Where All Your Favourite Movies & TV Shows Were Filmed: Part Two

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One of 2020’s greatest pleasures has been the many excellent television series and film releases – and all the memes and gossip that they’ve brought with them. Since we’ve been deprived of travel for much of the year, we’ve been pining for the spectacular locations shown on our screens. Here, we let you in on where some of the most talked about were really filmed…

Emily in Paris

 

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Say what you like about Emily in Paris, some of its backdrops are truly stunning. This can’t have been too taxing though, since it was filmed almost entirely in one of the most aesthetic cities in the world. Much of the series also revolves around Emily snapping the perfect Instagram shot, so there are plenty of photogenic places featured throughout.

Some of the grandest venues include the Palais Garnier where Emily attends the opera, and Guy Martin’s regal restaurant, Le Grand Véfour, where she goes for a fancy dinner. La Maison Rose is one of Paris’ more recent hotspots thanks to social media – the pink restaurant is perched at the end of a cobbled street clad with hanging plants. Another of the French capital’s iconic cafes features in the series too: Cafe de Flore is a famous haunt of the creative crowd past and present, including Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway.

Much of Emily’s everyday routine revolves around a small area near Le Jardin du Luxembourg – another of her favourite spots. Her apartment building (the exterior, anyway) is just down the road from the oh-so French pastry shop, La Boulangerie Moderne, that she frequents, and her love interest Gabriel works in the restaurant a few doors down – Les Deux Compères. Like the pastry shop, the restaurant is also a real business, however it’s actually called Terra Nera.

Other notable mentions include the Pont Alexandre III, which you might recognise from Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, and the fantastical funfair museum, the Musée des Arts Forains. Emily also visits the immersive Van Gogh exhibition at L’Atelier des Lumières.

The Queen’s Gambit


One of the most surprising recent hits is The Queen’s Gambit on Netflix. The seven-part series is based on a 1983 novel by Walter Tevis and it follows the story of an orphaned girl who becomes a chess prodigy. It drew in 62 million viewers in its first month and has sparked a huge spike in sales of chess boards and chess apps.

While Beth Harman travels all around the globe competing in tournaments, the majority of the filming for the series took place in Berlin. The Kentucky orphanage where Beth lives after the death of her mother – and crucially, where she first learns how to play chess – is actually Schulzendorf Castle just outside of Berlin.


The Paris hotel is in fact the Grade II-listed Haus Cumberland, and its famous art nouveau coffee house, Cafe Grosz, is where the tense match shown in the opening scenes of the series takes place. The dining room in Cincinnati, with the wood-panelled ceiling and the crimson walls, is a chamber music hall in Kreuzberg – the Meistersaal was home to studios where stars including David Bowie recorded music. The Las Vegas hotel is events venue Palais am Funkturm (plus a few palm trees), which aptly features a retractable staircase and a dramatic chandelier. Even the exterior and the foyer of The Aztec Palace in Mexico was filmed in the German capital, at the Friedrichstadt-Palast. Finally, the dramatic final match in Moscow took place in the Altes Stadthaus, while the Moscow Hotel exterior and the final scenes were filmed on Karl-Marx-Allee and Rosengarten Square.

I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!

 

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From New South Wales down under, to North Wales on our fair isle, I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! looks very different this year. The celebrities are still camping in a wild part of the world though: this section of the Welsh coastline boasts stunning stretches of pale sand and sheer cliff faces. If you watched the opening episode, you would have seen some incredible views across the Anglesey landscape to the ocean, and notably the island’s picturesque Trwyn Du lighthouse.

 

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The castle in which the celebrities are actually staying is back on the mainland near the town of Abergele. Gwyrch Castle is a spectacular fortress nestled into a forest clad hill overlooking the ocean. The sprawling medieval style structure is actually a manor house and is probably younger than you might imagine. It was built by Lloyd Hesketh Bamford-Hesketh in the early 1800s and was passed on to his son when he died, however the castle left family ownership during World War Two and after a series of sales and business ventures, it fell into disrepair. In 1996, Mark Baker (aged just 12 at the time) decided to set up a preservation fund in order to restore the building to its former magnificence. The Gwrych Castle Preservation Trust (GCPT) now owns the castle and fundraising is ongoing. The castle will receive a sum of money from ITV, which will kick start the reparation work, but we hope that others continue to donate so its plans can be completed.

Ratched

 

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The chic but creepy Ratched, based on the life of Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, was made by the same creatives behind American Horror Story and The Politician – which is easy to work out when you’re introduced to the theatrical sets and flawless fashion.

While Lucia is a real place in California, the clean, white 1920s exterior of the Lucia State Hospital (where much of the action takes place) is actually the King Gillette Ranch in Calabasas. The interior of the hospital looks more like a hotel, which makes sense as its design is based upon the Arrowhead Springs Hotel in San Bernardino. Dr. Richard Hanover’s office is a particularly striking replica, with its curved glass wall.

 

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The motel where Nurse Ratched stays, The Sealight Inn, is an actual working motel: Big Sur’s Lucia Lodge is perched 300 feet above the wild waves of the Pacific. Its coastal location allows for some spectacular shots of the famous Bixby Bridge too. Lenore Osgood, who is played by Sharon Stone, lives in an elaborately decorated mansion that was filmed in the Beverly Hills home of Hollywood stage and film designer Tony Duquette. The basement prison where prisoner Edmund Tolleson is held was set up in an old chocolate factory in Los Angeles called the Dutch Chocolate Shop.

The Crown

 

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We could go on and on about all of the incredible locations used in the latest series of The Crown, but there are a few that stand out in the much-anticipated fourth instalment of the regal drama.

Prince Charles’ Highgrove home was filmed at the Georgian stately home of Somerley House in Ringwood. The estate boasts acres of pristine parkland that is home to deer and pheasants. Prince Charles is a well-known horticulturist and he helped to transform the Highgrove garden into the landscaped oasis it is today.

 

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Princess Diana embarks on her solo trip to New York in season four, however the cast and crew didn’t need to travel far to shoot the US scenes. Manchester’s Northern Quarter welcomed a few yellow taxicabs and was transformed into the Big Apple. It’s not the first time that this area has been used in films as an NY backdrop – part of Captain America was filmed in and among the bold red-brick buildings.

Princess Diana and Prince Charles’ wedding was filmed at Winchester Cathedral instead of St Paul’s, while the Ardverikie Estate on Loch Laggan, with its enchanting turrets, stood in for Balmoral. The series also features other overseas trips, including Australia, which was actually filmed in Malaga and Almeria, and Mustique, which was reimagined in southern Spain.

We Are Who We Are

 

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Luca Guadagnino’s debut television series might not feature quite as many dreamy scenes as his 2017 film Call Me By Your Name, but there are still a few parallels and a fair amount of beautiful cinematography.

The story follows a group of American teenagers who live on a US military base in Italy with their families. While the base is quite retro and utilitarian, the surrounding areas entice with their classic Italian architecture and light-sand beaches. The base is located near Chioggia, just south of Venice, and like its famous neighbour, it is filled with romantic canals, bridges, and nooks and crannies.


In the final episode, the main characters Fraser and Caitlin travel to Bologna to see a concert. Most of the scenes take place at night when the city’s street art stands out against the inky sky, but arguably the most poignant moment in the series takes place at the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca at sunrise the following day. Six hundred arches lead visitors up a hill to the spiritual UNESCO World Heritage site, which offers awe-inspiring views across the landscape.

Rebecca

 

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This adaptation of the gothic classic by Daphne du Maurier features suitably elaborate settings. The main estate of Manderley is actually filmed in seven different locations! One of the most recognisable – usually because of its monochrome chequerboard flooring – is Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, where other major productions have also been filmed, including The Favourite, The Crown and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The unique art gallery of Petworth House was used as the Manderley sculpture room, while Osterley House was transformed into the servants’ quarters.

Two Dorset country houses are used in the film: the exterior of Manderley is in fact Cranborne Manor, while the grounds of Mapperton House are used in the garden party scenes. Those stirring beach scenes were also filmed on the south west coast in Hartland Quay in Devon. This section of the South West Cost Path is home to dramatic cliffs and some of the roughest seas in the region. It’s been the site of many shipwrecks – an intentionally ominous backdrop, perhaps?

 

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The Monte Carlo scenes in the film were an amalgamation of various locations: Mrs. Van Hopper’s sumptuous, sun-drenched hotel suite is actually the interior of Waddesdon Manor – a French Renaissance-style château in Buckinghamshire. The exterior and lobby of the Monte Carlo hotel was filmed in Nice at a former hotel, the Palais Regina. At least one part of the film was actually filmed on location though – the tropical Jardin Exotique de Monaco boasts splendid views of the sparkling Mediterranean, highlighting the strikingly different atmospheres of Monte Carlo and Manderley in the story.