Early life and education
Heinrichs was born in San Rafael, California in 1953. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture from Boston University's College of Fine Arts (graduating in 1976),4 then enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Valencia, California, where he encountered a generation of future industry figures including Tim Burton, Brad Bird, and John Lasseter.4 He subsequently attended the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where he studied under legendary cartoonists Will Eisner and Harvey Kurtzman, an influence that sharpened his sense of expressive line and character in design.1
Career
Early visual effects and animation (1979-1988)
After CalArts, Heinrichs joined WED Enterprises (now Walt Disney Imagineering) in 1979 as a sculptor fabricating audio-animatronic figures for theme park attractions.1 He then moved to Walt Disney Studios proper as an assistant animator and model creator, working on The Fox and the Hound (1981) as an inbetween animator.4
His creative alliance with Tim Burton began almost immediately at Disney. Heinrichs contributed stop-motion animation and visual effects work to Burton's student-turned-professional short Vincent (1982) and to the live-action short Frankenweenie (1984).4 When Burton graduated to feature films, Heinrichs followed: he served as animation effects supervisor on Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985).5 During this period he also contributed stop-motion animation to The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) and model and miniatures supervision to Nutcracker: The Motion Picture (1986).5
Set designer and art director (1989-1995)
Heinrichs made his debut as a set designer on Ghostbusters II (1989; see below), followed by set design work on Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) and Burton's Edward Scissorhands (1990).6 He then stepped up to art director on Batman Returns (1992) and Last Action Hero (1993).5 He also served as visual consultant on Henry Selick's Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), the stop-motion animated feature co-developed with Burton, connecting his early animation roots to his emerging role as a full design chief.5
Production designer (1996-present)
Heinrichs earned his first production designer credit on the Coen Brothers' Fargo (1996), a collaboration that established his range beyond the gothic fantasy associated with Burton.5 He followed that with another Coen project, The Big Lebowski (1998), demonstrating an ability to shift registers from bleak Midwestern crime to California absurdism.6
His crowning achievement of this period was Sleepy Hollow (1999), directed by Tim Burton. The film's fog-drenched, expressionist New England village design won Heinrichs the Academy Award for Best Art Direction (shared with set decorator Peter Young) at the 72nd Academy Awards in 2000, along with a BAFTA Award, the Los Angeles Film Critics Award, the Art Directors Guild Award, the Golden Satellite Award, and the Sierra Award.12
Subsequent major credits include:
- Planet of the Apes (2001, dir. Tim Burton)
- Hulk (2003, dir. Ang Lee)
- Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004, dir. Brad Silberling): Academy Award nomination and Art Directors Guild Award1
- Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006, dir. Gore Verbinski): Academy Award nomination for Best Art Direction1
- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007, dir. Gore Verbinski)
- Captain America: The First Avenger (2011, dir. Joe Johnston): Heinrichs designed the film's retro-1940s aesthetic, drawing on wartime Americana and period propaganda art
- Star Wars: Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017, dir. Rian Johnson): one of the largest-scale productions of his career, encompassing the casino world of Canto Bight and the salt flats of Crait
- Dumbo (2019, dir. Tim Burton)
- Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022, dir. Rian Johnson): Heinrichs designed the titular glass dome atop tech billionaire Miles Bron's Grecian island estate, famously using a real onion sliced at his desk to understand the layered geometry he would build on screen78
He continues to work with Rian Johnson; Wake Up, Dead Man (2025, dir. Rian Johnson) was released in select theaters on November 26, 2025 and on Netflix on December 12, 2025, with Heinrichs as production designer.9
His range of director relationships is notably broad: in addition to Burton, the Coens, Verbinski, Johnston, and Johnson, he has designed for Ang Lee, Spike Jonze, Henry Selick, Brad Silberling, Harold Ramis, and, for television and commercial work, Steven Soderbergh, David Fincher, Agnieszka Holland, and Peter Bogdanovich.6
Heinrichs has described his core motivation as "the creation of an environment and trying to instill it with expressive quality and emotional content," and has cited the preservation of childhood artistic instinct as central to how he approaches every project.4
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters II (1989)
Heinrichs served as a Set Designer on Ghostbusters II, the sequel directed by Ivan Reitman. His credit appears in the film's screen credits alongside fellow set designers Nick Navarro and Gregory Papalia, under art director Tom Duffield.3 At this point in his career Heinrichs was transitioning from visual effects and stop-motion work into the art department, and the film represented his debut in the set designer role. He would move to art director on his next few projects and eventually to full production design. The official Ghostbusters II press kit, preserved by Spook Central, confirms his set design credit on the production.10
Personal life
Heinrichs is married to Dawn.1 He has spoken publicly about his time at Boston University and CalArts as foundational to his aesthetic sensibility, and in a 2022 interview with Boston University's College of Fine Arts magazine he credited the breadth of his undergraduate fine arts training, spanning drawing, painting, sculpture, graphic design, and printmaking, as the foundation for designing across wildly different genres and tones.4
References
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"Heinrichs, Rick," Encyclopedia.com, accessed June 13, 2026. https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/heinrichs-rick
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Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, "The 72nd Academy Awards" (2000), accessed June 13, 2026. https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2000
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Spook Central (Paul Rudoff), "Ghostbusters II Screen Credits," transcribed from the film's end credits. http://www.spookcentral.tk/sclib/ghostbusters-ii-screen-credits.html Set Designers listed: Nick Navarro, Gregory Papalia, Rick Heinrichs. Art Director: Tom Duffield. Script Supervisor: Faye Brenner.
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Boston University College of Fine Arts, "Rick Heinrichs' Magical Worlds," CFA Magazine (2022). https://www.bu.edu/cfa/magazine/articles/2022/rick-heinrichs-magical-worlds/ Rick Heinrichs: "My fascination has always been the creation of an environment and trying to instill it with expressive quality and emotional content."
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World Building Institute, "Rick Heinrichs," accessed June 13, 2026. https://www.worldbuilding.institute/people/rick-heinrichs
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IMDb, "Rick Heinrichs," accessed June 13, 2026. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0374511/
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Variety, "How 'Knives Out 2' Production Designer Built the 'Glass Onion' Using 350 Sheets of Glass and a Real Onion" (2022). https://variety.com/2022/film/news/glass-onion-production-design-how-it-was-built-rian-johnson-1235451805/ Rick Heinrichs: "I finally decided I was going to grab an onion and I started to slice it up."
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Gold Derby, "Rick Heinrichs interview: Glass Onion production designer," accessed June 13, 2026. https://www.goldderby.com/feature/rick-heinrichs-glass-onion-production-designer-video-interview-1205237203/
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"Wake Up Dead Man," Wikipedia, accessed June 13, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wake_Up_Dead_Man The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 6, 2025, and was released in select theaters on November 26, 2025, and on Netflix on December 12, 2025.
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Spook Central (Paul Rudoff), "Ghostbusters II Press Kit: Credits," gb2_presskit_document01.pdf, archived via Spook Central. Set Designers listed: Nick Navarro, Gregory Papalia, Rick Heinrichs.
