The Getty Center Is So Serenely Beautiful That It Was Literally Heaven on the Hit TV Show ‘The Good Place’

What does heaven look like? According to the hit television
show The Good Place, it’s the Getty Center in Los Angeles.

The hilltop museum overlooking the city, designed by architect
Richard Meier, starred in the penultimate episode of the series, a
comedy starring Kristen Bell and Ted Danson about
misadventures in the afterlife that aired its finale last
month.

The long-awaited arrival of the actual Good Place
was a major moment for the show, which had spent the better part of
four seasons with its central characters trying to escape the
endless torture of the Bad Place and earn a spot in heaven.

“There’s a lot of discussion of, what does the Good Place look
like?” said executive producer Morgan Sackett, who directed the
episode, titled “Patty,” on the series podcast.

“We had purposely avoided showing the Good Place before,” writer
Andrew Law added. “You’re bound to disappoint the audience with
anything you come up with.”

And after four seasons shooting on location, options were
limited. “The prettiest places in LA, the beach, the Huntington
gardens—we’d shot all that stuff,” added Sackett.

Knowing it was a long shot, the show approached the Getty, known
for its beautiful grounds and breathtaking views, months in
advance. “It was a long courtship with them. It’s a very
well-funded institution and they’re not opening for filming
business,” Sackett said. “A woman named Julie who works there is a
huge fan of the show, otherwise it was a nonstarter.”

Julie is Julie Jaskol, the museum’s assistant director of media
relations. Knowing that the museum was going to stand in for the
fabled Good Place made it easy to come around on the idea, she told
Artnet News in an email.

“We had worked with the location person before, so we had
confidence in him, and we all loved the show,” she explained.

After months of negotiations, The Good Place crew
took over the museum for a 12-hour shoot one Monday in August. (The
Getty is closed to the public on Mondays.)

Sackett was surprised to get the green light. “There’s wildly
priceless art and very high security. They don’t want a bunch of
Hollywood dingdongs running around there,” he joked.

So why does the Getty make for the perfect Good Place? “You’d
have to ask them,” Jaskol said. “We think they were looking for
something beautiful, serene, maybe a little otherworldly.”

But Bell and Danson didn’t have time to see any of the
exhibitions, she said. “They had a tight schedule.”

The post The Getty Center Is So Serenely Beautiful That It
Was Literally Heaven on the Hit TV Show ‘The Good Place’
appeared first on artnet News.