London is such an international city – sit on the tube and you can hear ten different languages being spoken around you. People from every country in the world flock here and there are parts of London where you could almost believe you were in another country (like the cluster of Vietnamese shops around Hackney or Iranian in West Kensington). No wonder then that London has taken on the role of many other cities around the world in movies and TV. Sometimes it’s down to budget, sometimes it’s a director who just doesn’t like flying. But it seems that London can be just about anywhere. Take a look at some prime examples in our Top 10 Movies in Which London Plays Somewhere Else.
10. Legally Blonde (Harvard)
Of course, with London being such a seat of learning and home to so many fine universities, you’d assume that it took on the role of Harvard because the producers felt it had the grandeur needed. Actually, it was a far more pragmatic reason – the movie’s ending hadn’t gone down well with test audiences and they needed to add an extra scene on to the end. But Reece Witherspoon was no longer in America – she had gone to London to start filming The Importance of Being Earnest, so the production team followed her there and got the graduation scene at Dulwich College. The rest of the cast weren’t there, but that’s OK – they were spliced in afterwards.
9. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Berlin)
Remember that scene in the third Indiana Jones film where Indy is being chased through Berlin Airport by Nazis? Well, here’s a shocker – it’s not an airport and it’s not in Berlin. It is, in fact, the Royal Horticultural Hall in Westminster. Airports are busy places, so an events space in London is the obvious place to film, right? It’s been used in a number of films and adverts, most recently one for Barclays and a memorable trailer involving some acrobats for the BBC. It’s clearly a bit of a blank canvas as it also appears in Richard III and Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” video, in very different incarnations each time. I believe the Nazi flags were only for The Last Crusade though…
8. Highlander (Manhattan)
Highlander is a very confused film – Sean Connery the Scotsman plays a Spaniard, Christopher Lambert the Frenchman plays the Scotsman – so it’s inevitable that it’d get its locations mixed up too. It’s also understandable that the producers would confuse London for New York, as it seems to happen so often in movies (the Bourne Ultimatum and Sleepy Hollow being just two further examples). After all, the skyscrapers and busy traffic of the Square Mile would make anyone think twice about where they were. But it’s a bit baffling that they chose the unremarkable north-west area of Kilburn to play the part. Specifically, St Augustine’s church, which fills in for a New York church. As with many elements of this film, don’t think too hard about it…it won’t stand up well to scrutiny.
7. Backbeat (Hamburg and Liverpool)
Backbeat is a film about the formative years of the Beatles, focussing on their highly talented bass player Stu Sutcliffe. (Of course, fans of the film or of Beatles’ history will know that his talent wasn’t for playing bass, but for modern art) The movie is set in two cities – Hamburg and Liverpool. So, naturally, it was filmed in London. A gym in Kings Cross became a Liverpool pub, a German record company found itself with offices in Hampstead, and Ladbroke Grove was suddenly home to the Kaiserkellar (above). Every club that was featured in the movie was somewhere in London, with Kilburn popping up again as the Star Club. Apparently, to recreate a German red light district in the 1960s, you just have to head to North London!
6. Skyfall (Shanghai)
When Brits visit China, they always report back just how strange and other-worldly it is. How completely alien the culture is to their own. Which was the vibe that Sam Mendes was going for in the latest James Bond installment, Skyfall. In an interviewwith screenwriter John Logan, the choice of China was described as this: “We wanted exotic locations that seem so unlike the world that he grew up in, the world that he functions in, in a way trying to find places for Bond to be uncomfortable”.
So, of course, they filmed it in Liverpool St. That’s right, the Shanghai office block featured so prominently in that segment is actually Broadgate Tower in the City of London. And the swimming pool is near Canary Wharf. Kind of shatters that whole, other-worldly illusion, doesn’t it? Apparently, the aerial shots were filmed in the real Shanghai with the kind permission of the government, but thanks to budget constraints London stepped in once again for the close-ups.
5. Goldeneye (St Petersburg)
While we’re in Bond mode, let’s cast an eye over the Pierce Brosnan outing of the mid-90s. What appears to be St Petersburg turns out to be…Somerset House, just next to Waterloo Bridge. Somerset House is constantly being called into action as a film set, including a house in Old Manhattan in the aforementioned Sleepy Hollow. Occasionally, it even appears as itself as in the romantic comedy Love Actually – there genuinely is a skating rink in the courtyard every Christmas. In Goldeneye, however, it is definitely not itself, but apparently being a film crew in Russia is just as dangerous as being a secret agent there, as the unit that did go there required bodyguards. Safer to stay in London!
4. Full Metal Jacket (Vietnam)
And that was the personal philosophy of director Stanley Kubrick, who was so afraid to travel that he made his entire Vietnam war epic in the UK. A lot of it was filmed at Beckton Gas Works, an abandoned industrial plant that still belched out noxious gases as the crew arranged foliage in a jungle-like way around it to look like the ruined city of Huế. At this point, they may have been prepared to take their chances on the real battlefields rather than the chemicals and asbestos of East London. Still, Kubrick had a fearsome reputation for stubbornness and if he said that the Isle of Dogs could stand in for the Humid jungles of ‘Nam, then no-one would argue with him. And to his credit, he pulls it off in the final film – there’s no way of telling that the jungle is plastic.
3. Les Miserables (Paris)
At least Kubrick had the excuse that Vietnam is a bit of a long way away. The makers of the hit musical Les Miserables were obviously just ignoring the fact that you can get from London to Paris in a couple of hours on the Eurostar nowadays, and just chose to film the revolutionary epic in Greenwich instead. To be fair, the Royal Naval College is a prime filming location, thanks to its unspoilt, ye-olde looks and it’s hosted everything from Gulliver’s Travels to Pirates of the Caribbean. In fact, the locals are pretty blasé about Hollywood stars turning up in their backyard, but it seemed that everyone got a little exciting about the combined star-power of Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman. Even Greenwich University had a little starstruck moment….
2. The Dark Knight Rises (Gotham City and Florence)
Yet another film that used the Royal Naval College was The Dark Knight Roses, third in the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy. The college appears for a few minutes at the end, posing as a cafe in Florence, but it’s at odds with the rest of the film where London appears to be playing Gotham City. The Farmiloe Building in Clerkenwell became Gotham Police Station, and the Crush Hall of Senate House saw Bruce Wayne dancing with Catwoman, played by Anne Hathaway (clearly a London fan!). The Senate Hall also featured in “Batman Begins”, as the lobby of the courthouse.
But the London action doesn’t stop there, with Stansted airport and a Croydon hospital both making an appearance, interspersed with locations in New York, LA and Pittsburgh. Clearly, unlike Kubrick, Christopher Nolan is not afraid to travel.
1. Eyes Wide Shut (New York)
So it’s fitting that we should come back to Kubrick for the number one slot. The novella that Eyes Wide Shut was based on was set in Vienna. So, what would any sensible, travel-fearing director do? Why, re-locate it, of course! But not to London, where Kubrick was living, but to New York. And then he filmed it in London anyway.
The bohemian streets of Greenwich Village were replaced by the not-quite-so bohemian streets of Farringdon and Moorgate. The Sonata Club was played by Madame Jo Jos in Soho and Hamleys Toy Shop and Chelsea and Westminster Hospital also made appearances. A second unit in New York got a few actual American locations, but the majority of the scenes were either sets or shot around London and the Home Counties. A very American retelling of an Austrian tale, that is almost entirely British. Job well done, Stanley!