Stefania Cella

Designing sets on sound stages and bringing locations to life in major cities and random villages on every continent is the way Stefania Cella has spent the last 20 years. Born and raised in Milan, Italy, and educated in theatre and art history, Cella developed a design style highly influenced by the interplay of light, shadow, and color. The emotion of the lighting and the aesthetic package in which it is presented provide a subtle context that alters reality to enhance a story.

These elements also exist in everyday life, but instead of enhancing stories, they impact the emotional and aesthetic quality of spaces. It is Cella’s sunny studio library, tucked away in the Hollywood Hills, where she has researched, prepared, and found inspiration for more than 20 films. Some of those include works with Nick Cassavetes (John Q), Barry Levinson (Man of the Year, What Just Happened), and Paolo Sorrentino (This Must Be the Place, The Great Beauty, and Loro).

The Great Beauty brought her the highest award in Italy as best designer in 2014, the David di Donatello. In 2015, she collaborated with director Scott Cooper on the Boston-based period film Black Mass, starring Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger. She followed this achievement with her designs for Downsizing, directed by Alexander Payne, and White Boy Rick, directed by Yann Demage.

After her third collaboration with Paolo Sorrentino for the epic four-hour feature on Tycoon Silvio Berlusconi’s Loro, she worked with Noah Hawley for the astronaut’s based story, Lucy in the Sky, starring Natalie Portman. Follow the experience with Noah Hawley. Stefania was interested in developing her technical skills and started to collaborate with studios like Marvel to create fantastic worlds.

Comics was a natural technical transition to experience a new language. She collaborated with Sony on Morbius, followed by Moon Knight with Oscar Isaac, directed by Mohamed Diab. Returning to her theatrical education and sensibility, she collaborates once again with Scott Cooper in The Pale Blue Eye, a gothic tale set in 1820 West Point with controlled colours and tones and a language very familiar to her style.

She developed, designed, and built sets for Blade in 2023, a relaunch of the franchise set in 1920, with Mahershala Ali.