The philosophy of Oscar-winning production designer Nathan Crowley is simple: If something can be built, it should be built. His experience growing 500 acres of corn in Canada for Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar gave him the confidence to plant nine million tulips for Wicked, all of which have turned yellow in For Good as the Munchkins assist in Yellow Brick Road construction.
Crowley’s credo for practical builds guides his work across Wicked’s sprawling world, anchoring the fantastical in physical reality. Crowley recently spoke with Boxoffice Pro for the cover story of our November 2025 print edition. In celebration of Wicked: For Good arriving in theaters from Universal Pictures on November 21, here is our full conversation with the production design wizard.
You have a great philosophy, which is, if you can build it, you will.
I think it’s incredibly important for the audience, more than anything. If I can give enough to the audience, then it blends seamlessly with the effect. I have a very firm belief in that. Really, it makes it more difficult for me and my team. It’d be much simpler to say [to visual effects], ‘Oh, you can handle all of that,’ but that’s not why we do this.
You’ve talked about searching for a film through your process. This was one big production experience for you, but was there anything different about your process on For Good?
This sounds odd, but I feel like I had to be restrained on film one because we open up with all these different characters and go on all these different journeys to different places in Oz, which we glimpse at. We glimpse at the governor’s mansion. We glimpse at the white desert. We have all these little peaks, these Easter eggs, but now I’ve actually got to go and explain the landscape. I have to explain the whole place. So actually, it was trying to be restrained and saving ideas for For Good.
We have [the castle] Kiamo Ko, we have the Ozian forest with Elphaba’s lair—which is [called] the Nest—and her journey to the edges of Oz and beyond. I am expanding Emerald City, because we just have, literally, “One Short Day.” Now we’ve got to spend some time there and look at it. We have weddings. It just grew, and I had to expand it. We also have the collision with The Wizard of Oz. It collides with our film. All of that comes in from left field and really defines the story and defines all of those characters. We give explanations on the Tin Man and the Scarecrow, and the Lion is obviously hinted at in the first film. It actually became complex in all the right ways.
Do any of the For Good sets rival the challenge and visual puzzle of what we saw in Wicked? The Architectural Digest video where you broke down your design process was fascinating.
It was actually very difficult doing that video, because it was one design process [for both films] that was cut in half. I could go really deep into the Emerald City and explain the three towers, why those three towers, and who’s involved in those three towers. I really want to explain what the Land of Oz is because I have these deep-rooted ideas that it’s in three eras. The time of the land—the Grimmerie and Kiamo Ko come out of that ancient mystery. Then there’s the time of harmony, when the animals were equal. And then the time of the Wizard, which is where the story takes place. To have a historical design idea, I could then hang Kiamo Ko off of that, and I could then hang [the design of] the governor’s mansion and Munchkinland off that.
There’s forethought that goes into every detail. Was there an instance where something didn’t quite work as planned, and if so, how do you problem-solve with your team through that?
Well, this happens all the time. We need to get together and concentrate, [and] there’s always a solution. We have to find it. My team is pretty big, and that involves construction, set decoration, props, and special effects. I actually can cite one instance where it was late at night on Glinda’s Emerald City apartment set, which had to be very specific as a new set and very Glinda-esque, but it also had to show a history.
I remember being with the carpenter, and something didn’t work—I won’t tell you what—and we got three chairs, two carpenters and me. We said, “Okay, we’re going to think this through until we can see this solution.” It was very specific to the scene. This young carpenter said, “I think I have it.” And he went off back to the workshop and solved it. It was very encouraging to see creative thinking going on across all departments.
It’s about building that right team and having the right people, and that’s something that you’ve been building throughout your career. What is your collaboration like with set decorator Lee Sandales and with your partner Phillis Lehmer?
We have a shorthand. Lee, oddly, worked on The Dark Knight way back as an assistant. So we have all these connections. On that film we had David Packard, our scenic artist who paints all the backings. You meet these people on your journey. And my wife was on Dark Knight, all the way back. She’s been on most [of my] films, and she is a concept designer. We have a sort of core inner department. We have these big departments, and then we have a core group where we sit around the table and really try and bash things out. That includes Paul Hayes and Mark Seath, who run construction. We have sculptor Dave Hodges, who we go to and say, “Hey, it’s something like this. Can you do a maquette?” Then there are the model makers.
It’s this very fluid, organic process, which is actually why I love making films, because we have this team. I really feel now, at this stage in my career, [that] we can really do anything. I’m so excited, oddly, about the future, because it’s a good team. Without having made all those other films, I’m not sure we could have achieved everything here. It is very different from a lot of my films. I always say that it takes all that experience to apply new ideas to old methods, because there’s no right or wrong in film design.
With production design, I always think about Roger Corman’s Poe cycle and how he and his team were able to get so much of their budget onto the screen. You do the same, because you’ve been reusing a lot of pieces from Wicked in For Good. How do you make the most of your resources?
For Morrible’s classroom, we built this really fantastic set with this incredibly vaulted ceiling, and I knew the scene wasn’t long enough to really explore that room. I knew that I could take that architecture and refinish it. Then I just needed a series of other vaulted areas for the [governor’s] mansion, and I knew the library had that. I took the domes from the library, and then I built new columns and walls to hold those domes, and we ended up with that space.
But these are the things you have to do. It was a choice. This is why I like the inner team, because with construction I can say, “Look, we’ve got this new stuff to do in Emerald City. We need to take money off this set to get that one really good, because there’s a big scene in that.” Not that there isn’t in the governor’s mansion, but you can make that work. You can’t just make Emerald City work.
You can’t skimp on the Emerald City.
Yeah [laughs]. These are the choices we make all the time, because we have to stay on budget. That’s a full stop. We have to deliver, as the stage show does, on the day. We have a management side to our department, and that’s a very complex amount of budget and scheduling with the very trustworthy people in that inner core. We’re like a little industry.
When construction is completed, what’s it like to be immersed in the world of Oz yourself?
I never knew if everyone understood three-dimensionally what we were going to give the shoot crew. Jon Chu was always with me, because I’d send him videos every day of what I was doing, but you never know with the filming crew. I love when you open a new set the actors have never seen, because they’ve been busy in rehearsals. It’s the best feeling when they engage with it and they’re dazzled and amazed because we build physical sets.
They’re not standing in front of blue and green screens, which gives them an unexpected reality that I truly believe helps them. That’s another reason to do it. Beyond this creation, it’s about the performance: You have to let them engage. Then when [cinematographer] Alice [Brooks] puts all the lights on it, it comes to life. What fun, Wicked.
What was it like to witness it all come together for the first time on the screen?
I did see an assembly [version] a while back when I was looking at a rough cut of [part] one. I walked out of that screening room thinking, ‘Wow, there’s something phenomenal here.’ You immediately go to Jon and [Myron Kerstein], the editor, and say, “That’s incredible.” Because they have to find it beyond my journey.
What was your theatrical experience like, seeing Wicked with an audience?
I just love the reactions from the crowd. I took my niece along, who’s like 10, and my daughters, who have always loved the stage show. I like hearing people sing along. Movies for the theatrical experience need to be on this level, because that’s the way we get people back to the cinema. We have to emotionally engage the audience. They can’t get that from a TV. I think that’s really what you’re looking to do.
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