[ad_1]
The new Gal Gadot Netflix movie, Heart of Stone, gives the Wonder Woman star a chance to once again beat up some bad guys. But this time around, she’s also a sexy spy. Hey, why not? Let’s give Gadot her James Bond moment.
Directed by Tom Harper, with a screenplay from Greg Rucka and Allison Schroeder, Heart of Stone follows a top intelligence agent, Rachel Stone (Gadot), who works for the super-secret, super-elite organization known as The Charter. To MI6, Rachel Stone is just a lowly agent who has never worked in the field. But to The Charter, Rachel Stone is the best of the best. So when bad guys threaten to steal the important MacGuffin item known as “the Heart,” it’s up to Stone to protect it.
Heart of Stone is your typical spy action flick, which means it involves a lot of fights and gunfire in various European cities. Read on to learn about the Heart of Stone filming locations, from Iceland to Portugal.
Where was Heart of Stone filmed?
Heart of Stone was filmed on location in various locations around Europe, Iceland, Morocco, and California. The action-packed opening sequence at the ski resort was filmed in the Alps, at the Glacier Hotel Grawand in Senales, Italy. Fun fact: That hotel is the “highest elevation hotel” in Europe, at about 10,538 feet above sea level. They really sent Gadot up into the sky!
The big, climactic sequence at the end of the movie that takes place in Iceland was filmed, in part, on location in Iceland. That includes a scene where the Harpa Concert Hall—a famous, glass-windowed venue in Reykjavík, Iceland—explodes, killing one of the kings of The Charter. According to the Heart of Stone production notes, that was filmed outside the real Harpa Concert Hall, and involved practical effects, stunt performers, and hundreds of extras pretending to run for their lives. The production also pulled off a stunt at the Hallgrímur Church in Reykjavík, which is the tallest building in Iceland. Motorcycle stuntman Dan Wyle jumped over the six-foot wall that surrounds the church.
Another large chunk of the movie was filmed in Portugal. The big car chase sequence—when Gadot breaks her cover to save her MI6 team—was shot in the streets of Lisbon. “[We] got amazing access,” director Tom Harper said in an interview for the Heart of Stone production notes. “I never thought that we’d be able to speed cars through the central square, throw cars off steps and crash into things. But they were wonderfully accommodating. It’s a heritage city as well, so you have to really make sure that you are not damaging anything. I mean, we did damage things. We damaged cars and we broke a lot of cameras. But we left Lisbon in one piece.”
The scene where Gadot and actor Alia Bhatt are taken to a Senegales village after crash-landing in the desert was also filmed in Portugal, at an abandoned farm in the small coastal town of Aljezur. But the desert scenes themselves were shot in the Sahara in the town of Erfoud in Morocco.
As for the scene where the four kings of The Charter meet in a room—aka the scene with the Glenn Close cameo—that was filmed in London’s iconic Royal Albert Hall. And, a fun fact from the production notes: The orchestra in the background of that scene is, in fact, London’s actual Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Finally, the production traveled to the United States to film the scene where Jamie Dornan and Gal Gadot fight atop a giant blimp in the sky. That was done outside of Los Angeles—in Perris, California—where extreme sport stunt coordinator JT Holmes and his jump team worked with aerial coordinator and helicopter pilot Kevin La Rosa II to pull off those stunts in the sky.
After a six-month shoot all over the world, filming finally wrapped in July 2022. In an interview in the Heart of Stone production notes, Gadot said, “I like to think of going to the movies as an opportunity to experience interesting places. Not everyone gets to go to amazing places like Iceland, Italy, Portugal, the UK, or Senegal. So beyond great action, you get to see these locations you may not otherwise experience.”
Of course, some scenes involved Gal Gadot in front of a blue screen, too. But Heart of Stone really does take viewers all around the globe.
[ad_2]