looking for, as well.
As supervising art director on the 2019 feature that inspired the series, he showed Ritchie 24 English country houses before the filmmaker picked his favorite. “Having gone through the 24, I knew what he didn’t like, where not to go,” says John. “In the end, I think I took just four houses to him, and when we got to Badminton House, I knew that was the one.
” Badminton House has been home to Dukes of Beaufort since the late 17th century. The estate gave its name to the sport of badminton, which was either invented at the house or popularized there in the mid-1900s. For John, it had just the “faded grandeur” Ritchie was seeking: “Lots of cracks in the walls and ceilings,” with huge grounds, encompassing 52,000 acres.
“The beauty with Badminton is it’s got a lake, it’s got woods, it’s got farmland. They have their own church, their own graveyard,” says John. “I knew it would be great for the series.
” The only problem was the location. Set in Gloucestershire, the house is two hours from London, where the cast and crew were based. “Every time we’d go outside London, we’d have to move the base, put the crews up in hotels, which becomes very expensive,” says John.
“Plus, it’s a private house, so they didn’t want a lot of filming inside.” So while the Badminton entrance hall and staircase and those vast grounds play the Horniman estate on , the interiors are from five other houses and a collection of custom-built sets, which John had to seamlessly link together to look like a single grand manor. “The big, big problem is, those aristocrats, they spent millions building and decorating their houses back in the 18th century,” says John.
“It’s hard doing something that lavish on that scale, on a budget. So I had to be clever about it.” The key was the wallpaper.
“I spent a lot of money on silk wallpaper. I found a fabric and turned it into wallpaper, which we used in the drawing room,” says John. “I won’t say how much it cost — it was a king’s ransom — but it really, really worked to give that level of lavishness for the whole place.
” John was able to cut corners when designing the grubbier world of the drug gangsters, like the council flat where Eddie goes to retrieve a passport for Jethro (Josh Finan), a member of a particularly sinister Liverpool gang. “Those sets were a lot of fun, because you can just mix and match, throw a lot of things together,” the production designer says. “I could save money on the gangster sets and then spend it on the sets for the gentry.
” The production, John says, was “a marathon” with 49 dressing plans — meaning individual sets or locations — for his two episodes of the series. Having worked with Ritchie before — in addition to the feature , John did production design on , and , among others — he also knew he had to be prepared for the unexpected. “Guy changes his storyline ever so slightly every day,” he says, “and he’ll play with the design elements.
On the day we were shooting the outdoor barbecue scene, he wanted a particular type of steak, a wagyu cut. Another day it was a specific kind of cut Burgundy glass for this gentleman’s club. We went to [luxury department store] Fortnum & Mason, which was around the corner, and they said: ‘Yes, we have them, it will take three weeks.
’ But I needed them in 30 minutes! Luckily, Guy sent some from his London home, so it was OK.” The success of — the series shot to the top of Netflix charts after its March release, racking up more than 215 million viewing hours in its first two weeks — makes a second season likely. John is up for it, even if it means starting from scratch.
“Everything from the original is gone, I’m afraid. Because we have such tight turnarounds, and locations are so expensive, it all went into the skip.” Except for a bit of that pricey wallpaper.
“I took a meter of that silk and got the costume designer to make me a waistcoat out of it,” John says, chuckling. “That’s all that’s left.” THR Newsletters Sign up for THR news straight to your inbox every day More from The Hollywood Reporter.
