John Myhre: He has designs on winning an Oscar tonight

On Feb. 11, John Myhre got up early as usual; he'd been working 15-hour days as production designer of the upcoming Disney movie "The Haunted Mansion." He didn't turn on the television, but figured that the phone would start ringing before dawn if there was news.

It did, and there was. Myhre, a Seattle native who's worked his way up from "coffee and Xeroxes and faxing" to the highest-level design work in Hollywood, had received his second Academy Award nomination, for his elegant Jazz Age design of "Chicago." Coming on the heels of his 1998 nomination for "Elizabeth," it's a clear signal that Myhre has reached the top of his field — a journey that began with tearing tickets at Seattle's Cinerama, many years ago.

A graduate of Nathan Hale High School, Myhre studied film at Bellevue Community College in the '70s while working in local movie theaters — Cinerama, UA 150 ("I was the guy who wandered around the 'Star Wars' line, answering people's questions"), Seven Gables, Egyptian. Eventually, he became art director for Randy Finley's Seven Gables theater chain, helping to develop ads and posters for the theaters' often-obscure films.

"Through that, I got to meet directors," remembered Myhre, speaking from his Los Angeles home. "They'd ask why I wasn't an art director in the movies. I thought, there's a job that would combine everything I love — movies, art, architecture, interior design. It sounded like a dream." So Myhre packed his bags, as so many dreamers do, and headed for Hollywood. It was 1984.

He found work quickly as an art-department production assistant, "the lowest entry-level job you can get." Over the next few years, he worked virtually every position — props, set decoration, driving trucks. By 1987, he was art directing a few films ("Russkies," "Amazing Grace and Chuck"), and by the early '90s had risen to production designer.

"The production designer," Myhre explained, "is the head of the art department." The production designer conceptualizes the look for the entire film, aided by one to three art directors (one might handle all exteriors, one might be in charge of in-studio sets). Though the term is now widely used, the production design Oscar category is still for "art direction."

In recent years, Myhre has designed such diverse projects as "X-Men," "Ali" and "Anna Karenina." But "Chicago" is close to his heart. Director Rob Marshall, he said, "made movies the way every movie should be made" — as a collaborative effort, involving the designers and cinematographer in all creative meetings and working with them as a team. "Shakhar Kapur, for 'Elizabeth,' did the same thing," Myhre said, noting that this is the ideal, but not always the reality.

"Chicago" was shot entirely in Toronto in early 2002. Myhre's department built the biggest set — the theater in which the cast performs — in a derelict old warehouse outside Toronto that was formerly used to build transformers. "It was in a horribly seedy industrial park," remembers Myhre, "ancient corrugated metal buildings — and you'd open up the door and suddenly be in this beautiful theater."

While much of the action takes place in the theater, Myhre was responsible for numerous other locations as well. The opening sequence of "Chicago" alone, in which Catherine Zeta-Jones exits a taxi, flounces backstage, dons her costume, and climbs onto an understage lift, encompassed at least five entirely separate sets.

One downside to being a production designer is building beautiful sets that get destroyed after production is over — that "Chicago" theater, sadly, is history. But "The Haunted Mansion" will provide a nice contrast. Myhre's designing massive sets — "two or three stories high, big grand libraries" — and after production, many will become parts of the "Haunted Mansion" attraction at various Disney theme parks worldwide.

These days, Myhre's enjoying the tumult that comes with being an Oscar nominee. "If you ever lose your address book, get nominated for an Oscar and you'll get reconnected with everybody," he jokes, noting that he's been swamped with phone calls since the announcement. Come Oscar night — assuming the ceremony goes on as planned — he'll be attending with a friend (despite the pleas of many who wished to be his Oscar guest).

Myhre speaks affectionately of his first Oscar ceremony in 1998 — "so glamorous, so Hollywood." Whatever this year may bring, he's thrilled to be included, thinking back to his early days as a young movie-lover. Attending the Oscars, he says, is "something that in Seattle I always dreamed of as a kid."

Moira Macdonald: mmacdonald@seattletimes.com