‘The Great’ Production Designer Francesca Di Mottola On Designing A New Wing & Restoring A “Half-Destroyed” Palace – Production Value

“[The design is] always guided by the story, and the story very much in season 3 was focused on Peter and Catherine’s storyline together as a couple,” says production designer Francesca di Mottola. “The palace changes in that way that you just see more spaces that you hadn’t seen before.”

In season 3 of Hulu’s The Great, Catherine (Elle Fanning) tries to repair her dysfunctional relationship with Peter (Nicholas Hoult) after attempting to kill him. The birth of their son, Paul, reveals Peter to be a much better father than ruler, as Catherine faces complications from her new war with the Ottoman Empire on the cusp of the Pugachev Rebellion. 

Though she wasn’t involved for the pilot episode, di Mottola has been with The Great since the first season and created many areas of the palace. “Obviously, my research did involve looking at the Russian palaces,” says di Mottola, “but the possibility of expanding the research and looking at amazing palaces built before, or during, the 18th century allowed me to broaden my search and play around with influences.”

Since Catherine brought European influences to Russia during her reign, di Mottola was free to pull inspiration from many different palaces. “When we got to season 3 and we built a whole new wing of the palace,” she says, “there was just so much trust from the showrunner and the producers in the design process that I was actually free to look at frescoes and palaces that had interesting artwork that would bring something to the spaces that we were creating.”

In season 2, the palace has been through a period of destruction as Catherine and Peter were fighting for power. “We see in season 2, the palace is half-destroyed,” she says, “and its like seamless, the reconstruction of the palace. As we go through the episodes in season 3, you see there’s construction work in the background, and the palace is restored and you introduce new rooms.”

One area that was introduced this season was Peter the Great’s (Jason Isaacs) wing, where the couple moves into once the baby is born. “Initially I pitched the idea that they build a new wing together or they restore a part of the palace that we hadn’t seen before and make it theirs,” says di Mottola. “They moved together into what used to be Peter the Great’s wing. The way we designed the room, it had arches and it had different places and areas, so you often had some foreground elements to play with.”

Click the video above to watch the full interview.