‘Daisy Jones & the Six’: Why Shooting at Actual L.A. Rock ‘n’ Roll Landmarks Was a ‘Gift to the Actors’
variety.comPat Saperstein Deputy Editor They say L.A. has no history, and yet, thankfully there are still enough vestiges of the Laurel Canyon folk-rock scene of the 1970s to fully stock a throwback series like “Daisy Jones & the Six.” Set among the flowy dresses and shaggy mustaches of the city’s rock ‘n’ roll heyday, the series gives aspiring rockers Daisy Jones and Billy Dunne, played by Riley Keough and Sam Claflin, plenty of classic places to hang out, giving the gauzy musical series a grounding in a specific time and place.
The show’s production designer, Jessica Kender, explains that in some cases, it was more important to capture the feeling of the era than to use the exact location.
A perfect example is the front of the Six’s house in Laurel Canyon, which was designed to evoke the iconic cover of “Crosby, Stills & Nash” with the band sitting on a brown couch in front of a long-ago torn-down house.
But when the vintage locations were available, the team felt it was important to shoot there. “Being in the real places provides this intangible quality — it’s sort of a gift to the actors to be in the actual places where this beautiful music actually happened,” she says. “Our director said being in the places where this music is played will change the way our actors behave.” Kender wanted to make sure the show looked as gritty and golden as the ’70s really were. “We stayed away from the bright, Austin Powers-like colors, and tried to stay more in the tones that were actually there, like the browns and the yellows,” Kender explains.
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