Kristi Zea

Kristina Gwyn Zea (born October 24, 1948) is an American production designer, costume designer, art director, director and producer in film and television. Born and educated in New York City, she discovered she had a talent for design while working as a stylist for a commercial photographer. Her career in production design blossomed in the 1980s and 1990s as she worked on numerous films for several directors—including Alan Parker, James L. Brooks, Jonathan Demme and Martin Scorsese, across a wide selection of genres, including period, contemporary, drama, and horror. Her father was James Gwyn Zea; her mother, Alice Joy Zea (née Karl), was a list broker. She has one sister, Marni Zea Clippinger. She also designed "outrageous" costumes for the 1986 stage production of The Balcony, directed by JoAnne Akalaitis, at the American Repertory Theater.

Zea's career in film production design blossomed in the late 1980s and 1990s with her creation of a variety of innovative sets. These include Jonathan Demme's Married to the Mob (1988), in which she designed "wonderfully tacky" sets including a Florida hotel room dominated by "the color turquoise to demonstrate the mob's lavish and cheesy taste in décor", Martin Scorsese's GoodFellas (1990), and Demme's The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Philadelphia (1993), and Beloved (1998).

Zea's production design for Revolutionary Road (2008), for which she received an Oscar nomination, entailed the dismantling, reconstruction and redecoration of two houses in Darien, Connecticut. For the home of the Wheelers, Zea put in a different kitchen and used "simple and spare" wall treatments and furnishings to depict the couple's hesitancy to adapt to suburban life. The homeowners were paid in "the low six figures" for the breaking apart and rebuilding of their homes, as well as use of a beach house in Rowayton throughout the production.

As producer Zea served as associate producer for the 1986 film Lucas. She also served as associate producer and second unit director on Philadelphia (1993). and a 1991 half-hour HBO television film, A Domestic Dilemma, produced by Jonathan Demme. She produced and directed her first documentary film, Everybody Knows…Elizabeth Murray, which premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival and later screened on PBS' American Masters. In 2018, she directed Notes from the Field for HBO.

Accolades Zea has received two Academy Award nominations. She was nominated in the category of Best Art Direction for Revolutionary Road (2008), and in the category of Best Picture for As Good as It Gets (1997), which she co-produced. In 1999 she was nominated for a Golden Satellite Award for Best Art Direction for Beloved (1998). In 2004 she received a Muse Award from the New York Women in Film & Television.

Personal life Zea and her former husband, Michael Kuhling, an architect, have one daughter, Norma Kuhling. Since 2004, Zea has resided in Valley Cottage, New York, in a home she redecorated with an eclectic selection of items, including props from The Silence of the Lambs, Sleepers, and The Departed.

Zea presents films and moderates discussion panels for the Rivertown Film Festival.

Credits Costume design Fame (1980) Endless Love (1981) Shoot the Moon (1982) Exposed (1983) Terms of Endearment (1983) Unfaithfully Yours (1984) The Little Drummer Girl (1984) Birdy (1984) Silverado (1985)

Production design Lucas (1986) Angel Heart (1987) Married to the Mob (1988) Miss Firecracker (1989) GoodFellas (1990) The Silence of the Lambs (1991) The Super (1991) Lorenzo's Oil (1992) Philadelphia (1993) The War (1994) Sleepers (1996) Beloved (1998) Wonderland (2000) The Family Man (2000) Changing Lanes (2002) Red Dragon (2002) The Manchurian Candidate (2004) The Departed (2006) The Brave One (2007) Revolutionary Road (2008) Confessions of a Shopaholic (2009) The Joneses (2009) Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) Tower Heist (2011) Black Nativity (2013) The Leftovers (TV series, 2014) The Intern (2015) American Odyssey (TV series, 2015) The Comedian (2016) A Tree a Rock a Cloud (Short, 2017) New Amsterdam (TV series, 2018-2020) The Watcher (TV series, 2022) Daddio (2023) Office Romance (2026)