Whether enjoying a long walk on a beach with a magazine in the hand; solving Jigsaw puzzles at home; or creating festive DIYs; Claire Kaufman’s passion for learning and creativity extends beyond personal space. The seasoned set decorator is currently at the pinnacle of her career, and why not, when you’ve just finished a film with a living legend like Christopher Nolan, you earn every bragging right in the world.
But Kaufman is different. She chooses to remain grounded and eagerly awaits opportunities to work on more projects. For that matter, she even has a CV updated on her website which showcases the list of films, TV, and commercial projects she has been a part of. But when Oppenheimer was pitched to her, she immediately knew, it was no ordinary project and would be an uphill battle.
“I came on to Oppenheimer as a set decorator late. Ruth De Jong (Production Designer) had called me and said that she and Chris had decided to make a creative change. Would you be interested in coming on board? And of course, no one is going to say no,” Kaufman disclosed in an exclusive interview with Homecrux.
“I was like, wait, and am I crazy? I’m going to do a Christopher Nolan movie with no prep. What am I,” Kaufman recalled her early thoughts upon being offered the charge of set decoration in Oppenheimer. Ruth De Jong, however, had full measure of her abilities and managed to loop her in.
The Southern Californian designer likes to do her homework before joining a new project, but Oppenheimer turned out to be an accidental calling. “My favorite thing to do for any project is the research part because that’s where great ideas are born, and not having all that time on Oppenheimer to be able to do that was gutting. But life sometimes is about happy accidents and there are things in that film that are happy accidents too,” she added.
Kaufman and her Oppenheimer odyssey though began much later; the seeds of her destiny were sown pretty early. She was raised in a stylishly appointed home by her creatively inclined mother. This was Kaufman’s early exposure to aesthetics which set the stage for her future endeavors. From here on Kaufman’s foray into set decoration was an unexpected turn of fate.
“I was in San Diego at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) and had always been creative and liked graphic arts. I was trying to find my path and wanted a job on Melrose at a clothing store, which I got, but I happened to be staying with two people, who had already started working in music videos at the time.”
“I was at the house one day and they were like, we need someone to work on this music video. And one of them said, hire Claire, she’s creative. And they did. I asked myself where has this been all my life? How come I didn’t know about this? And so I did music videos for a while.” “Slowly, I started art directing music videos that led to commercial work, which I did almost for 10 years. One thing led to another, and that led to the rest,” she explains.
From music videos to commercials, her career trajectory ultimately led her to the realm of filmmaking where she was a part of projects like Little Women and White Noise that garnered her acclaim as a set decorator.
The pivotal moment in Kaufman’s career, however, arrived with Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer. “I was thrilled to know I have been shortlisted for the film. I obviously knew who Oppenheimer was, but I was so excited to sort of see what Christopher Nolan’s take was going to be on this, how he was going to evolve this so important historical figure. Now when it’s all done, I’m hugely proud of the film,” she stated.
As a set decorator, it was Claire’s first historical film, and she needed to ace the authenticity of Oppenheimer’s historical representation. “When I do period work, I don’t want the upholstery and some of the furnishings to look like they’ve come from 1930.”
“There were things like the Rad Lab that we did, where I really wanted to find things that were so believable and period correct. I wanted them to look like they had a patina to them so they look like they’ve been used in this setting. It was working off the research and just finding the right pieces. If we couldn’t find them, we’d manufacture them. We in fact manufactured a lot of these mechanical pieces in the Rad Lab,” she revealed.
Working closely and drawing from extensive research, she alongside Ruth meticulously created set after set, including the remarkable Trinity Tower. “The first thing I had to get in production was the tent that’s over the bomb and we worked so closely because we wanted this idea. It’s such an important piece to go over, that you could see these lights and these shadows and just the right fabric, but then also trying to find something strong enough to withhold the elements.”
“Every time the wind would pick up while they were shooting, I would hold my breath and hope for the best, but was incredible standing next to the bomb that had been built by effects and the prop master,” she stated.
Addressing the potential recognition at the Oscars, Kaufman remained humble, expressing her hopes without dwelling on the outcome. After years in the industry having worked with Greta Gerwig, Christopher Nolan, and Noah Baumbach, Klaire remains dedicated to her craft, dismissing aspirations for a role beyond set decoration. For Kaufman, each project still brings the same level of excitement and commitment, and ultimately helps in enduring her love for the art of set decoration.
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