The Secrets of Wednesday’s Shadowy Black Cello

Production designer Mark Scruton: She had so few things and everything’s very pared back. Everything in her space was so agonized over because there were only 10 objects in her whole side of the room. The cello was central to that. We sourced different versions of it. I think we got about six in the end, if I remember rightly, of different styles. More antique ones, more up-to-date ones…

Cello Variations

Mark Scruton: At one point, it was almost like a car-lacquer finish, with a super-high shine. A black, modern one. But in the end, her character became this eclectic mix of traditional and new. She always came back to the historical elements of it. So all the items in her space have been specifically designed so they have a story of sorts behind them. When we got to the cello, I think Tim made the final choice on which one it was going to be.

The older cellos were all bought used, and none were especially valuable. Some were worn and damaged. 

Mark Scruton: There’s no point in buying six identical or brand-new ones. They don’t have the feel of somebody who’s played it for years.

One of these was selected by Burton to be Wednesday’s prized instrument.

Mark Scruton:  I would love to be able to tell you the exact history, but they were scoured from all sorts of antique shops, and they came in from all over the place. We were in Romania, but we brought stuff in from London, from New York.

The grains in the wood, the knocks and marks where people have played it in the past, all of that history we wanted to keep, but we wanted to just get rid of the majority of the color and the warmth inherent in those type of instruments. There were certain little quirks to it, which made it individual, and it was beautiful.

Miles Millar: We liked the visual of a black instrument. And also, the cello is a melancholy instrument. It sounds sad. The attitude of a cello feels very Wednesday.

Mark Scruton: Then we had to Wednesday-fy it, which was the process we did to everything she had. We stripped it back of its initial varnish, and we dyed everything black, so you kept a degree of the color and degree of the texture. You never lost the original character of it, but it was desaturated.