In this episode of Geektown Talks To..., Dave catches up with production designer Rob Tokarz as ‘Hacks’ takes its final bow.
Rob first joined the Emmy-winning comedy as an art director in Season 2 before stepping up to production designer, helping shape the increasingly ambitious world surrounding Deborah Vance, Ava Daniels and the wonderfully strange collection of people orbiting them.
We last spoke to Rob around a year ago, just before he began prep on Season 5. At that point, he had no idea what the writers were about to throw at him. Now the series has ended, he returns to reveal just how enormous that final challenge became.
Rob talks about creating an astonishing number of sets across the season, jumping between Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York and Paris, recreating locations viewers might assume were real, and working alongside visual effects to make some extremely complicated sequences appear completely effortless.
We also get into the return to Deborah Vance’s Vegas world, designing pieces of her history that had previously existed only in dialogue, the painstaking details that might never actually be noticed on screen, and how the production design quietly helps tell the story of both Deborah and Ava.
Rob also reflects on joining ‘Hacks’ as an art director before eventually taking charge of its production design, the confidence he gained over several seasons, the friendships forged behind the scenes, and which sets from his time on the show will stay with him.
Plus, with ‘Hacks’ now finished, we talk about what sort of worlds Rob would love to build next... and whether one particular piece of the show might just be sitting in storage ready for a possible return.
Listen, subscribe and explore more interviews, TV news and UK air dates at Geektown.co.uk, along with Geektown Radio and Geekstorians.
","author_name":"David Elliott"}