A key scene in Amazon MGM Studios’ *Hedda* influenced where the film—an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s play *Hedda Gabler*—was shot. At Deadline’s Contenders Film: Los Angeles event, writer, director, and producer Nia DaCosta shared insights into the criteria the filmmaking team presented to property owners while scouting locations for the 1950s England-set film.
Production designer Cara Brower, who couldn’t attend the event, laid the foundation of the location search. DaCosta explained, “The house had to be old and have a gravitas to it. So [Cara] looked at 200 houses, and I looked at five in the end because she did a lot of the groundwork. But the questions were, ‘Can we shoot a gun off the roof? Can we shoot fireworks and annoy your neighbors? Can we drop a chandelier in your home?’”
DaCosta added, “That takes a lot of houses off the list pretty quickly. But then she found this amazing house, designed that chandelier, and we dropped it in there, protected. It’s a listed original stone house, with original glass and a 300-year-old orangery.”
Star and producer Tessa Thompson chimed in, mentioning, “We weren’t allowed to drink water in the house, but we could drop that chandelier.”
DaCosta revealed that she wrote the adaptation in 2018 with Thompson in mind for the role. “It came from a lot of passion and energy. One, because I was writing it on spec—it was something I really wanted to do, an adaptation I really wanted to tackle. And two, because I was writing it during the Sundance I did not get into,” she said. “So I was like, ‘Instead of being angry and being on Twitter, I’m just going to use all that energy and write the first draft of the script.’ And that’s what I did.”
The making of the film faced several delays due to the pandemic, the double strikes in Hollywood, and casting changes. During this period, DaCosta worked on the tentpole pic *The Marvels* (2023) and then reunited with director of photography Sean Bobbitt on *Hedda*.
“In that process, I was like, ‘Oh man, I really want to get back to my voice and my authorship in a more direct way. Hedda kept popping up. Sean Bobbitt and I just became really close [on *The Marvels*],” DaCosta shared. “His movies are all very dark, so we would be making up really dark things on set about what was happening to the characters as opposed to what we were shooting. And I was like, ‘Oh, he’s gonna be great for *Hedda*.’”
Check back Monday for the panel video.
https://deadline.com/2025/11/hedda-chandelier-scene-nia-dacosta-interview-1236618905/