Kristi Zea Production Designer

Kristi Zea
Production Designer

Kristi Zea is a multitalented production designer, costume designer, director and producer whose most recent work was seen in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.  Tower Heist marks her third collaboration with director Brett Ratner.  They previously worked together on Red Dragon and The Family Man.  

Zea’s prior production design credits include the critically acclaimed Sam Mendes film Revolutionary Road, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, for which she was nominated for an Oscar®.  Zea also designed P.J. Hogan’s Confessions of a Shopaholic, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer; Neil Jordan’s The Brave One; Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, which was nominated for an Art Directors Guild Award; Jonathan Demme’s The Manchurian Candidate; as well as other projects including Red Dragon, Changing Lanes and Sleepers.  She also production designed a number of major films of the ’80s and ’90s including Jonathan Demme’s Beloved (1998), Oscar® winners Philadelphia (1993) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991), as well as Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas (1990) and New York Stories (1989).

Following an education at Middlebury College and receiving an English degree from Columbia University School of General Studies, Zea became a costume designer on Alan Parker’s Fame (1980) and Shoot the Moon (1982), and James L. Brooks’ Terms of Endearment (1983), among many other films.

Zea was also associate producer on James L. Brooks’ Broadcast News (1987) and produced Brooks’ Oscar®-nominated and Golden Globe winner As Good As It Gets (1997).  Zea directed the CableACE Award-nominated segment “Domestic Dilemma,” for the HBO series Women & Men 2: In Love There Are No Rules (1991), starring Ray Liotta and Andie MacDowell, as well as the DVD of Annie Lennox’s 2003 concert tour.  In 2008, Zea produced and production designed the independent feature titled The Joneses, starring Demi Moore and David Duchovny.  It was presented at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and entered theaters in April 2009.
Zea was an adjunct professor at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts from 2005 to 2008.  

Filmography Kristi Zea


Tower Heist
by Brett Ratner - 2011

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