Naman Shrestha
Inspired by the music of George Michael and Wham!, ‘Last Christmas’ is a 2019 Christmas romantic comedy movie named after the eponymous 1984 song. The Paul Feig directorial follows Katarina “Kate” Andrich, an aspiring musician who works at a year-round Christmas store dressed as an elf. Hopeless about herself and her life, she believes she can never make it as a singer and is chasing an impossible dream. When she has a serendipitous encounter with a mysterious man named Tom Webster, little does she know that her entire belief system and perspective on life are about to change.
As Tom enters Kate’s life, he injects a sense of belonging and hope into her life. Time passes by, and they form a special bond with each other. Soon, she inevitably starts falling in love with him, believing in the magic of Christmas for the first time in many years. The film, which is set in London, provides an immersive experience of London Christmas through the adventures of Kate and Tom as they navigate the bustling streets of the city.
Last Christmas Filming Locations
‘Last Christmas’ was shot entirely in England, specifically in London and Hertfordshire. Principal photography for the Emilia Clarke starrer was carried out around the Holiday season, from the last week of November 2018 to the second week of February 2019, in order to capture the essence of London Christmas authentically. The director, Paul Feig, marked the conclusion of the shooting by sharing a post, saying, “It’s a wrap! We have officially finished production on #lastchristmasthemovie! (It’s not like we crawled over the finish line or anything.) Huge love to our entire cast and crew. See you this Christmas!”
London, England
Since the romance between Kate and Tom blossoms on the streets of London, the makers were insistent on shooting ‘Last Christmas’ on location. Paul Feig opened up to Entertainment Weekly, “I was hell-bent on [shooting] in London before Christmas so we could use all the lights and the decorations that were naturally here. I finally get to make the love letter to London I’ve always wanted to make.” Following the couple’s adventures across the capital of England, the production team set up camp in different parts of London. To tape the scenes involving the area of Tom’s apartment, Brick Lane was turned into a film set.
The interior sequences of the opening scene were taped inside Saint Sophia Cathedral on Moscow Road in the Bayswater area. A couple of other churches — St. Mary’s Church, Bryanston Square on Wyndham Plaza and Swedish Church London at 6 Harcourt Street, both in Marylebone — served as filming destinations. Kate and her mother are seen enjoying a day out together in and around Leather Lane Market at 75 Leather Lane. Moreover, Philpot Lane, Lombard Street, Piccadilly Circus, and Regent Street are some of the many spots where important exterior portions of the film were shot. The Savoy Theatre on the Strand, the Thames Embankment, Brydges Place, St Martin’s Lane, and an apartment on the Skipwith Buildings on Portpool Lane in Holborn also make an appearance in ‘Last Christmas.’
At some popular places, filming was impossible due to the madness of the holiday season. In such cases, the production team built several sets at the West London Film Studios on Springfield Road in Hayes. Home to a total of six different sound stages, the film studio also provides other necessary amenities, including office space, a meeting room, catering, and 24-hour security. In the movie, Tom leads Kate to a small but urban park, which is The Phoenix Garden at 21 Stacey Street. Gary Freeman, the production designer, explained, “It’s a little garden retreat, a community garden, basically, run by a couple of very nice people. Obviously, that part of London is incredibly grand and tight, and it’s just a little oasis of green in quite a stroppy part of London.”
The ice skating date scenes involving Kate and Tom were reportedly recorded at an ice rink in Alexandra Palace, located in Muswell Hill. A couple of locations in the area of Brixton also hosted a few key scenes — Electric Avenue and the Brixton Tube Station. The cast and crew members also set up camp in and around Colin Narbeth at 20 Cecil Court and The Trader’s Inn at 52 Church Street to shoot some pivotal scenes for the movie.
Isle of Dogs, London
As for the exterior shot of Kate’s parents’ flat, one of the properties located on Malabar Street in Isle of Dogs was used. Gary Freeman was asked to elaborate on how the filming team had found Kate’s family house during an interview with the Motion Pictures Association. He stated, “Kate’s house we found in the Isle of Dogs, which was a sort of hard docklands area, pre-genteel London, in southeast London. It’s kind of the last vestige of working-class London in that area. What I loved so much about it was the contrast of her little housing estate with bright lights, big city London. We thought it worked very well as a location for decent, hard-working class people, not bad people, just honest, and it tied in quite well with the character. Obviously areas like that are very hard to find now in London. The working class is being pushed further and further outside into the suburbs and this was one of the last areas you could find, really.”
Covent Garden, London
The scenes involving Yuletide Wonderful, where Kate works, were reportedly recorded in Covent Garden, where a new shop was built especially for the film in the Market Building. Gary Freeman revealed more details about it when asked if the Christmas store was put together on location or built. He stated, “It’s a combination of the two. They wanted to set it in Covent Garden because it’s such an iconic location. Which is both a blessing and a pain at the same time, really, because obviously that part of London, particularly around Christmas—as we wanted to capture the Christmas beauty of central London—is notoriously difficult to control.”
“I wandered around there and suddenly realized there’s an alleyway between some of the shops and the market and felt we could cheat the front of the shop into that. In a place like Covent Garden, you’re not going to buy out a shop in the run-up to Christmas. We found this alleyway that worked, and then I just designed the shop around it. We got the true Covent Garden and the shops and the magic of Covent Garden of Christmas, and once we were inside the shop, we built it on a stage,” he added.
Hertfordshire, England
The filming team of ‘Last Christmas’ also traveled northwest of London to Hertfordshire to lens additional portions. According to reports, they set up camp in Bovingdon Airfield Studios on Old Bovingdon Airfield near Bovingdon. Spread across 100 acres in Hertfordshire countryside, the film studio comprises four state-of-the-art sound stages and over 60 acres of backlot, which is perfect for set-builds. Over the years, Bovingdon Airfield Studios has hosted the production of various film and TV projects, such as ‘Cyrano,’ ‘Anna Karenina,’ ‘Argylle,’ and ‘Good Omens.’
