The penultimate episode of “George & Tammy” airs January 1 on Showtime with stars Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain as George Jones and Tammy Wynette – and over 120 rigorously crafted sets reflecting the tumultuous personal and skilled lives of the iconic country music couple in their 30s years. -annual period.
“We had over 300 people in the art department, between carpenters, painters, drapers, builders, set designers … and there was an enormous amount of set design,” George & Tammy production designer Jonah Markowitz told The Post. “With a project like this, which we went from 1965 to 1995, you could have to consistently remind yourself what era you are in – and what is going on on in George and Tammy’s story.”
Markowitz (Generation, Room 104, Mapplethorpe) said he used colours to obscure the various eras of Jones and Wynette’s lives and careers, who were married from 1969 to 1975 and continued to perform together after their divorce.
“I’ve made movies where I used different colours for various characters, worlds, a long time, or flashbacks,” he said. “It was an interesting progression of the palette because [the story] didn’t go in a linear direction. When George and Tammy meet [in the mid-’60s] its colours are reds and greens and she is at all times yellow, and once they are at their best, we enter this blue world. We checked out a whole lot, if not hundreds, of reference images from these periods.”
![Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain as George and Tammy. They are sitting on a tour bus at a small round table; Tammy laughs and puts her hand on her chest, and George sits next to her and puts his arm around her. It's the early seventies.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/george-and-tammy-show-2.jpg?w=1024)
Markowitz said the team tried a latest approach to using color in the Seventies “George & Tammy” scenes.
“I do lots of period work, and the way in which we represent the 70s is at all times with the identical colours: brown, avocado, orange… We desired to do something different where we broke the mold a bit, so we relied on lots of really brilliant colours and primary colours that were absolutely all over the place [in the ’70s] … their country estate [in the series] it’s light turquoise and the bedroom is cherry – just not the colours you are used to seeing in ’70s movies.”
Markowitz and his team also accurately recreated key historical locations from the Jones/Wynette saga: Ryman’s Auditoriumto home Grand Ole Opry until 1974; Legendary Nashville Studio Quonset Hutwhere Jones and Wynette recorded together; their quite a few tour buses; and their apartment at ul Landmark Hotel in Las Vegas where, in 1971, they became the primary country music artists to headline Sin City (with Jones not attending the premiere).
“The Grand Ole Opry has moved out of the Ryman Auditorium, but we had the chance to shoot in the unique auditorium … and we actually built [Grand Ole Opry] set from 1968, which was an incredible experience for us,” he said. “We also built the grand barn of the Grand Ole Opry, which has been the backdrop for years; we built two of them at different scales for production purposes while we were shooting in two different locations.
![Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain as George and Tammy record together at Quonset Hut Studio in the 1970s. They face each other; George is wearing headphones and smiling at Tammy, who is smiling and wearing a red shirt with a white collar.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/george-and-tammy-4.jpg?w=1024)
“People watched the Grand Ole Opry in their homes every week, so we actually needed to get the vibe right,” he said. “It is the opening scene, so that you’re kind of going to have country fans leaning in or leaning out of the show.”
Markowitz et al. he also recreated Quonset Hut Studio (which closed its doors in 1982).
“We had pictures of the unique studio and … We tried to be true to form,” he said. “We desired to make it real and complete, so we built these partitions that had pieces of glass angled at 45 degrees at face level, which wasn’t real. But [director John Hillcoat] I at all times desired to have the ability to shoot and see each George and Tammy, and not only once they were standing next to one another and singing. So we designed ways he could either shoot through the glass or use it as a mirrored image to vary the dynamic – and use the design to inform a story.”
Creating multiple tour buses owned by Jones and Wynette has been a significant challenge, Markowitz said. “There have been about five different buses … and there have been really intense scenes in such a small space … so conceptually it was cool to know that those scenes are really necessary.”
After the buses arrived, Markowitz discovered that they might not function in their original form because Michael Shannon (as Jones) was too tall to walk comfortably. “We ended up welding two bus frames for 4 period buses and making them a bit of taller so Mike could stand and all of the panels coming out in order that they could shoot and we jumping back and forth between the buses,” he said. “The decorating team went crazy. George Jones went a bit overboard, so we tried to recreate his red bus. It’s just wild. I feel he spent about $150,000 on the bus.
![Photograph of the Landmark Hotel penthouse designed by Jonah Markowitz for](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/george-and-tammy-set-1.jpg?w=1024)
Markowitz said he had essentially the most fun designing George and Tammy’s luxury suite on the Landmark Hotel during their ill-fated trip to Las Vegas.
“It was very exciting,” he said. “It builds on each the plot and the characters and is the high point of the series, and George just leaves Tammy alone. Some researchers have obtained the unique plans from the penthouse; it’s funny, in those days they weren’t that luxurious or grand…they didn’t make these palatial suites.
“I immediately tripled it in size with 20-foot windows,” he said. “I wanted the size to be huge, to make Tammy Wynette feel small for once. She’s the headliner of an enormous show at the height of her profession with a primary song on the charts, and I wanted the camera to be thus far away from her that she would look tiny as if Vegas were about to swallow her.
“I designed this red bed for her, and above it, a second level with a circular opening with a balcony … to point out her super loneliness – and to balance probability and history.”
“George & Tammy” airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on Showtime.