Anne Seibel started her career as a set designer on international productions shooting in France, thanks to her English language skills. She was the Paris art director for the features Munich, The Devil Wears Prada and the TV show Sex and the City, as well as supervising art director of Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette for production designer K.K Barrett.
In 2011 Seibel designed Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. They collaborated again on To Rome with Love and Magic in the Moonlight. Her other credits include Ralph Fiennes’ The White Crow, Agnieszka Holland’s miniseries Rosemary’s Baby, Damien Chazelle’s The Eddy and Emily in Paris, for which she received an ADG and two Emmy nominations. Anne is the Head of the Production Design Program at the La Fémis Film School in Paris.
Anne Seibel has spent her career building worlds that viewers can feel. In this conversation, the production designer behind Emily in Paris, Midnight in Paris, The New Look and more reveals how she creates spaces that make audiences dream.
As Emily in Paris approaches the end of a seven-year run, Seibel opens up about the emotional weight of closing a chapter, why the show resonates as a kind of bonbon for viewers and how Paris can be shown from a completely new point of view.
She also shares the craft behind her most iconic sets, from Gertrude Stein’s apartment to the illusion-making details that transform real locations into cinematic worlds.
Gil (Owen Wilson) in his own dream state in Midnight In Paris.
"They want to dream, so let them dream."
Emily (Lily Collins) and Mindy (Ashley Park) sit at a cafe in Emily in Paris.
Christian Dior (Ben Mendelsohn) in The New Look.
"Sometimes I feel that I'm creating worlds to escape the real one."
Gil meets Adriana (Marion Cotillard) in Midnight in Paris.
