Nova Scotia artist feels her chances ‘pretty good’ at Sunday’s Oscars

An acclaimed production designer will be representing Nova Scotia at this Sunday’s Academy Awards.

Tamara Deverell is competing against four other nominees in the Best Production Design category for her work on director Guillermo del Toro’s movie, Frankenstein.

A Cape Breton resident, the longtime production designer and art director says she moved to Nova Scotia around eight years ago after falling in love with the province’s arts and culture.

“I was born in the prairies, Saskatoon, grew up in Vancouver, moved to Montreal and started working in the film industry, then moved to Toronto, where I had two kids with my lovely husband,” she says. “About eight years ago, we bought a house here, then we decided to build a house and make it our permanent home. We just sort of fell in love with the place.”

After 35 years in the film industry, Deverell has afforded a lifestyle that enables her to live in Nova Scotia and still work on such high-profile projects as filmmaker Sofia Coppola’s 2023 biography Priscilla and del Toro’s eight-part anthology Cabinet of Curiosities, which earned her an Emmy Award.

In fact, this year’s Oscars isn’t even the first time Deverell has been nominated for an Academy Award after she was recognized for her work on 2021’s Nightmare Alley.

“The last time I was nominated for an Oscar, and I didn’t win for Nightmare Alley, I actually didn’t get to go because I got COVID at the BAFTAs, which is the British Academy Awards,” says Deverell. “A whole bunch of us got COVID, so I couldn’t actually go because the rules were so strict, even though I was better and not contagious.”

She adds that experience will make this upcoming trip to Los Angeles even more exciting, especially since there are high hopes for the film, in which she is nominated.

With Frankenstein winning her category at several award shows in advance of the Oscars, Deverell is feeling optimistic about being able to give a shout-out to Nova Scotia in a hopeful acceptance speech.

“I’m feeling pretty good,” Deverell says. “I’m trying not to look at all the polls and all the soothsayers that are predicting Oscar wins, but we’ve won a BAFTA, we’ve won the Arts Director Guild Awards, we’ve won the Critics’ Choice Award already, so that sort of puts us up there.”