published by The Ankler.
For Hacks production designer Rob Tokarz, The Anker’s recent Art & Crafts live event also doubled as a reunion with his former boss, Pachinko production designer Ruth Ammon.
“I was Ruth’s art PA on my first union show — Heroes season 4,” Tokarz says on stage at the American Society of Cinematographers’ Clubhouse in Los Angeles on Aug. 7. “I learned so much.”
Ammon, an Emmy nominee this year for the Apple TV+ drama series, received three nominations for NBC’s Heroes, including a nod for the superhero drama’s series finale.
“I just want to say I am a huge fan of Hacks, and between you and the set decoration, I just get so much joy out of that,” Ammon says to her former PA. “Each season, it gets better, and it’s just such a relief from some of the work that I do. Congratulations to you.”
The mutual admiration society between Ammon, Tokarz and Art & Crafts moderator Claire Kaufman, SDSA (an Oscar nominee for Oppenheimer and an Emmy nominee this year for The Studio) was evident during their conversation at the ASC Clubhouse. But the bulk of their discussion focused on how Tokarz and Ammon each created the disparate (but all equally intricate) worlds of their shows.
In Tokarz’s case, the three-time Emmy nominee (all for Hacks) was required to create the set of a late-night talk show. Season 4 of Hacks, Emmy’s reigning best comedy series winner, mainly focuses on comedian Deborah Vance (Jean Smart) and the launch of her new late-night series. The vast set and its backstage area are the home of several key moments throughout the season, including Deborah’s surprising choice to quit live on air during “A Slippery Slope,” the episode for which Tokarz is nominated.
“We took over Stage 1 on the Universal Studios Lot, which used to be Kelly Clarkson’s stage and Conan O’Brien’s stage for The Tonight Show,” Tokarz says. “When it came to Deborah being the first female host of a late-night show [in the world of Hacks], we very specifically didn’t want to have a feminine set. That was a really big directive. But we also knew that we wanted to honor the institution of late night.”
On Pachinko, Ammon’s brief is vast: The Apple TV+ show, based on the 2017 novel by Min Jin Lee, focuses on four generations of a Korean family and spans multiple decades (from 1915 to 1989). For “Chapter Thirteen,” Ammon’s nominated episode from season 2, the action primarily takes place in Japan from 1945, just before the U.S dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to 1950. Yoseb (Han Jun-woo), who is the son of the series’ central Korean family, is working to raise his family in Nagasaki and experiences racism there, as well as the fallout after the bombs destroy his city.
“I love color and texture,” Ammon says. “I started as an artist, and then a decorator, to get into the business. So fabrics and textures and light, those are the things that drive my passion for it.” But for a show like Pachinko, she adds, research is also key to her work.
“I have shelves of books that are all in Japanese, black and white photos. It’s a complex history,” Ammon says. “You don’t want to mess it up, because someone’s going to know. It was mind-blowing, having that pressure. It’s still a difficult history between Japan and Korea. So the Korean historians would say one thing, and the Japanese historians would say another. And so at a certain point, you go with what fits, but it was terrifying.”
