Inside ‘Mr. Robot’ Creator Sam Esmail’s Carefully Curated L.A. Headquarters

Every room in Sam Esmail‘s Los Angeles office bears the name of an author who he’s been inspired by — or, in his words, was “obsessed with growing up.” Walk down a hallway, and you’ll see Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Ellison, Sartre.

When his Universal Television-set company, titled simply Esmail Corp., took over the building back in 2021, Esmail saw it as yet another opportunity to be creative. “Everyone starts to go into auto mode, and they just start naming every office 101, 102, 103,” he recalls. “And I was like, ‘Wait, why are we doing that? Let’s make this different, let’s make this more interesting.'”

But it didn’t stop with office names. Each floor in Esmail Corp.’s Toluca Lake space is also devoted to a past project of his. The first floor, where he has his post-production facility, is called “Pineapple,” a reference to his Amazon series Homecoming, his first of several collaborations with actress Julia Roberts. The second is titled “Comet,” after his first film, which starred his now-wife, Emmy Rossum. It’s where he houses his various writers rooms. And the third, the “White Rose” floor, an ode to Mr. Robot — which famously transformed Esmail’s career — is where he and his fellow executives keep their offices.

Despite the degree of attention and personal curation, L.A. is not actually home base for Esmail himself. The prolific writer-director is mostly in New York these days, where he lives with Rossum and their two young children — though he regularly flies west when work demands it. Asked if L.A. has grown on him, he laughs: “I think I like it in small doses, which is why this arrangement works out quite well.”

With his latest project, apocalyptic thriller Leave the World Behind, debuting on Netflix Dec. 8, he opened up about his creative process as well as his workspace. Below are some of the highlights.

Each floor of the Esmail Corp. space is also full of mementos from his previous gigs. In describing a neon red wheelbarrow, which hangs in the office kitchen, Esmail says it’s “more of a narcissistic reference as it’s a nod to a front for a secretive operation in Mr. Robot, only this time it’s for the Dark Army.”

Also in the office is a painted fsociety mask, which was a wrap gift from Mr. Robot actress Carly Chaikin, who played Darlene, a member of the fsociety group.

Outside the building is signage for The American Literary Historical Society, “a reference to one of my favorite movies of all time, Three Days of the Condor,” says Esmail. “I loved how it was used as a front for a secretive CIA operation, marrying my two passions together: literature and top secret spy shit.”

Mixed in with family photos is a LACMA ticket stub, which dates back to Esmail’s first date with Rossum, whom he met on his 2014 directorial debut, Comet. “It has lived on my desk ever since I had an office,” he reveals of the now-faded stub.

Like most writers, his personal space is also littered with scripts, including this one, for his new film, Leave the World Behind. Not all of them were written by Esmail, who’s invested in giving other, greener scribes an opportunity. “My experience with Mr. Robot was very eye-opening. I’d never even stepped foot on a TV set, and all of a sudden, I was a showrunner,” he tells THR. “I really was humbled that USA let that happen and trusted me, and I knew that when I got into this position and started the company, I wanted to do the same for other people.”