'Steer clear of loud lamps' and more decor wisdom from Jade Healy, production designer for, 'I, Tonya'

It only takes a few moments on the phone with Jade Healy, the Canadian production designer behind some of 2017's buzziest films, to realize just how deep her penchant for nostalgia runs. "I don't like new things," she laughs, in the midst of an excited rant spent extolling the virtues of estate sales. "I much prefer something that has a story."

It's fitting then that Healy's own story began in Montreal, a time capsule of a city that carries an old world feel in its crooked cobblestone, where she spent much of her young adulthood, before moving to Los Angeles to pursue a career in film. Though she initially worked as a producer on projects like Asia Argento's The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, Healy quickly found her niche in production design. Now, aside from crafting a killer Instagram, packed with dreamy desert exteriors and sepia-splashed living rooms, the Montreal-native is responsible for all aspects of the look behind films like I, Tonya, A Ghost Story and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, from sketching the initial concept drawings, to ensuring each element of the set sits just so.

We caught up with the designer ahead of this year's Academy Awards to get the details on how to apply her sourcing, shopping and styling strategies to decorating our own spaces — and learn how to create a room that tells a story all on its own.

How has growing up in Montreal influenced your personal design style? Does any of that seep into the projects you've worked on?

Whenever I return to Montreal for a visit, I'm always just astounded by this sort of nostalgia that [the city] still has. So many streets are still just kind of stuck in time, which is so great. I always photograph in Montreal when I'm back, looking at storefronts and restaurants and I think, "My God, one day I'm going to use this as a reference to build this cafe or this storefront," so it inspires me in that way I would say.

Recently when I did I, Tonya, my history with figure skating in Montreal definitely influenced me. I was constantly thinking back to the ice rinks that I skated at, and sort of all the ice rinks in Montreal, where there's an abundance of ice skating. And of course I shot in Atlanta where there was like three. I was just lamenting the lack of ice rinks…

Obviously it changes a bit from project to project, but can you take us through your sourcing and shopping process? Where do you start?

It starts with me. I do the initial lookbook, and I'm pulling images from everywhere. I can spend 20-30 hours just on the first lookbook that I sit down with the director and present before I even have the job. It's a really thorough process of trying to understand what I think the movie or the story should look like, what the world should look like. And then I'm looking at a lot of photobooks, a lot of artists.

And then I start dialing into each set. I use [the online photo storage service] Smug Mug mostly, and I have a folder for everything — these are the curtains, these are the set dressings ... this is the bedding. It becomes pretty clear what I want and then my buyers will start looking. In L.A. it's a different scenario, 'cause it's so shopped out, you end up at prop houses a lot. But when you're in some weird town like Cincinnati, Ohio, you're just making a lot of connections with locals. Sometimes you're in their houses and you're going, "Hey, do you want to rent out that lamp?" Sometimes there's antique stores, thrift stores. It really does depend what you're trying to achieve. The world you're trying to create will dictate what stores you're going to and what your approach is.

Any tips for sorting out the junk from the hidden gems in those scenarios? How do you find that lamp and know that's the lamp for you, and it's not just another one you're going to find a million of?

Well, lamps are a good one to ask me about because I'm so particular. We call them practicals. I always tell my decorator, the lamp is the test. Because a lamp in film, or in any kind of space, you don't want it to be so distracting that it's calling attention to itself. It's already a light form. It's emanating light already. So I'm always trying to find a delicate balance of finding a beautiful, interesting lamp that isn't too loud. That's what I like when it comes to practicals. I can just tell.

When it comes to the composition of the room, are there any hard and fast rules you follow when starting on a design?

One of the things I'll tell new designers — or even people who are just trying to redecorate their apartment — is, you get the right curtains, you get the right paint colour, you get the right lamps and the right rugs and you really don't need much other stuff. The other stuff is icing on the cake. You can figure out the rest of the space by feel. Those are the cornerstones. And then you have your centrepiece, like the couch. Every room has a centrepiece, the bedframe, the couch… you pinpoint what those things are first and then you build from there. You can't just go willy nilly buying a bunch of stuff all over the place and then hope it works. You gotta start with one thing, and let that be the thing that's like, "this is the special couch that's going to dictate the room, these are the curtains" and then you can start picking your side pieces.

So much of what you do requires creating a space that actually looks and feels lived in without being distracting. I think that's something all of us struggle with in our own homes. How do you keep a space looking personal without it getting too cluttered?

What I hate about a lot of Airbnb places now is that they're so impersonal, they're so un-cozy, they're like sterile. It used to be that Airbnbs were like people's homes, and there was something really interesting about that — and cozy cause there was this feeling that they were lived in. Now all these people are just buying apartments and renting them out, and they just have this hotel, sterile quality, which is the worst. When I go on Airbnb I'm literally looking for people's homes... I want to see their photo frames, I want to see their art and their personal layers of life. That's what's interesting to me. So when I'm building sets, obviously sometimes I'm just doing an office space that's meant to have no layers. I did a movie called The Killing of a Sacred Deer which was [director] Yorgos Lanthimos, who did The Lobster, and that movie does not want to be lived in. It wants to be almost surreal. The opposite of comfortable. Right now, I just finished a set we're shooting today, which is meant to feel like it's been a house where for 50 years people have lived there and I had to decorate it in a weekend.

Books are the best. They'll always give you that [lived in] feeling. A nice wall that has bookshelves across it will always give you that feeling of coziness, comfort. There's just something about books. Books and rugs. And bookshelves.

You mentioned wallpaper before, and I wanted to ask you specifically about that. How do you go about finding say, the patterned wallpaper in LaVona's living room in I, Tonya, or other things that you can't necessarily scour an antique market for?

There are places that sell vintage wallpaper. But I can never tell anybody where I get those, because then everyone will buy them and then I won't be able to use them on movies. [Laughs]. There's places online where you can find vintage wallpaper, but it's really expensive. It's like $150 a roll. There are companies that do reprints of vintage wallpaper that's pretty great. There's a company called Eade's [Wallpaper and Fabrics] that I like. You have to sift through a lot of books, but they're a small company in New York and they're really easy to deal with. They've got wallpaper for like $30 a roll and if you spend the time to go through the catalogue you can find some pretty amazing vintage-looking wallpaper.

Are there any go-to blogs or sites you use for design inspo? Are you scanning Pinterest like the rest of us or is your research usually tailored more to the individual project?

Of course I'm on Pinterest. Especially if I'm doing something contemporary. If I'm doing something period, they'll be some stuff on Pinterest as well, but I have a lot of blogs that I follow, photographers' blogs. Photographers who capture interior spaces from other countries like Russia. The spaces there that are contemporary still look amazing and they're such a great source of inspiration for me. Those are different kinds of sets, they're weird and interesting. They don't always translate for designing your home. My favourite sets are weird ones that you don't always want to recreate.

What are your best tips for designing a room when you're trying to stretch every dollar?

There's online auctions that you can find that are insane. Estate sales are amazing. I get into estate sales before they go public and there's all this stuff that they just throw in the garbage and I'm like, "No! Don't throw away that stack of weird papers. I need that!" You find weird art, great little projects, just amazing stuff. I design sets that are new of course, but I much prefer something that has a story, because I'm in the business of storytelling. Estate sales intrinsically have a story. You're picking up an object from someone's home and already it comes with a story, so it's already adding that extra layer to the world that you're creating.

This interview has been edited and condensed.