Pizzini’s background in interior design came in handy when it came to crafting the look of Carol’s home. According to Pizzini: “I started when the Santa Fe style was really at its height, and I just kind of dug into some of that but modernized it. I didn’t do a late ‘80s Santa Fe because it’s very different, but I was very familiar with that type of architecture and design.”
In addition to its star billing, Albuquerque also sneaks into a few supporting roles. Another storyline in the show follows survivor Manousos Oviedo who manages a self-storage facility in Paraguay. His office and storage unit were built in Albuquerque. On a long hike to New Mexico, Manousos passes through the treacherous Darién Gap: “We had to bring in a ton of greens and manufactured a ton of styrofoam rocks and other scenery, so we created parts of the jungle for the Darién Gap in Albuquerque. That way, we were allowed to burn a car and hack at the vegetation because we can’t touch the vegetation and stuff in Cubo de La Galga,” where many of the rainforest scenes were filmed. “The advantage was, I had scouted this place way before we were getting ready to shoot, so, I had all these photographs that we could match the rocks, the plants, everything, for our little pieces of the Gap in Albuquerque, and then we could shoot all the wides in La Palma,” says Pizzini.
In a flashback sequence when Carol and her manager/partner Helen visit a Norwegian ice hotel, the crew recreated the Arctic surroundings completely in Albuquerque. “We use lots of references for settings like the ice hotel, which we had these amazing sculptors carve, and we did a lot of research on how that whole process works, and how they come up with these ideas, with ice hotels, they always start from scratch and hire artists to come in and create these rooms.”
With other sets such as the Peruvian village constructed in nearby Pecos, New Mexico, just north of Santa Fe, filming “across continents” was as simple as driving up and down a few streets: “We could shoot the Peruvian Village, and then the next day, go to the Darién Gap, and that worked out really well.”
Bilbao
When Carol requests a conference of the immune, the group gathers in the hollowed-out halls of Bilbao Airport (BIO). Reflecting on the importance of the scene, Pizzini says, “The Bilbao Airport was a big deal—that was an anchor for us to start. We ended up shooting at another Santiago Calatrava building, who was the architect who did the Bilbao Airport, and we clearly couldn’t shoot in the Bilbao Airport. We shot the exterior, but we couldn’t shoot inside, so we ended up finding this place in Oviedo, Spain.” The former congressional building was transformed into the interior of the airport overnight. “We were able to get in there and turn that into our Bilbao Airport. But we only had 24 hours to do it, so we had to bring in all the seating and make the signs exactly like they have at the Bilbao Airport. It worked out great, because it was completely empty, and we owned it. That was the challenge of shooting the show—these places have to be empty.”
