It’s the last year of the 2021 graduate class at the fictional Adler High School, and Lara Jean Song Covey has her eyes set on the future – one she hopes to share with her boyfriend, Peter Kavinsky.
In the final chapter of the trilogy “For all the boys I’ve loved before” – based on Jenny Han’s best-selling books of the same name – Lara Jean (Lana Condor) prepares for the end of high school and the beginning of adulthood. But after two life-changing trips, Lara Jean must reimagine what life will be like with her family, friends and boyfriend Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo) after graduation. With everything changing around her, she continues to find comfort in the place that is a reflection of herself – her childhood room.
Throughout the series, Lara Jean’s bedroom becomes a focal point to show the evolution of her character. It is the place where she finally transforms herself from a book reader and wide-eyed love letter writer into a young woman determined to seek the future she has always dreamed of.
Production designer Chris August of Netflix’s “To All the Boys: Always and Forever” – who also worked on the second film – spoke exclusively to Apartment Therapy about the importance of Lara Jean’s room. In addition, we had inside information about the biggest changes that were made in the other rooms in the Covey house, and the unique opportunity to use a backdrop in Seoul that was steeped in Korean art and architecture.
Apartment Therapy: Where did you get inspiration when designing Lara Jean’s room?
Chris August: Looking back, [director Michael Fimognari and I] always had an affinity for classic films, and Jenny Han even incorporated that into her story. So a lot of that comes from iconic movie scenes, [such as] “Say Anything”, where there is that scene of an actor standing with a speaker over his head in a long raincoat. We refer to “The Big Lebowski” in the film, and you will find some really interesting references that we tried to build in your room as well. These are [the] stories that we see in films that we carry with us. Lara Jean is the same.
AT: How did Lara Jean’s room transform from the first and second films?
HERE: The original design of the room was excellent, as it really captured the character of the room. So, congratulations to Paul Joyal, who originally designed it, and Bobbi Allyn, who decorated it. It was a very good feeling for us when we took over. We basically added to it, gave it a more garden feeling of memory. We took all the memories we could collect from the book [and recreate] graphically and place them on the wall. These were elements of his life, which is what a teenager’s bedroom can become [as] shows the stages of a person’s life.
As we move on to this third film, [Lara Jean] is now a senior, so we kept the basic details and added more specific details about her time at school and what she hoped for in the future in terms of what college she could go to and what things she could be interested in.
AT: What details of Lara Jean’s room remained consistent throughout the trilogy?
HERE: For the most part, the bones remained the same. We add elements that she has accumulated along the way in her life story and we add them. As she progresses, she is interested in writing and has always been an avid reader, so we added some elements of them and always made sure that we kept her life up to date.
AT: How would you describe the style of Lara Jean’s room?
HERE: It is very eclectic. A lot of sound art and sound pieces, in a way, is like a suburban thrift store. The resurgence of the 60s, 70s and even the 80s has happened over the years. We brought a lot of that to her room with colors and objects because they, like all styles, are cyclical. They come in faster and faster cycles, so that’s what we were looking for. Throughout the rest of the film as well, we use these same themes to make a retro future [design], so to speak.
AT: What about the other rooms in the Covey house? What has remained the same over the years and what has changed?
HERE: Trina (Sarayu Rao) becomes part of the family (and becomes Lara Jean’s stepmother). [Lara Jean’s] the mother was a mainstay of the family, so adding a stepmother to the film and her life was a big change. There has been a very surprising change to [Lara Jean] where the house is redesigned in terms of furniture, and Trina’s brand enters the house. We did it in a way that respected her mother and what she did, and combined the two (Lara Jean’s late mother and her new stepmother’s styles). We spent time updating it with new furniture and brighter colors.
AT: What kind of color did you really want to highlight in this film to represent the big change in all your lives?
HERE: Yellow. Even though Trina is coming and changing the status quo, we did it with brightness and color and basically the sun. She’s bringing a lot more sun into Dan’s life (Lara Jean’s father) and the girls’ lives too. Even during the pandemic, you see it popping up everywhere. There is a glow that people are trying to add to their lives because they are missing out on some of it. They are losing a little on the outside, so we are bringing in.
AT: You filmed the last two films almost consecutively. Do you have a favorite element from the Covey house in the last two films?
HERE: One element that I really loved about “To All the Boys: PS I Still Love You” was the treehouse, [which] it was a lovely element. In “For all boys: always and forever”, [I enjoyed] raising the colors and bringing shine to the house. We created a wallpaper room that [belonged to] Lara Jean’s mother, and we moved that to Trina, so it was a big change. You will see in the film that there is a special moment dedicated to this, that brings Lara Jean to a place that resembles a little with her mother and her life with her mother that makes the transition to Trina’s life, which is very good.
AT: You also shot some of the film in Seoul. Tell us a little about Lara Jean’s hotel room.
HERE: It was a beautiful room, and we chose it because it was much more of a Korean design in terms of its relationship with the forest. We changed the art in the hotel room and added yet another Korean theme. In fact, I took a lot of pictures inside and outside some of the local temples and created some pieces of art in black and white, referring to the 60s and using them as a design element inside the hotel room. We brought magenta, so that our characters were within their comfortable palette.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.