A Movie Starring The City Of Los Angeles

Filmmakers long have made living, breathing characters out of such iconic burgs as Chicago and New York. This year it’s L.A. that gets the Hollywood treatment in three contending films.

- Rebecca Ford

Los Angeles has acted as a character in countless films over the decades, and this awards season, several movies — most notably the romantic musical and best picture front runner La La Land, along with noir thriller Nocturnal Animals and the Howard Hughes dramedy Rules Don’t Apply — have cast the City of Angels yet again.

“The challenging aspect of setting a film in Los Angeles is finding locations that have not been overly filmed,” says Shane Valentino, the production designer on writer-director Tom Ford’s Nocturnal Animals. “It always takes a little longer, but when you find the right place, the reward is immeasurable.”

The Focus Features film needed to have the right locations to serve its main character,Amy Adams’ art gallery owner Susan Morrow, who lives a moneyed but emotionally isolated life. The Scott Mitchell-designed Rappaport House in Malibu became Susan’s stylish home; a screening room at CAA, with its stark red wall, played her office.