Getting Nancy Around L.A.
The showpiece set of Nancy Drew is the fictional Draycott Mansion, a home that, even in its current rundown condition, suggests its former glory as the home of A-list film star Dehlia Draycott in the 1960s and 70s. Reputed to be haunted since her death, the house has remained on the rental market and still contains her original furnishings, personal belongings and film footage stored in the attic – all of it rich with clues to the past.
Says Fleming, “The house is a big element in the movie. It had to be a place that could only exist in Hollywood, one of those former movie star homes that have a lot of history. Jerry and I agreed that we were going to have to build the interior from scratch. There was no other way to get it right.”
Weintraub enlisted, as production designer, award-winning art director Tony Fanning, with whom he worked on “Ocean’s Twelve” and the upcoming release “Ocean’s Thirteen.” Fanning’s research turned up the work of famed Hollywood interior designer William Haines, whose rooms, Fanning says, “felt like movie sets. They were very glamorous, in that period style, which is exactly what Andrew wanted. He had specific ideas for the colors. It needed to feel dated, so we cast a sepia tone over everything, with metallics and reflective materials in the walls to give it a silver screen quality. There were moments, when the set was dressed, when you could look at it and think you were watching an old movie. Then a character would step in and immediately make it contemporary and vivid.”
Fleming also worked closely with his longtime collaborator, director of photography Alexander Gruszynski, to achieve the subtle and moody lighting perfect for this atmospheric space. In keeping with the story’s Hollywood history element, they opted to film in widescreen. Logistically, the house needed to accommodate the numerous hidden tunnels and false walls that Nancy’s investigations reveal. “That was the fun part of the design,” Fanning recalls. “Nancy keeps hearing people in the house but can’t find them, and then she discovers a secret passageway and a hidden staircase and follows them to their source.”
All that attention to covert entrances and exits inspired production pranksters to play a trick on their star. As Emma Roberts recounts, “In one scene, Nancy finds a projection room in the mansion by opening a hidden panel in an adjoining room. She opens it carefully, like a little window, and peeks inside. While we were shooting the scene, one of the guys put on a mask and stuck his face right there where the panel opens. I really screamed.”
Finding an exterior for the house that could look appropriately neglected proved especially difficult, considering that any inhabited home of such grand proportions would likely be very well kept. The production found a residence in La Caòada that offered sufficient foliage and then created, says Fanning, “that overgrown look Andrew wanted by adding to it and decaying the house and grounds. We filled up the front with a lot of wildlooking plants that weren’t quite green.”
Additional Los Angeles area locations included the historic El Pueblo de Los Angeles on Olvera Street, where Nancy inadvertently interrupts a movie set, as well as Los Angeles City Hall, Griffith Park, Chinatown, St. Luke’s Hospital in Pasadena, the track and exteriors of Hollywood High School and poolside at the landmark Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. South Pasadena represented Nancy’s Midwestern hometown of River Heights, and classrooms at Long Beach Poly High substituted for Hollywood High interiors.
Not yet 16 during production, Roberts was unable to take Nancy Drew’s sky blue Nash Metropolitan convertible out for a spin, although she would have loved it. “It’s the coolest car,” she says, echoing the sentiments of her castmates, all of whom were charmed by the Metro’s unique design. “It’s basically a bathtub on wheels, and pretty much the size of a bathtub inside. Max, Josh and I all had to fit in there with a camera, and it was a little crowded. Max had to fold up his legs like a crane.” The vintage auto was pulled by a truck during filming. “I’m sure it looked pretty weird: a little car being hauled around the streets of L.A. by a humongous truck with cameras. We got a lot of attention,” says Roberts.
Nancy Drew, Fashion Trendsetter
Many of the qualities that define Nancy Drew as a person are reflected in her look: straightforward, confident and classically inspired, but with a sense of fun and a style all her own. To achieve this, producer Jerry Weintraub turned to Oscar-nominated costume designer Jeffrey Kurland (“Bullets Over Broadway”), his collaborator on “Ocean’s Eleven.”
“It’s a look you’ve never seen before and yet you think you have—a throwback in some ways to the 1950s and 60s and yet undeniably contemporary,” Weintraub muses, outlining the style he envisioned for his up-to-the-minute heroine. “It’s very hip and laidback but beautiful, as relevant today as it would have been 30 years ago.”
Although Nancy’s clothing incorporates some charming retro elements with an undeniable “ladylike quality,” Kurland says, “they are not demure. The pieces are very fitted, the lines are clean and everything is designed to accommodate her athleticism. There is nothing shy about it. The Nancy Drew books have been printed and reprinted for generations. I wanted to present a contemporary Nancy, but still have her recognized by everyone as their Nancy Drew.”
Roberts’ naturally long, wavy blonde hair, which she usually wears loose, was bluntcut, straightened and dyed to a darker and somewhat reddish shade, in keeping with the original character description. Says Roberts, “We used straightener every day and headbands too, because, of course, Nancy’s hair is always in place, even when she’s running away from the bad guys.” The headbands, coordinated to every outfit, became another piece of the fashion signature of the girl from River Heights.
Kurland outfitted Tate Donovan’s Carson Drew similarly, as a tonal match to Nancy with casually conservative suits, ties, sweaters and even a dapper hat. He had the most fun contrasting Nancy’s look, which he describes as “a style that lives forever,” with the exaggerated look of her flashy new classmates and the greater L.A. population, epitomized by the wardrobes of Hollywood High’s fashion-too-forward duo, Trish and Inga. “Everything is extreme with the local teens. It’s not earth tones but jewel tones and brighter, reflective fabrics, layers of accessories and generally just too much of everything,” he says, “as if they had assimilated every possible celebrity fashion trend and combined them all into one outfit.”
Daniella Monet, who plays Inga, is also a jewelry designer, and contributed some of her original earrings to the girls’ wardrobes, following Kurland’s direction toward “flashy and glitzy.”
For Nancy’s would-be beau, the too-young but ever-hopeful Corky, Kurland created a look that a 12-year-old boy might adopt if he were trying desperately to seem older and more sophisticated. That meant, to Josh Flitter’s deep disappointment, no jeans. Says Kurland, “Here’s a kid who’s trying to hang out with 16 year olds. He thinks he’s cool; he thinks he’s hip. You have to make that believable, taking into account where he’s from—in this case, Hollywood. He’s trying to get into Nancy’s good graces and, at the same time, deal with his sister and not lose his edge, so we had to find that place for him stylistically. I put him in a leather jacket and trousers, drape-y shirts worn outside the pant and even some bling. Jeans would have emphasized his youth, taking him in the wrong direction.”
Emma Roberts, who also, admittedly, “lives in jeans most of the time,” grew to love Nancy’s trendsetting wardrobe to the extent that she could easily see herself wearing some of the pieces in her regular life. But beyond the look, and the fact that Roberts would be happy to drive around town in a Nash Metropolitan, there was one another aspect of Nancy’s lifestyle that appealed to her most during production. It was the intricacies of the Draycott Mansion that stirred the young actress’s imagination and proves there’s a little Nancy Drew in all of us. “I want to find a secret passageway in my own house now,” she says. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”
Nancy Drew (2007)
Directed by: Andrew Fleming
Starring: Emma Roberts, Josh Flitter, Max Thieriot, Tate Donovan, Rachael Leigh Cook, Kelly Vitz, Daniella Monet, Caroline Aaron, Laura Harring, Daniella Monet, Marshall Bell
Screenplay by: Tiffany Paulsen, Andrew Fleming
Production Design by: Tony Fanning
Cinematography by: Alexander Gruszynski
Film Editing by: Jeff Freeman
Costume Design by: Jeffrey Kurland
Set Decoration by: Kathy Lucas
Art Direction by: Todd Cherniawsky
Music by: Ralph Sall
MPAA Rating: PG for mild violence, thematic elements and brief language.
Distribuuted by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Release Date: June 15, 2007
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