Ryan Murphy recreates 1981 L.A. as the land of sun and serial killers in 'The Shards'

In the opening country of “The Shards,” a teenage Bret Easton Ellis (Igby Rigney) cruises down Mulholland Drive successful his achromatic Mercedes-Benz, cigaret successful hand, blasting the Cars’ “Moving successful Stereo,” to drawback a Saturday matinee of “The Shining.”

Not lone does the series evoke the eerie opening of Stanley Kubrick’s seminal 1980 fearfulness masterpiece, it transports the spectator into a hyperspecific satellite — sunshine and cigarettes, prep schools and predators, wherever turning 17 means receiving a slick car from absentee parents. We’re entering Los Angeles, circa 1981, and conscionable similar the Overlook Hotel, information lurks beneath a glamorous facade.

Ryan Murphy’s 1980s coming-of-age thriller, which premiered Wednesday connected FX and Hulu, is based connected the 2023 caller of the aforesaid sanction by L.A. literate provocateur Bret Easton Ellis, of “Less Than Zero” and “American Psycho” fame. Ellis fictionalized his Buckley School years for the novel, primitively released arsenic a serialized audiobook connected his podcast.

Fans of the caller volition beryllium relieved to cognize that the amusement retains this autobiographical sensibility, filtering its depiction of aboriginal ’80s L.A. done the prism of Ellis’ representation — arsenic interpreted by bid co-creator Murphy, whose stylish fingerprints are each implicit the screen.

That means perfectly coiffed hair, stark achromatic interiors with pops of colour and, contempt the era’s prevalent greenery, nary extraneous plants.

“If you enactment each those ferns in, it mightiness springiness the content that radical didn’t person precise overmuch taste,” explained “The Shards” accumulation decorator Cat Smith. “There’s a consciousness of glamour to everything that [Murphy] does and a precocious style.”

Smith, who grew up successful the Valley successful the ‘80s and attended the backstage Marlborough School, reflected connected her ain memories of the epoch to bring the amusement to life. But much than anything, Paul Schrader’s 1980 neo-noir thriller “American Gigolo” — different movie that opens with an iconic thrust — was the originative team’s guiding light.

“It’s absorbing to spot however things looked successful 1981 compared to my memory,” Smith said.

Hayes Warner (as Debbie Schaffer) and Igby Rigney (as Bret Easton Ellis) movie a country for “The Shards” successful a euphony video-themed bar.

(Ray Mickshaw / FX)

Smith remembered an L.A. that was “dark and cold” — a breeding crushed for wealthiness fetishization, abundant drugs, drive-by shootings and serial murder, each of which are starkly reflected successful “The Shards.”

But, she added, “I didn’t recognize however overmuch amusive it was too.” Without phones oregon societal media, she said, the visuals of the carnal satellite were particularly vivid.

“You were fundamentally scrolling done the universe.”

Staging the city

L.A. is undeniably its ain quality successful “The Shards.”

“We’re fortunate to person our root worldly beryllium written by 1 of the astir detail-oriented writers of that peculiar age,” said Rigney, who portrays the fictionalized Ellis. “Listening to the publication portion driving the streets that were mentioned successful the publication allowed maine to instantly link with the world. Living successful L.A. was truly the key.”

To that end, the show’s characters flit from 1 iconic L.A. destination to another, including Trumps, a bygone West Hollywood restaurant; the Sherman Oaks Galleria; and Westwood Village.

“The craziest happening astir Westwood successful the ’80s was however crowded it was,” Smith said. “You ne'er spell to a spot successful L.A. [now] and determination are radical everywhere. It was the spot; adjacent me, I was from the Valley and I wanted to spell to Westwood connected the weekend.”

To physique the movie palace and surrounding vicinity traversed by Bret successful the opening sequence, the squad utilized the exterior of the Bruin Theater and the interior of the adjacent Fox Theater, present known arsenic the Westwood Village Theater, taking attraction to “undo” immoderate changes made successful the past 45 years.

Across the street, they transformed a Taco Bell into a Hamburger Hamlet and erected awnings for different recognizable erstwhile businesses, similar the edifice Mario’s.

One of the astir memorable locations for Smith to re-create was the Sherman Oaks Galleria, which, she said, was “basically gutted” successful the ‘90s.

“That was wherever I utilized to bent out, truthful I knew precisely what it looked similar successful my head,” she said.

The Sherman Oaks Galleria was re-created with movie magic.

(FX)

The astir important visuals to get close were the elephantine skylight and the escalators climbing up from the mall’s center. Luckily, she recovered some astatine the South Bay Galleria successful Redondo Beach, which her squad covered successful reddish carpeting to enactment faithful to the Sherman Oaks mall’s archetypal design.

“When I saw it acceptable up, I was like, ‘This is amazing. This is similar clip travel, but you’re traveling backmost to your childhood,’” she said. “I’ve done play before, and you ever consciousness similar you’re clip traveling to a definite extent, but it’s visceral erstwhile it’s yours.”

Styling the era

“The Shards” whitethorn beryllium acceptable successful the ’80s, but don’t expect immoderate neon leotards.

Instead, the show’s costume section leaned into a “late ’70s, transitional, mauve-y, gray-bluish” colour palette, according to costume decorator and co-executive shaper Lou Eyrich, a longtime collaborator with Murphy.

“That way, erstwhile you popular successful the pops of color, they decidedly basal out,” she said.

As with locations and accumulation design, Ellis’ caller provided overmuch of the earthy worldly the costume section needed.

“There’s this dossier that’s fundamentally an Excel spreadsheet of each azygous notation to music, movies, manner [and] cars passim ‘The Shards,’ truthful you could ever spell backmost to that,” said Josh Marsh, a costume decorator connected the series.

Music shapes some the series’ code and its fashion.

“For us, you were influenced by euphony videos large time,” Eyrich said. “MTV came retired successful August of ‘81 and the amusement starts successful July. Until then, too magazines, you couldn’t conscionable spell connected the net and spot what was happening implicit successful the U.K. oregon adjacent successful New York.”

Debbie Schaffer (Hayes Warner) faces disconnected with her erstwhile manner exemplary mother, Liz Schaffer (Evan Rachel Wood), successful “The Shards.”

(FX)

While “American Gigolo” was inactive the astir salient reference, Eyrich and Marsh took a spot of a “Breakfast Club” attack to their quality design.

“It was astir creating the astir elevated mentation of what their character’s archetype mightiness be,” Marsh said. “Class president, the jock, the taste disruptor, the caller question aesthetic.”

The quality Ellis, for instance, had to task “that iconic preppy Southern California look that besides evokes tendency retired of each of these men and women,” said Marsh. His champion friend, Susan Reynolds (Kaia Gerber), is an elegant Brooke Shields type, and movie shaper Terry Schaffer (Wes Bentley), 1 of the show’s fewer big characters, was influenced by Lindsey Buckingham, each leather jackets and silk shirts unbuttoned to the navel.

Beyond staying existent to the characters and the clip period, Eyrich and Marsh had to see a fewer applicable elements: the disparities successful vintage sizing, for one, positive the fearfulness of it all.

“With each look we would get excited about, we’d request to think, ‘Does it request multiples? Do they get murdered?’ Because with vintage clothes, oftentimes it’s conscionable the one,” Marsh said. “We’re either uncovering the cleanable portion and past making much of them, oregon falling successful emotion with thing and shooting it successful a precise circumstantial mode truthful it doesn’t get bloody until the extremity of the day.”

Nailing the lore

Beneath the sunglasses, silk blouses and luxury cars, “The Shards” is simply a communicative of innocence lost. It’s a taxable that resonates intimately for the show’s producers and originative team, galore of whom were astir Ellis’ property successful the aboriginal ’80s.

“I truly deliberation that this amusement plays to Ryan Murphy’s peculiar strengths,” said Rigney, who trusted Murphy to usher his show arsenic a teen successful the era. “He’s bringing truthful overmuch of himself and his beingness and his acquisition of 1981 to the amusement that I deliberation it’s a precise idiosyncratic amusement for him.”

Brad Simpson, an enforcement shaper connected “The Shards” who, on with producing spouse Nina Jacobson, has partnered with Murphy connected shows including “The People v. O. J. Simpson” and “Love Story,” said the amusement agreed galore of his interests and influences.

“I was a teen erstwhile ‘Less Than Zero’ came out, and I was surviving successful Arkansas. That imaginativeness of L.A., I saw not arsenic a cautionary tale, but thing to aspire to,” helium said.

Terry Schaffer (Wes Bentley) and Bret Easton Ellis (Igby Rigney) devour astatine the re-created Trumps successful “The Shards.”

(FX)

As is emblematic for the Ellis canon, wealthiness and privilege are paramount successful “The Shards” universe, and Smith called upon her acquisition arsenic a middle-class teen attending an costly backstage schoolhouse to assistance plan that world.

“I recognize the sphere of these radical and the motivations and I’ve been to a batch of these astonishing houses,” she said. “I would accidental it’s helped maine successful my vocation due to the fact that I’m not that acrophobic of affluent people. You can’t beryllium successful Hollywood.”

L.A. successful the ’80s was the cleanable mounting for a coming-of-age mystery, Simpson said, not lone due to the fact that the metropolis was successful a “golden property of serial killers,” but besides due to the fact that the metropolis was connected “the verge of a revival.”

President Reagan had conscionable been elected, consumerism was backmost successful vogue and a caller question of Hollywood films memorialized “a sleek metropolis defined by these noirish neon nights and these bright, intense, colorful days.” While the amusement doesn’t face it directly, Simpson besides said the “specter of AIDS” lurks successful the inheritance for the teens who “think they’re invincible.”

He hopes the aboriginal ’80s nostalgia volition resonate not conscionable for those who experienced it firsthand, but for young radical present who romanticize a smartphone-free existence. Though helium knows some Ellis’ and Murphy’s enactment tends to induce “strong reactions,” helium besides hopes radical volition spot beyond the “movie poster exterior.”

“It truly is astir friendship. It’s astir coming of age. It’s astir being closeted. It’s astir not knowing who you are erstwhile you’re 18 and being acrophobic to uncover yourself. It’s astir the terrors of increasing up. And it’s astir the powerfulness of representation and nostalgia,” helium said. “I anticipation radical spot that successful it.”