Ever had a movie/TV series set or filmed in your home town? Was it cringe or "Oh look, that's my house!"

[KnopkaPixie]

My ex front door in my old flat has been filmed, fleetingly, on the French version of Come Dîne With Me as the historic building above the cheesemongers, and there is a TV series being filmed right now on location in my town depicting us all as mafia connected murderous types but in a tasteful and sort of Inspector Morse way, obviously. I live in Corsica.

I absolutely cringe whenever there is a depiction of where I live or have lived on the old telly screen and just want to shout, "Oh God, no! We're not all like that!"

Apart from the hand over mouth, mumble mumble well, sort of kind of like but...

Do you have experience of this phenomenon?

We had a commercial filmed in our house. The way it was shot you wouldn't know it was our house though.

I also work occasionally as an extra, many of our locations are far from glamorous!! Last thing I did was a film set in the highlands, we actually filmed not far from Glasgow in a village hall and in the grounds of a private house. Locations 5 miles apart but they will make it look like we are walking up the garden in one house and into the hall.

Glasgow often doubles as New York in big productions. We went to see Batgirl being filmed... very exciting, lots of classic cars and fake snow... and then of course they canned the whole film!

I spent three nights as an extra on that shoot freezing my bits off on Ingram street. I'm not surprised it was canned, the whole thing was a total shitshow, the most disorganised set I've ever worked on, extras were treated appallingly. The flames coming out of the fire truck was quite cool though.

Lots of period dramas are filmed on the road I live on and the exterior of our house has been used in lots of shots. We’ve never allowed them to film inside (though have been asked several times) because the disruption and mess is not worth the fee they offer.

The recent well known TV programmes filmed as a regular backdrop are Mr Selfridge, Call the Midwife and Bletchley Circle. But there have been a host of other lesser known ones and a few films too.

Heartstopper and Joan were both filmed in my town.

Haven't yet seen Joan, but I'm fairly certain town was chosen because seafront is a bit run down!

I grew up in the Cotswolds so always saw local locations used for period drama.

My lovely Gran's house was used as the set for one of the houses on 'This is England' It was proper 80s style,
She had just moved into residential care and the house was relatively empty and up for sale.
We got a few hundred quid for it!

I'm sure there was a poster on here whose house was used as Uncle Bryn's house in Gavin and Stacey. Or maybe her mum's house.

Two doors down! Bloody hilarious if you haven't watched it, and I didn't know until recently it was filmed where I live.
Yeah Glasgow is used a lot for American movies, think it's due to its square set up

In the second (?) series of Broadchurch, when they're in court a lot, the "court" is the central building of the University of Exeter (called the Forum) and the university library. I worked there at the time and couldn't unsee it! Tbh, if you look carefully, they don't cover up any of the signs so there are big letters behind David Tennant that say "Book Return" and things.

Ruined my suspension of disbelief 😆

My estate was featured on 'Rich house, poor house' (the poor house was on my estate 🤣) They made it look much worse than it is, managed to find an abandoned trolley to film and some graffiti. Ignored the lovely park and all the nice, well looked after gardens, and found the one with an old mattress outside!

I live in the same flat as a slightly famous person who has a much more famous daughter, they recently did who you think you are and she visited her dad so the entrance to my flat building was on there.

I live in Happy Valley, so yeah. The road where the police woman was killed used to be our school run, I would wince every time I passed the spot.

They have just filmed a TV series in my village. In the series it will depict somewhere 500 miles from where we actually are. They are just using it as a location, it's a film set, it's pretend. So no need to cringe I don't think. Most people don't think it's real do they?

When I was a child they filmed “poor cow” in Southwark our flat was in the film. I remember it well . The catering staff gave sandwiches to all of the local children.
I got a copy of the film recently it is a complete slum. Life then to life now bares no comparison to now.

I live in London and work beside St Paul's so areas from my day to day life turn up a lot on TV. I still get a bit "ooo there's my bus!" but weirdly I get far more excited when bits of London I know well turn up in books - I think it's because the places have to be described not just filmed so you get to see familiar places through someone else's eyes.

When I lived in Gateshead in thr 90s they filmed a Catherine Cookson adaption in the derelict street at the end of my road. They covered up the tarmac with mud and erected a cut-out house with a smoking chimney at the end to hide the modren view. I was a bit dismayed how little it took to turn my neighbourhood into a Victorian slum!

The Retirement Plan with Nick Cage was filmed here in Cayman after Covid.

We had a lot of fun commenting on the lunacy of the taxi drivers route (45 mins in the wrong direction), the fact that one of the bad henchmen is my boxing coach, pointing out our friends homes in the scenery etc.

My mum's pilates class got put on hold so they could film Detectorists

The Exorcist was set at and filmed at my university (well before my time but was a bit of a Halloween tradition there). My wedding venue (local to me) moonlights as a film /TV venue and has been on everything from Pirates of the Caribbean, Bridgerton, The Crown, Les Miserables etc. The Bridgerton house location is about a mile from me.
My mum’s hometown being featured in a big budget movie gets me a bit excited because it is a small town no one had heard of, but I personally have have always lived in big cities so not that exciting for something to be set in the city itself.

That's interesting to hear, @TheDandyLion, thanks.

Been lucky enough to live in Cambridge where they film stuff all the time. Not yet in our actual street but near and at my place of work frequently.

We lived in the US for a while in New York. Again, often saw filming taking place and walked past The Oak room during filming. Saw a few famous faces in town for filming. Our DC was at a Montessori nursery in the street we lived on and we passed a few times on our way to it. There was deli and a carpet store around the corner also featured in a tv mini series, I think it was called Damages.

I lived in Brighton in the late 90s. It had just been discovered as a brilliant place to film by London types. There was one night where Brighton was on 3 of the 5 terrestrial channels.

I used to watch them film casualty. Was weird getting off the bus to snowstorms in July. Reruns make me think of happier times.

Brassic is filmed in a town I used to live in but can't stand watching that. It has some nice areas but it's also got a few odd places.

Not a movie, but many years ago, ( twenty maybe) a band called the Ordinary Boys filmed a music video in my back garden with the kids in it as extras. The singer Preston then went in Celebrity Big Brother and ended up married to Chantelle I think her name was who was pretending to be a celebrity.

I used to live in a flat in a converted house in Manchester. One morning I opened the front door to find them filming Band of Gold on the street! They had put a note through the front door but one of the other flat residents had taken it and not told anyone else!

They also filmed Cracker outside another flat I lived in.

There was a series about a Victorian murderer who drowned his new wives. I was shocked to recognise the house next door to where I lived in Scarborough!

Years ago, when I lived in Manchester, my front door and the front of my house was used for a scene in Coronation Street. It was for a teenage boy who had run away from home and was sheltering in my porch. The whole thing took 2 days to film, there were huge trucks in the road, a catering van and all sorts and the scene was less than 20 seconds. I was paid good money. When I asked why they chose my front door, they said it looked ‘suitably scruffy’! I was mortified.
Years later, the same front door and front of house was used as the house in the student sit com, Fresh Meat. I didn’t own the house then, but it must have still looked ‘suitably scruffy’!

Our local sports centre where we had our PE lessons in secondary school had an ancient cinder running track and spectator stands. It is what they used as the Paris Olympic stadium in Chariots of Fire. It was impossible to run round that track without belting out a few bars of Van Gelis and running in slow motion.

Now I live in Liverpool and it’s often used as a film location because a lot of the architecture is similar to New York. I’ve seen loads of things being filmed including The Batman and Fantastic Beasts. Our work offices our local petrol station were both on The Responder. My DS lived on the waterfront and his apartment building is in practically every aerial shot of Liverpool on TV.

Our house is right by Strawberry Field so there’s always a lot of filming there too.