‘Conclave’ Movie Built a Sistine Chapel Replica in 10 Weeks

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for “Conclave,” now playing in theaters.

It’s no secret that the Vatican prohibits filming inside the Sistine Chapel, and the headquarters of the Catholic Church was not going to make exceptions for Edward Berger‘s “Conclave.”

Based on the Robert Harris thriller of the same name, the film stars Ralph Fiennes as Cardinal Lawrence, who is charged with overseeing the election of a new pope after the current pope dies. It was up to production designer Suzie Davies to take on the mammoth task and get creative in recreating one of the world’s most visited tourist attractions, Michelangelo’s piece de resistance.

Enter Rome’s Cinecitta studios – which is no stranger to housing re-creations. Davies found incomplete flat-packed scenery from a previous production. “It was packed down into flats which were eight by four feet, and we built them back up,” she explains.

But the set needed work with flooring, repainting and carpeting. Davies found the local artisans who had built the original set and called on them. “The painting crew was extraordinary, and we put the Sistine Chapel together again in 10 weeks,” says Davies.

The result was a seamless reconstruction.

Later in the film, during another vote, an explosion rocks the chapel, causing dust and rubble to fall on the cardinals. The explosion aftermath was all smoke and mirrors, and came together with the magic of special effects.

A special effects rig was placed as high as possible on the studio ceiling — “about 60-70 feet high, and they placed pistons that were filled with lightweight rocks and dust that falls on the cardinals,” Davies explains. Instead of stuntmen, “It was the cast and background artists who were underneath all that rubble. We had to be careful with the dust so people didn’t inhale it. We did about four takes of that explosion. I had a brilliant props team who would come in and clean everything down, and we’d reset and go again,” Davies says. Though a scene like that could be very time-consuming, “it was pretty quick because everyone was so prepped. It was military precision.”

The year the story is set in remains ambiguous, and Davies and Berger wanted to show how the secretive and intriguing world of the conclave has developed over the years. “We played with a juxtaposition of what we think we know about the Vatican, and what Edward and I decided was going to be our world behind closed doors.”

That world was the Casa Santa Marta, the residence housing cardinals during the conclave. Very few priests inhabit it. With a lot of the drama taking place there, Davies wanted that world to feel “slightly more sinister and allude to something underhanded going on.”

She says, “It was about creating an almost hermetically sealed prison, albeit a very posh prison, but with modern accouterments as well.” Berger embraced the idea of cardinals on their phones, smoking and vaping to add beats to each character. Those details helped Davies in working out a backstory. “There’s not a lot of dressing in the rooms that they inhabited. Some got a better deal than others. How did John Lithgow’s character manage to get a palatial place?” Davies asks. “By the end, you realize he’s been wheeling and dealing all along, so he probably paid someone off to get that room.”

In contrast, Cardinal Lawrence isn’t as duplicitous, and Davies leaned into that. “It doesn’t cross his mind that he should get a better room. He’s probably on the ground floor, next to the elevators.”

Through research, Davies learned a lot of the rooms were unused and nearly pristine. But it was about detail. They have the same bed, but each headboard was a different color, or the throw was a different color, and it was about who had gold, who had bright green or who had red?”

Davies credits her fellow department heads for the collaboration – cinematographer Stéphane Fontaine and costume designer Lisy Christl. “Those rooms on their own would have been very dull and airless in the wrong direction, had Stéphane not lit them so beautifully, and Lisy dressed those characters in those wonderful costumes.”

Davies worked closely with Fontaine to help deliver the idea of opposing themes. Davies explains, “We found the whole film was about balancing light and dark, honesty and lies, gold and silver, contemporary and traditional.” While she incorporated that into her sets, Fontaine worked that into his lighting. Casa Santa Marta a visually darker world with linear patterns and darker lighting. In contrast, “The Sistine Chapel was lighter and had a sense of freedom,” Davies says.