‘A Man on the Inside’ Built Subtle Clues Into Its Retirement Home Production Design

Look at the walls in “A Man on the Inside.” They’re full of clues.

That’s fitting, since Michael Schur’s new Netflix series is a comedic mystery following Charles (Ted Danson), a recently widowed professor hired to go undercover at a San Francisco retirement community to investigate a series of thefts. As he befriends the residents and the staff, he eventually cracks the case, but more importantly, he restarts his own heart. The community he’s spying on is so vibrant that it cures his loneliness.

We see hints of their energy everywhere. Take Gladys’ apartment: Played by Susan Ruttan, Gladys is a retired costume designer who’s filled her room with color and patterns. There’s a leopard-print blanket on a paisley chair, an Art Deco mirror near a vintage sewing machine, and bright fabric swatches piled alongside spools of colored thread. Eagle-eyed viewers might even notice the framed Playbills of the musicals she’s designed, including “Carrie,” one of the most notorious flops in Broadway history. Gladys may only have a handful of scenes, but she’s obviously someone worth knowing.

“You can really go for depth in a show like this,” said set decorator Kimberly Wannop. “You’re thinking, ‘What does the standard room look like [in a retirement community], and how does the person actually live in this room? How long have they lived here, and what did they bring with them?’ Gladys has been there a long time, so we gave her a lot of depth in that room.”

That depth does more than define character. It also combats preconceptions about what happens in an old folks’ home. “The overall space is institutional,” said production designer Ian Phillips. “When we got into actually designing the residents’ individual rooms, we knew that we were locked into what the wallpaper was going to be, what the molding was going to be, because that’s the same across the board. But just because you’re in a retirement home doesn’t mean that you didn’t have a life before this. And you still live that life. And that’s sort of the goal of the show: to get the audience to understand that just because you’re old doesn’t mean you have to stop living.”

Ironically, that ethos explains why Charles’s apartment is so sparse. Because he’s undercover, he isn’t there to “live” at all. Other than a Sue Grafton novel and a painting by one of his grandkids, the designers didn’t add much personality to his space. “It’s very one note because it kind of had to be,” said Wannop, whose own young children created the aforementioned painting. “There’s nothing really cool going on in that room. We couldn’t even put family pictures in there because it would blow his cover.”

The sparseness is also a clue: It’s a visual reminder that even though he’s the one with the upper hand, Charles has fewer emotional resources than the people around him.

But even though it has metaphorical flourishes, “A Man On the Inside” isn’t a fantasy series like “The Good Place,” another Schur collaboration with Phillips and Wannop. The designers wanted the retirement community to feel authentic, so they researched existing senior communities and current ADA guidelines before the sets were built. That’s why the tables are placed far enough apart to make room for people using wheelchairs and walkers. It’s also why the residents’ bathrooms have roll-in showers instead of bathtubs.

‘A Man on the Inside’COURTESY OF NETFLIX

Sometimes, though, even the realistic details serve a larger narrative purpose. The residents’ kitchens may have sinks and refrigerators, but they don’t have ovens, ranges, or any appliances that could start a fire. That reflects an actual senior facility, and it also suggests why the characters keep gathering in common spaces, no matter how much their personalities are reflected in their apartments. They have to leave their rooms if they want to eat.

To that end, the communal rooms had to look like places where people would be happy to congregate. “We wanted a large, open set,” Phillips said. “We didn’t want it to feel like a cage that these older people were living in.” He added that bright colors and modern materials were selected to make the space feel energized, even if it does have the aesthetic anonymity of a corporate facility. “Most people think of retirement homes as a place for people to go and die, and that was not the case here,” he explained. “We really wanted all the characters to feel like they were alive there.”

“A Man on the Inside” is now streaming on Netflix.