Director: Matthew Vaughn
Production Designer: Paul Kirby
Starring: Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Samuel L. Jackson, Mark Strong and Michael Caine
Locations: London & UK
Location Brief: The contrasting worlds of urban London, the British establishment and Middle America
Scouting Kingsman: The Secret Service
One of the things I loved about scouting Kingsman filming locations was the sheer contrast of the location brief.
On one side we had Eggsy’s world — gritty, urban London and the housing estate where he grows up.
On the other was the immaculate, upper-class world of Kingsman: Savile Row tailoring, private clubs and the British establishment.
Then, just to make life interesting, we also had to find Middle America in the UK.
It was a brilliant location brief.
Finding Eggsy’s London
One of the key locations was the Alexandra and Ainsworth Estate in North London, designed by architect Neave Brown.
The estate’s huge concrete terraces, walkways and brutalist architecture gave us exactly the scale and character we needed for Eggsy’s world.
For one sequence, Eggsy is chased through the estate by his mum’s boyfriend’s cronies.
We filmed the parkour chase from one of the upper terrace apartments and followed the action down through the different levels of the estate.
It was a perfect example of finding a location that could become part of the action rather than simply sitting in the background.
The architecture effectively helped design the sequence.
Two Completely Different Londons
That was what made Kingsman such an interesting film to scout.
Matthew Vaughn’s London wasn’t one London.
It was several completely different worlds pushed together.
Eggsy’s urban environment had to feel tough and real, while the Kingsman world needed elegance, tradition and a sense of old British establishment.
The contrast between those locations helped tell Eggsy’s story as he moved from one world into another.
As a Location Manager, those are always the most interesting briefs.
You’re not simply looking for somewhere to film.
You’re trying to find locations that visually explain the characters and the world of the film before anyone says a word.
Finding Middle America in the UK
The film’s church sequence presented a completely different challenge.
The brief was Middle America.
In the UK.
The location had to feel convincingly American and completely removed from the London locations we had been scouting.
That’s one of the strange pleasures of location work in Britain.
Over the years I’ve scouted the UK to double for everywhere from Florida and Philadelphia to Paris and the Middle East.
On Kingsman, once again, the job was to make somewhere in Britain feel like somewhere thousands of miles away.
London as Part of the Story
Matthew Vaughn created an incredibly distinctive visual world for Kingsman: The Secret Service.
Stylish, exaggerated and very British.
But underneath all the action and humour, the locations were doing a lot of storytelling.
The brutalist concrete of Eggsy’s estate.
The polished world of Savile Row.
The formality of the British establishment.
And a slice of Middle America recreated in the UK.
Completely different worlds, all within the same film.
Below are some of my original location scout photographs from the Kingsman filming locations across London and the UK.
