When Cold War veteran Stan Hurley takes CIA black ops recruit Mitch Rapp under his wing, they are drawn into a wave of attacks on military and civilian targets. As a pattern begins to emerge, the pair join forces with a Turkish agent to stop an operative intent on starting a global war.
Director: Michael Cuesta
Production Designer: Andrew Laws
Studio: CBS Films
Starring: Dylan O’Brien & Michael Keaton
Locations: London, UK, Thailand & Italy
Location Brief: Finding present-day locations across London and the UK to double for Istanbul, Germany, Poland and Virginia, USA
Working with Andrew Laws & Michael Cuesta on American Assassin
Years after its original cinema release, American Assassin found a new audience when it reached No. 1 in the Netflix film chart — which prompted me to look back at the production and some of the locations we found for the film.
One of the things I have always loved about location scouting is finding somewhere that isn’t necessarily what it first appears to be.
On American Assassin, the location brief took that to another level.
Working with production designer Andrew Laws and director Michael Cuesta, we needed to find locations across London and the UK that could convincingly double for several completely different parts of the world — including Istanbul, Germany, Poland and Virginia in the USA.
It was a brilliant location challenge.
Turning London into Istanbul — and Beyond
London is an incredibly versatile filming city, but making it play another country is rarely about finding one perfect location.
It is often about the details.
The architecture, road surfaces, street furniture, signage, shopfronts and even the way a street opens up at the end of a shot can completely give a location away.
For American Assassin, we searched for locations that gave the production the right building blocks. With careful framing, dressing and the work of the art department and VFX teams, familiar UK locations could become somewhere entirely different on screen.
South London stood in for Istanbul, while other locations across the UK helped us create Germany, Poland and Virginia.
That is one of my favourite parts of location scouting — looking at a place and seeing not where you are, but where it could be.
Filming American Assassin Across the UK and Europe
The production also travelled internationally, filming in Italy and Thailand, with locations including Rome and Phuket.
The mix of genuine international locations and carefully selected UK doubles gave American Assassin its constantly shifting global backdrop.
For a film moving through multiple countries, the real challenge is making sure those worlds feel believable and connected. The audience should never be thinking about where something was actually filmed.
If we have done our job properly, they simply believe they are there.
Final Thoughts
American Assassin was a great example of just how versatile London and the UK can be for international filmmaking.
Finding locations that could double for Istanbul, Germany, Poland and the USA was a fantastic scouting challenge and exactly the sort of brief I enjoy — looking beyond the obvious and finding a completely different world in a location.
It was great to see the film find a new audience years later and reach No. 1 on Netflix.
Here is a selection of my original location scout photos for the film:
