Moon Knight's Production Designer Raves About The Experience Of Creating Ammit's Tomb - Exclusive
The Marvel Studios miniseries "Moon Knight" has been a visual spectacle throughout its six episodes, melding practical settings and special effects with computer-generated imagery to replicate the show's stunning sets from London to Cairo.
One of the key artisans working behind the scenes on "Moon Knight" is acclaimed production designer Stefania Cella, a veteran of the craft for more than 20 years. With several notable films including "John Q," "Black Mass," "Downsizing," and "Lucy in the Sky" to her credit, Cella's career saw a major shift genre-wise in 2022 with screen adaptations of comic book projects. Earlier in 2022, Cella was the production designer on the Marvel Comics supervillain-antihero tale "Morbius," starring Jared Leto. After that, she became a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with her work on "Moon Knight."
Streaming exclusively on Disney+, "Moon Knight" follows the complex plight of Marc Spector (Oscar Isaac), a former U.S. Marine and mercenary with dissociative identity disorder. As such, Marc has an alternate personality, Steven Grant, a mousy British museum gift shop clerk. Steven becomes aware of Marc's existence when his personality tries to break through to summon the suit and powers of the superhero Moon Knight, since Marc is the avatar of Khonshu (voice of F. Murray Abraham), the powerful Egyptian god of the moon. If Steven doesn't give up his body to his alternate persona, the world faces dire circumstances — a vengeful cult leader, Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke), is trying to awaken the Egyptian goddess Ammit to punish people for their future crimes.
Episode 4 of "Moon Knight" finds Marc-slash-Steven, Marc's estranged wife and fellow adventurer, Layla El-Faouly (May Calamawy), and Arthur all descending upon Ammit's tomb — showcasing one of the most impressive sets in the miniseries. Cella recalled her memories of bringing that set to life in an exclusive interview with Looper.
Cella says Ammit's tomb came to life with the help of student artists
Since Stefania Cella has designed so many different set pieces for "Moon Knight," she's hard-pressed to actually pick out a favorite. She did, however, note fond memories of how the Ammit's tomb set came together on location in Hungary, which doubled for Cairo in the series.
"There is a fantastic tradition in Hungary in art and crafts. They are fantastic artists," Cella told Looper. "We called the arts university because we wanted to do stages of painting. They actually came — four or five of their students — and they helped us decorate the chambers, the Alexander [Sarcophagus] and the yellow leaves in the chamber. I loved that — seeing young people have the opportunity to actually walking onto set and having the experience. That, to me — since I'm a mother of a teenager — to give them that opportunity was great and very rewarding because they had a lot of fun."
Cella is scheduled to return to the MCU as the production designer on the film "Blade," which is in its developmental stages. "I can't talk about it ... I can tell you that I love it," Cella said.
All six episodes of "Moon Knight," including the season finale, are streaming exclusively on Disney+.