Gavin Bocquet

Art · born 1953 · Bromley, London, England, UK

Gavin Bocquet is a British production designer. Trained in three-dimensional design at the Royal College of Art, he entered the film industry at the start of his career through mentor Stuart Craig, beginning work on Saturn 3 (1980) and subsequently contributing to major productions such as The Elephant Man (1980), Cry Freedom (1987), and Empire of the Sun (1987). Early roles included draughtsman, set dresser, assistant art director, and art director, with notable art direction credits on Dangerous Liaisons (1988) and Erik the Viking (1989). Bocquet became a production designer in the early 1990s, with his breakthrough coming on The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992–1993), for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award in 1992 for the pilot episode and received further Emmy nominations in 1993 and 1994 for individual episodes. This collaboration led to an extended association with George Lucas, culminating in his role as production designer on the Star Wars prequel trilogy, beginning with Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), followed by Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002), and Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005). His designs on these films earned multiple industry nominations, including from the Satellite Awards and the Las Vegas Film Critics Society. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Bocquet balanced large-scale fantasy and action films with more grounded projects. His film credits include Stardust (2007), The Bank Job (2008), Gulliver's Travels (2010), Jack the Giant Slayer (2013), Warcraft (2016), Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016), and Mute (2018). In television, he served as production designer on The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (2019) and later on Silo (2023). For Silo (2023), Bocquet won the BAFTA TV Award for Production Design in 2024, shared with Amanda Bernstein, as well as the British Film Designers Guild Award, and received nominations from the Art Directors Guild and the Set Decorators Society of America. He also won the Black Reel Award for Outstanding Production Design for Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (2020). Reflecting on his career path, Bocquet has credited mentorship and collaboration as central to his development, noting, "I was in the final week doing 3D Design at the Royal College of Art and Stuart Craig… put up a note asking if anybody wanted to Design Props for a science fiction film… Stuart and Norman were my two main mentors and although I didn't quite get to their level, it has been fun trying." He has emphasised the collaborative nature of filmmaking and the support of his family throughout the years of international production.