On Location: production designer Martyn John on Fountain of Youth's globetrotting

Last we heard from Martyn John, he was receiving an Emmy nomination for his imaginative work on The Gentlemen. Now, he’s (re)joined forces with his longtime collaborator Guy Ritchie for Fountain of Youth, which follows two siblings (John Krasinski and Natalie Portman) on a cross-continent heist to find the mythological Fountain. Recreating historic shipwrecks, bustling Thai markets, and London’s National Gallery for this action-packed adventure film, John speaks to us about everything from flying a Chinook over the Great Pyramids to seeking out Europe’s most beautiful library.

I heard you received unprecedented access to the Pyramids of Giza. What was it like filming there?

I went to the Pyramids on holiday about two years before this film, and going back this time, I couldn’t believe they let us in. It was all the most wonderful spectacle – just the scale and history of it. Being so close to Cairo, you look over the hill and there’s the city, and it goes on for miles and miles. [The interior pyramid shots] were all replicated and filmed in a studio – we filled three stages in London’s Leavesden Studios. We wanted to locate the Pyramids near Cairo, because they are just on the city’s escarpment, and to have the protectors coming right out of Cairo into the Pyramid basin was important for the script. I loved all the aerial stuff too – the Chinook helicopter, and they let us fly drones over the Pyramids, which is sort of unprecedented.

How did you film that helicopter sequence? I imagine that would be hard to navigate.

Especially around the Pyramids! We had to have the Egyptian military fly the aircraft, and its interior was a set which I put together because it’s so noisy in Chinooks – you can’t understand any dialogue. We also had another helicopter following our Chinook – an aerial photography helicopter. We’d have about six minutes to land and get everybody off, and then it could take off again. They didn't want the helicopters staying up too long around the Pyramids because they create such a huge downdraft.

That was a whole day of filming. The logistics of getting all of the actors onto the Chinook in another area, taking off, flying round the pyramids, landing, getting them off, doing it again and again… it took all day!

Can you break down how you recreated the Lusitania shipwreck?

In the first script I received, it was originally the Titanic, which is at such a depth. So we said this is a bit far-fetched, let’s recommend the Lusitania, which sank in 200 feet of water off the coast of Ireland. Because the two were sister ships at the same time, it was agreed that’s what we’d do. So I researched what the Lusitania would have looked like when it was launched and found amazing pictures of the interiors. My buyers then went to India and shipped back furniture that we recreated exactly: we painted, dressed, and sandblasted it as if it had been underwater for a hundred years. We found out that hardwood decays more slowly in cold water – slower than steel. So, because of that, we could keep all the hardwood shapes – with the upholstery gone – but the shapes were there. We wanted things that were authentic to that boat. We even had the same carpet printed.

It was done on a gimbal, which is a platform with hydraulic rams on it, so it could rise and fall by 10 feet in 12 feet of water. We built it in a tank, which we flooded – it took a week to fill – and then once everything was dressed on the boat, we had to test it, so it went up and down – eventually with actors and stuntmen on it. We also had to dye the water because we wanted a specific colour to match the Irish Sea. We were the last people to use the tank at Leavesden [Studios] in Hertfordshire. Now it’s being demolished because they’re building more stages.

For a scene like that, is striking the balance between creative license and historical accuracy a challenge?

You can’t ever do anything perfectly. With Titanic, they had a lot of money and time to recreate it perfectly. But because we had so little time and didn't have the budget, I got the license to be artistic in the style of Lusitania. At the end of the day, the boat’s been underwater for 120 years. Things have changed and moved, so we put lots of barnacles and seaweed and a sort of degradation on it. We looked at a lot of references for colours; it’s amazing the colour that steel goes in salty water, at depth. Then I extended my colour palette. With filmwork, when you're designing, you have such an opportunity to give people an extreme version of how things were, and I just love pushing the boundaries that way.

Some of the film’s most stunning scenes take place in Vienna – particularly in the library. Where did you principally film while there? Is the restaurant from the dining scene really the best in the capital?

We did a lot of research on the most beautiful libraries in the world, and on where the Wicked Bible is kept. I think there are seven Wicked Bibles in existence, some in private collections. One [Wicked Bible] was in the Met or a library in New York, which we couldn't go to because of logistics and budget. So we ended up looking at two libraries in Paris, then one in Vienna, the [Austrian National Library in the Imperial Palace] which is full of antiquarian books which are all the same colour palette and look amazing. The spectacle of the space is just wonderful. I had to recreate the anteroom, on a stage in Leavesden, in the style of the main library.

For the restaurant, there’s a hotel called the Sacher in Vienna. I tried to go for dinner, and they were fully booked, but I loved the interior, the incredible crimson velvet walls, so I wanted to recreate that. The views from the restaurant’s window are all blue screen; it’s all a plate – a complete conglomeration of everything that is extensively Viennese.

Which place moved you the most?

Even though I’d been to Egypt two years earlier, it’s still so spectacular and unique. Everyone needs to visit the Pyramids once in their lifetime. Culturally, it’s extreme and wonderful and just makes you realise how clever people from various civilisations are, the way they build these incredible monuments to humankind.

Where was the most challenging place to film?

Because of the scale of Bangkok – the intensity, madness, energy, and getting around from one area to another took us hours. So the logistics of filming in Bangkok were difficult. Those chase sequences took place at about eight different locations over two weeks, which was challenging, but we had a great team that made it straightforward. They’re used to living in that madness, so it’s normal for them, but mad to us.

What about that Thai market John Krasinksi drives through on his motorbike?

I created that. It was a disused building!

How did you go about filming that London car chase?

Filming anything in London is difficult, so we went to Liverpool. There’s a beautiful gallery there called the Walker Gallery, which has amazing paintings, so we thought it could double for the National Gallery. Because we were only allowed to film in the National Gallery in the evenings or overnight, and we needed to do it for three days, it wasn’t going to work. Also, because Liverpool is a very film-friendly city, they closed roads for us. So we could do all these amazing car sequences in controlled environments and have our stunt performers driving cars amongst the hero car. Plus, that hero car was three different cars: there was one you could drive, there was one that was towed behind another car, and there was a third on a lowloader. So you could get all of the shots with the main actors driving safely, or with your stunt performers driving. One of the stuntmen even had a mask of John Krasinski on, they made a cask of his head and he wore that as he drove. You can’t ever tell but the amount of work that goes into filming these sequences is huge.

Adventure is explored in the film as a form of reckoning. Natalie Portman’s character notably says “How we get there matters.” Are there any parallels between this and your own process?

Sometimes, when you’re making a film, you have a script and basically have to throw it up in the air, then put it back together in a different order. Sometimes, you have to be quite lateral about how you achieve certain sets or sequences or even just put stuff together. With the car chases, which we decided to take out of London, I had to match buildings and streets [in Liverpool] with the Liverpool Film Office. It’s all about ripping up the rulebook and then writing your own rulebook so you can get your product made to the best possible quality.

When it comes to the journey, it’s not about how you get there. Have you watched Race Across the World? Different teams go different ways but get to the same checkpoint at the end. Filmmaking and designing is like that. It doesn't matter how you get there, but do so in the most efficient way you can.

“Fountain of Youth” is now available on Apple TV+