I recently returned from a few days up in Glasgow this July with my lovely husband Andy to celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary. We had visited the Scottish city for the first time just after our wedding as a ‘mini moon’ in July 2019. We really enjoyed the break and knew we’d go back one day, it has plenty of culture, good pubs and police boxes!
Exactly two years after our first visit to the city filming took place in 2021 for the new Indiana Jones film, had it not been for Covid restrictions we’d have loved to have been there. So this year we wanted to go back and see where they’d transformed the city into 1960s America.
I did some research on the internet to get an idea of what streets were used for Indy. While doing so I also discovered there’d been filming for an ITV series ‘The Elect’ the day before our arrival in a pub called ‘The State’. Naturally we popped in for a pint out of curiosity and were delighted to find it a very attractive traditional craft ale pub – I doubt we would have found it had it not been for the filming. That’s something I love about being a location geek, you can end up finding some great places.
Back to Indy – the main filming, which was covered extensively on social media last year, took place on St Vincent Street which is right in the centre of the city. We walked up and down it a few times during our stay. During filming lots of shops and restaurants had their frontages decorated with appropriate 1960s vintage signage and promotional material. Along with all the red, white and blue banners in place it would look very convincing as New York City back in the day. Some buildings stand out more than others – there’s a quite an imposing façade on the distinctive Bank of Scotland (designed by James Miller).
St Vincent Street wasn’t the only location used, the area by the Glasgow Council Cambers and around Toll Bar were redressed for filming. We certainly need to go back after seeing the film, when it comes out finally in June 2023.
When I was checking the Glasgow news websites I also spotted that road closures were planned for several streets near our hotel while we where there. it turned out filming for a Bollywood film ‘Tehran’ was scheduled to be taking place. it would have been rude not to check it out when it was literally around the corner (we could see part of the closure cordon from our hotel window!).
Early evening on the Thursday 14th July we casually walked through Cadogan Street which had been decorated with food and market stalls – clearly doubling for a middle eastern region. There was Arabic signage, and exotic wares on the stalls that you wouldn’t normally find in UK. I’m curious why they chose Glasgow to double as the Iranian capital! The weather was rather good and by the time we were leaving it was getting unusually warm, but that couldn’t be guaranteed and Iran is not known for its resemblance to a damp Scotland.
Next evening quite late we wandered through a deserted set, only a few people were about so I managed to take some more pictures. As well as stalls there were vehicles with foreign number plates and a motorbike set up with a camera rig.
On the third and final evening of our stay we passed by again, but there was more activity going on and we couldn’t cut through like before.
The morning we were leaving we had breakfast in the Counting House pub by George Square. We could see large white vans outside the Glasgow City Chambers (a handsome building with stunning interiors that is a frequently used filming location) there was another film crew setting up! This time for an Apple TV Victorian period piece called ‘Debutante’. The production had just arrived in the city after filming in Edinburgh previously.
We had a few hours to kill after checking out and could see that something was happening back in ‘Tehran’ on Blythwood Street. On returning to the hotel after breakfast I heard the sound of gunfire and caught a glimpse of a blue vehicle moving at speed. People around the hotel were a little startled at the sound which echoed off the nearby buildings. I doubt they realised there was a film set so close to them, the noise would have been quite unexpected (and a little worrying).
https://www.glasgowlive.co.uk/news/glasgow-news/bollywood-comes-glasgow-action-scenes-24519420
It was too hot to stand by the road with our luggage watching from the street corner across the road. Instead we found a great spot on the first floor of the QPark car park that ran alongside the filming area. This gave us a prime view of a scene being set up. We could see extras in place and rehearsals underway. There looked to be stuntmen preparing for action – at least one driver had a helmet. There were also two firemen standing by with extinguishers. My husband identified the director – Arun Gopalan – on set, courtesy of a quick search on IMDB. we also spotted a large, muscular Western looking man who might be one of acting leads? I don’t think the main star John Abraham was there, but I could be wrong. We watched from our vantage point for about an hour. You often hear that here’s always lots of hanging round on films sets, this was evident here. Several vehicles were being prepped for what might have been a chase / stunt scene. Just as it seemed close to actual filming we checked our train time for getting home – our train was cancelled! Sadly we made the sensible choice to run for the earlier train rather than risk the later one (the journey up had been quite an adventure so wanted to make sure we got back okay).
So a holiday back to a place we enjoyed on honeymoon turned out to have three filming productions happening – one that had just moved on, one in progress and one just setting up! Quite the perfect trip for us film location followers.
It’s no wonder Glasgow is encouraging all this filming (and welcoming the disruption it can cause) it makes the city a lot of money – millions in fact – here are just two articles I came across; https://www.insider.co.uk/news/glasgow-makes-record-42-million-26050511 https://www.glasgowworld.com/business/movie-and-tv-filming-help-bring-ps214-million-to-glasgow-economy-new-report-finds-3741496
Just off the top of my head the filming that’s taken place in the city has included ‘World War Z’, ‘Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw’, ‘The Batman’, as well as the upcoming ‘The ‘Flash’, ‘Batgirl’, Indiana Jones 5, not to mention various TV shows like – ‘Outlander’ and ‘Vigil’. Busier than Liverpool perhaps?
From scene to seen 