How the Kennedy White House Inspired 'The Politician'
Ryan Murphy’s new Netflix series The Politician features an impressive cast, including Ben Platt, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laura Dreyfuss, and Jessica Lange, among other stars. But it isn’t only the actors doing the heavy lifting on the series.
According to Jamie McCall, The Politician’s production designer, the look of the series—from interiors meant to depict California’s one percent to incredible gardens and college admissions offices—plays a large part in telling the story of a high-takes high school election involving some very rich, very driven kids. (A story that's already been renewed for a second season. )
It’s no wonder, then, that McCall landed on the legendary design duo of Sister Parish and Albert Hadley—who worked for the Rockefellers, the Astors, and perhaps most famously on the Kennedy White House—as the muses for the series’ distinctive look.
“I was going through my design process, doing when research, and found a lot of inspiration from Sister Parish and Albert Hadley,” she says. “Once I happened upon them for the feel of the show, it just all came together.”
And while there’s plenty of Hollywood trickery going on—for example, homes that are actually in Los Angeles stand in for tony Santa Barbara—you can still spot the practical magic of Parish and Hadley’s influence throughout the series.
The main character of The Politician is Ben Platt’s Payton Hobart, an overachiever with a serious set of goals: school president, then Harvard, and finally the White House. To make sure his surroundings reflect his drive, McCall decided to take her cues from the very place he’s hoping to end up.
“His ambition is to eventually become the president one day,” she says. “So, it immediately popped into my head to decorate his room like he was a president. My reference was John F. Kennedy’s presidential bedroom.”
For example, she mimicked the canopy bed that Kennedy used and made sure to replicate the light blue that colored the president’s own room. “Our version is like the modern equivalent,” she explains.
And while Parish and Hadley didn’t design the gardens at the Kennedy White House—that, of course, was Bunny Mellon—McCall found a way to call to mind Camelot’s famous greenery on the series as well. Specifically, for Paltrow, who plays Payton’s mother and can often be found enjoying her home’s massive and fastidiously kept grounds.
“The most important part was to have something that was manicured and brightly colored,” McCall says. “I wanted to have pops of color in the gardens because it's such a reoccurring theme throughout the interior spaces as well. And to have her in that setting, gardening but in a very surreal environment, shows that her character is maybe faking it on some level herself.”
There are countless moments in the series—from the sprawling high-school created from what is, off screen, actually three different buildings to the taxidermy on the wall of a character who might be more vicious than she appears and a custom-made dining table to underscore how family meals can feel more like board meetings—that make a case for paying close attention to how McCall’s work reveals subtle hints about the characters surrounded by it. “Finding the right fit for each character was a challenge and it was time consuming,” McCall says. “But I think we nailed it.”
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