‘Ripley’ production designer on creating a murderous black-and-white world

When building the world of Netflix’s ‘Ripley,’ production designer David Gropman had to integrate major Italian train stations and artwork from the early 1960s.

The series, shot in black and white, is based on Patricia Highsmith’s novel ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley,” about a con man named Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott), who befriends a wealthy shipping heir, Dickie Greenleaf, played by Johnny Flynn.

Gropman began his dive into designing the show’s look by studying photography books depicting the time and place. “Neo Realismo: the new image in Italy 1932-1960” was his style bible. He also used work by legendary photographers Pietro Donzelli, Bert Hardy, David Seymour, Herbert List and Mario Cattaneo to help visualize what the world of the 1960s would look like.

Gropman mainly had to find the right kind of train station in Italy, since the characters travel a lot through Italy.

Before the pandemic forced a halt to production, Gropman visited the train museum in Milan. “They had all the trains there and an inventory of the different styles. So when we were able to shoot, we could choose the cars from that period that we wanted,” he explains.

Gropman and his team built the interior cabins and compartments of trains, but his biggest challenge was finding real train stations. Although Naples had two stations with good architecture, production would not have control over the tracks. His solution was to build what was needed. Ultimately, he built a 90-meter-long platform on a railway site in Rome. “We built the columns and pillars going down the platform, and everything else was created through visual effects,” Gropman explains.

Art also plays a prominent role in the series, with Ripley falling in love with Caravaggio’s paintings after Dickie takes him to the Galleria Borghese in Rome. The characters also visit more places to view the painter’s works.

Gropman says two of the Caravaggios found locally in cathedrals were real, including “The Calling of St. Matthew,” “The Inspiration of St. Matthew” and “The Martyrdom of St. Matthew.”

Other works, however, have been recreated by a landscape artist.

Picasso’s ‘The Guitarist’, which hangs in Dickie’s villa, was also a recreation. The Picasso estate gave Gropman a digital file, which they printed. Gropman says, “Our landscape artist Valentina then painted over it to give it the texture it needed.”