What it’s like to be Frankenstein, Willy Wonka and Paddington's florist

A shorter version of this article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.

On-set florist Amanda Willgrave, who is based at London’s New Covent Garden Flower Market, has spent over two decades bringing her cinematic arrangements to screens both big and small, providing bunches and bouquets for films including Wonka, Wicked and two out of three Paddingtons.

Next year, her work will appear in Emerald Fennell’s much-anticipated Wuthering Heights, but her latest project is Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, streaming now on Netflix.

Here, Willgrave tells RT why she doesn’t actually want you to notice her flowers.

A BUDDING CAREER In the '90s, I worked my way up from receptionist to producer for a production company in Soho, but it was such an industry of excess that I soon decided I’d had enough – I wanted a change. I didn’t have a dream of being a florist, but my lovely then-boss got me a month-long career-change course at the Jane Packer Flower School as a leaving present.

BLOSSOM FORTH I opened up a small flower shop in Kensal Rise in London, where quite a few set decorators lived. I made up some vases for a couple of films, and then one set decorator, Rebecca Alleway, asked me to help her dress a film called Imagine Me & You, set in a flower shop. Following that, I worked on Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. In 2018, I did Cruella, which I’m hugely proud of, and there were lots of flowers in it, so things got much busier after that.

COURSE OF ACTION On a film, I’ll talk to the set decorator, they’ll talk to the production designer, and they’ll talk to the director. That’s the line of contact. If it’s a film with a lot of flowers, the set decorator will bring me in early on. There’ll be a document that lists every set and the flower requirements for each one. After an initial conversation, I’ll put together mood boards, flower stems and work out how much it’s going to cost to do the arrangements.

FRESH AS A DAISY We don’t really want you to notice the flowers – we just want them to be part of the set. If they need to be there for more than two days, we’ll start looking at fakes. There’s a real skill to making fakes look good. Some people think you just take them out of the box, but we often add real foliage, because that makes them look better. We try to use them only as background flowers. For close-ups, we use real flowers.

MAKING ARRANGEMENTS There are certain fresh flowers that we won’t use on set. Tulips, for example, because when they’re under lights, they open, move and change, which is really bad for continuity. We don’t use a lot of fresh lilies either, mostly because of the pollen, but also because they open.

PLAY SAFE I work very closely with the action prop buyer, who deals with handheld props. On Hamnet, for example, we worked on the herbs used for the lotions and potions in the film. If we’re providing flowers that will be placed on food, or even just held by an actor, we must be very aware that we’re not using poisonous plants, or ones that could trigger a skin allergy.

HALF DEAD Sometimes, there’ll be two scenes, filmed on the same day, but set 10 days apart, by which time the flowers would need to look dead. In those situations, I’ve been known to stick flowers in the oven to age them, or go through the bins at the Flower Market, but usually we get enough notice and can buy the same flowers two weeks in advance to die them off naturally.

ON THE SCENT A good scent can help an actor find their character. Sometimes we use fragrant, but not too heavily fragrant, flowers that the cast and crew will notice when they walk in. It might be jasmine, or maybe roses. We wouldn’t often use lilies, though, as people don’t tend to like the smell of them.

IN THE MARKET The great thing about being based at New Covent Garden Flower Market is that I can talk to wholesalers, who have a wealth of knowledge. We did some work on Napoleon for Ridley Scott. In my research, I discovered that violets were Napoleon’s favourite flower – they had a significance throughout his life, so my wholesaler imported violets from Italy for me to make buttonholes.

ROSE TO THE OCCASION If it’s a period film, I really do my research. I collect historical floristry books. For Frankenstein, I found a book from the Victorian period in which it’s set, published in the 1870s. The set decorator and I looked at how they made flower arrangements back then and the popular shapes. In the same way that clothes go through fashions, so do flowers. To suit the film, we used “Earl Grey” and “Ocean Song” roses, silver-grey mimosa foliage, “Lege Marron” carnations and “Hot Biscuits” amaranthus.

THROW THE BOUQUET The wedding scene in Frankenstein was filmed at Gosford House in East Lothian, Scotland. When you’re dressing flowers in period properties, there are always restrictions and challenges. The hallway was Italian marble, so we had to use minimal water and avoid spillages that would stain the floor. We prepped everything in tents and would bring the arrangements and garlands into the properties ready-made.

TEAM PLAYER Film floristry is a very different type of floristry. It’s not something that any florist could do, because you have to part with your ego – you’re not doing your flowers. You’re facilitating somebody else’s idea. In the end, you’re just there to service that.

WASTE NOT Most films now have a sustainability person, who we’ll liaise with at the end of filming. Sometimes, the flowers will be put into green recycling, but, if they still have life in them, we’ll donate them to Floral Angels. They’re an amazing charity based at New Covent Garden Flower Market that repurposes flowers into smaller arrangements, which they donate to hospices and care homes.

Frankenstein is available on Netflix now. Sign up for Netflix from £5.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.

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