Building a nation is no small task, but that's the responsibility that fell to Emmy-nominated Production Designer Hannah Beachler and her team for Black Panther. They weren't just recreating a comic book country for Ryan Coogler's Marvel movie, nor were they using one particular location as a stand-in for the MCU's version of Wakanda, they were bringing a hidden civilization, ancient culture, and never-before-seen technology to life in a truly original way.

During our set visit last year, we had a chance to learn how Wakanda came into being from Beachler herself. The nation pulls inspiration from all sorts of nations and cultures across Africa and from locations all over the world. Beachler went into great detail about her path of discovery for the look of Wakanda, Black Panther, and the movie's various locations and people, many of which you can find in our "Things to Know" article. For even more, read our interview with Beachler below:

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Image via Marvel Studios

Where did you find inspiration in the African elements as far as the architecture and stuff like that and mixing it with the tech?

Beachler: I started poking around and looking at really modern architects who have designed in Africa, all over Africa, east and west Africa. And someone who I really fell in love with was Zaha Hadid, who has passed away, but she is one of the foremost architects. So I started looking at her. Her architecture is very voluptuous and very flowing, very organic. So I thought this would be good. And the more I started digging into Senegal and Nigeria and finding things, while not necessarily futuristic-looking, very modern in their sensibilities as far as the way they're putting together their elements and the colors that they use. I was struck by that. So I took a lot of that in. And a lot of it does come from Nigeria. I think in Kenya, Uganda, Johannesburg was another one, where no matter where you go, you really do see that they're always keeping in mind the tradition.

So a lot of traveling around. We would be up in Golden Gate, which is the border of Lesotho, and we're looking at these mountains, and Ryan says to me, 'That looks like a rondavel.' And I was like, 'Yeah, it does.' And we actually went to Blyde River Canyon, a place called Three Rondavels, where you see the rock that looks like these huts. We were really taken by the idea that, however many tens of thousands of years ago, people were looking at these, and thinking, 'This is how we build. This is how we create our homes' and finding that inspiration within nature.

So a lot of it came from that. But a lot of it did come from the architecture that's currently there and beyond what anyone would really - think it's a place sort of like Singapore, where you're not really thinking it's going to have more Chinook-type places, more sort of rondavel, and then you just get blown away by seeing these super modern places that you would never expect to be there, in the middle of what was almost nowhere. I can promise you there were several times when I was like, 'I think I'm at least 100 miles away from any Starbucks. So I'm pretty sure we're in the middle of nowhere.'

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But you find these really great things. But then you would find this really sort of traditional, but you would see where it could be taken for the future. And that's a lot of what we did. It was important for us to keep that tradition. Because we wanted to honor and have reverence for the continent. And bring it to the screen in a way that you haven't seen before, as being a prosperous place.

I’m very intrigued by the circular design elements. We see it in the Throne Room, we see it in the City of the Dead, we see it in the Great Mound, even almost spiral there, and in the Wakanda Design Group. What does that circular element tell us about Wakanda?

Beachler: Nice eye. Well, you know, and—I did a lot of research into what the circular designs mean, as far as, you look at Stonehenge, you look at a lot of these old designs and they were actually based on the idea of bringing in plumbing, you know, not electric, but using water as a way to, um, create, sort of … an electricity if you will. Rome did it, they, you know—but it was all based on these circles. A lot of the cave drawings that you see in South Africa, the idea behind it was that, whatever was there before, if you ever watch Ancient Aliens, there was always a guy that was like, ‘It was aliens!” and it’s like, calm down, bring it down 1,000. We don’t know what it was. But, sort of the idea behind it was, there were always these circles and it has to do with vibration and sound, and a lot of the stuff that we’re doing is sonic and based on sound, and vibrations. Vibranium is about vibrations and soaking that vibration in. And we started with Hall of Kings with the circle because of that, and it was interesting at one point when I was doing Hall of Kings, I found one of the ancient structures in South Africa and you’ll have to excuse me, I do not remember the name right now. They’d done a plan view layout of it and I took it after we had done the lay out for Hall of Kings and set it literally right on top of our plan and it was identical. And that was one of those moments where I was like, ‘Oh my gosh! So this is kismet! I don’t know what’s happening.’

So then we starting bringing it in as a design language. And really a lot of the society is based on that: Vibration and sound as communication and sound as life, as well as water and air. So, bringing that in really was a part of creating—bringing that tradition—and creating its own tradition. And so, I kind of wrote around, I created this sort of text that I sort of wrote about, like, okay this is why we have so many round things. So you will see that, thank you for noticing. It worked! Thanks for noticing. Cause often times you don’t want people to notice your production design and you know you’ve done well when they don’t, but in this instance, please notice.

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So much of your work with Ryan has been so grounded and down to Earth. Were you dying to do this kind of world building, or did you kind of have to wrap your head around how you were going to come at it?

Beachler: I had to wrap my head around it. I had to wrap my head around Creed because it was, like, "Boxing, are you kidding?" You know, so it was that. And then when this came up, it really was—I had to dive in, both feet first. I have an 18-year-old son who loves Marvel, so thank God for that. He really kind of brought me up to speed about a lot of things. And, for the last 9 months I’ve done nothing, I’ve lived nothing, I’ve breathed nothing but this. So, it was—yes. {laughs}

You mentioned working with Ryan, and I’ve noticed this in a lot of his work, where he has this intimate dialogue and these really big moments, so with that as your visual, how has it further expanded your perspective of space and how to curate that space?

Beachler: That’s a really good question because, you know, one thing I was concerned about was—because here everything is big. And I noticed one thing that we always talked about in Africa was, like, you have no point of perspective because everything is huge. You’re like, I’m not sure if that’s 10 feet or 50,000 feet. You just sort of lose this idea of perspective. And the one thing that I really didn’t want to do was lose being in this big cavernous space and an intimate moment happening—and you feel like you’re in a big cavernous space and an intimate moment is happening. And I think the way that I approached that was always bringing in a natural material.

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So you’ll notice in every single set there is mud. We did a lot of Timbuktu, muds in it. Like in the throne room in the middle you’ll see that we have a Timbuktu pyramid, which is, Mali I believe, that you’ll find those with the sticks coming out of them. Sort of what they call scaffolding. That’s how they repair them. And so, by adding—and the sigils are all mud, so we have a lot of glass and metal, which are very hard surfaces. And when you’re in a big cavernous space, it becomes a big cavernous space, but when you start bringing, pulling in earth, um, sand in Shuri’s floor, uh, you know, we’re right out in the middle of the mountains in Bashenga, we’re in the—up in City of the Dead we’re in the middle of the jungle so, you bring in these natural things into each of the spaces and all of a sudden you start to soften the space. It starts to—you know, instead of an echo you don’t get the bounce back anymore. It becomes soft and it becomes less intimidating and it actually brings the space down. Now, not everybody would agree with that. Because they’d be like, “Why does it have to be so big?” Because, you know, you let me do it and I’m going to make it huge. But I think that was one of the ways around keeping the intimacy. Keeping it sort of grounded at all times, is by bringing in some form of earth into the set and that’s sort of what kept it on the ground.

Obviously, you come into a movie like this, Wakanda is completely a blank slate. But you’re also in the 20th movie in a series of movies. Do you look back at the other films you do for any kind of inspiration? Or any kind of rules that you can or can’t break? Or do they play no role at all?

Beachler: They really didn’t play a role. I think one thing Ryan and I came in wanting to do is break all the rules. While we do have to be thoughtful and mindful about MCU, one of our things was it isn’t like any place else and because it was supposed to be advanced, it couldn’t be. And it oftentimes is hard to do something that’s advanced. Not alien, but advanced, ‘cause this is set in 2018. You know, you don’t want to take it to that place, but you still have to feel connected to the rest of the universe. So, that was a challenge to do that and keep it standing alone. The one thing, you know, we’ve been mindful of talking a lot about is Iron Man, because he really was the one that set the pace for what you know as being, you know with Marvel, being futuristic. And he is the richest man ever so he can have whatever he wants. So we did have to be mindful of how we’re going to make it different. Why we’re going a different route with the technology in this one because you’re used to seeing Tony Stark’s holograms and the blue and the … sort of all the crazy things he can do. And we wanted Wakandans to be able to do, and especially T’Challa, to do the same thing, but not have it be as recognizable as what Tony Stark is doing.

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I have to ask this question because my readers will want to know. How is your production design work similar on this film to your work on Beyonce’s "Lemonade"?

Beachler: {Laughs} Fabulous! Well, it really is. You know, okay, I will say this because they are two very different things. And I will say that Bey, you know, wants to clamp down on "Lemonade" as far as what I can say about it and how much I can get into it. The thing that is similar, I would say, is this idea of going back to an older time and modernizing it and reclaiming it—and owning it in a different way. And I think that’s what we did in "Lemonade." Where we were like, “Hey. We’re going back to the 1800s.” And a lot of the scenes you see plantations, you see this and that, but if you look at it, it’s all Black women. And they’re all doing, you know, they’re eating at this beautiful table—so we just sort of retold the story in a different way which in a lot of ways is, you know, a route to go with Afro-Futurism, and—which is basically just taking the story and making it into something that is not what it was originally supposed to be, where we, you know, we’re taking it and mixing it up and re-owning it. So that’s what we did a lot in Lemonade and I think that’s kind of what’s happening here in Wakanda a little bit.

You said that the casino underground part was kismet, and so I’m sure there’s great moments through your whole production design where you knew right away. Can you talk about the one that was hardest to come to? The look. Which one did you fight the most with to try and find?

Beachler: The Tribal Counsel.

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Tribal Counsel. What was hardest about it?

Beachler: You know, it was one of those things where, you know, going back to another question, we didn’t want it to be this huge place, we wanted it to be different. We wanted it to feel like this is where all the elders—you know, there’s many things that it needed to do. There’s many things it needed to do for production’s sake, and many things that it needed to do for story’s sake, so it was always like, how are we gonna? You know, it was one that we took a little more time on than anything else—came really easy—but that one was hard to make it royal, but not make it, like, insane and over the top. But keep it traditional, but also show this, you know, advanced society while keeping that. And you’ve seen a million throne rooms, man, you know, so it was like, I don’t want to do any of that.

What was the light bulb moment. Like, what kicked it?

Beachler: The glass floor. Which is like a really benign, boring thing, like really, that’s what got it? Um, the glass floor? But I think when we put that Timbuktu pyramid in, and the glass floor, it was when it was like, I got it. Okay. I feel good about it, you know, and I would be just talking to Ryan about it all the time like, ‘What about that? What about that?’ And he’d be like, ‘Yes,' or, ‘No, no, no.’ It’s not like he says yes to me every single time.

I’m curious as to how geography plays a role in your work. Because, I mean, obviously we’re seeing so many dynamic locations but Wakanda itself is a small country—

Beachler: It’s very small.

So I’m curious as to how you’re keeping that in mind as you’re designing all these dynamic and very different places.

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Beachler: The borders were very important because it’s a lot about—and I don’t know how much I can and can’t say … Uh, {laughs} but that was important where it was placed. And we did go round and round about that because there are some scenes like in Iron Man where he’s like, ‘Where is Wakanda?’ And then there’s the famous map and we’re like, ‘Does it need to be there?’ And we’re like, ‘Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he didn’t really have that right.’ Because you’re not really supposed to know. Um, it is hidden and we went back and forth about where we put it, but we wanted it to be in an area where there’s a little bit of conflict but also on one side of your border there’s no conflict, but we need the mountains. We also needed some water. We also need, you know, some rivers and things like that, and I’m like, well you know, we can put anything we want in there. And I really wanted to use a piece that was real and so, we did. And maybe I won’t say what. And we’ll leave it right there.

For much more of our coverage on Black Panther, be sure to check out these recent write-ups and keep an eye out for much more to come:

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