After being chosen as a location for multi-award-winning drama Game of Thrones, scenes of which were filmed in the city’s Alcázar palace, Royal Shipyards, and the nearby Roman site of Italica, Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel City for 2018, Seville continues to be a popular filming location for TV series, both historic and contemporary.
Season 3 of acclaimed Netflix series The Crown, which follows the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, has been shooting in the Hotel Alfonso XIII, as well as San Juan de Aznalfarache. This town, west of the city, stands in for 1950s Greece, the home country of Elizabeth’s husband Prince Phillip, complete with period vehicles. Other locations around Andalucia have included Cadiz and Malaga.
Meanwhile, the new BBC2 drama MotherFatherSon, which sees Richard Gere play a Robert Murdoch-style media tycoon, brought Hollywood to San Juan again, as well as the unglamorous barrio of La Pañoleta in nearby Camas, near San Juan.
The dapper grey-haired actor was filmed in Bodega San Rafael, a popular, down-to-earth restaurant known for its mosto wine and prawns. These locations are standing in for a street market and restaurant in Mexico, where part of this political and psychological thriller, which “sits at the intersection of police, politics and the media, …a family saga and a… study of power,” is set.
Other locations for the eight-part series include the Andalucian parliament in the Macarena district, housed in the 16th- century former Cinco Llagas hospital, the Ayuntamiento (City Hall), and the Palacio del Marqués de La Motilla on Calle Cuna. Another location for the series, according to ABC newspaper, is Palmas Altas, to the south of Seville, where Andalucia’s largest biggest shopping and leisure centre is being built.
In August, the Alcázar was also used to shoot The Spanish Princess, about Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII’s first wife. This follows on from The White Princess.
