About a Boy film locations
Film locations: London
About a Boy filming location: Will's antiseptic, hi-tech, 'island' apartment: St James Walk, Clerkenwell, EC1
If the marriage of Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg sounded promising, the teaming of American Pie bakers, the Weitz brothers, with Hugh Grant to bring Nick Hornby’s novel.to the screen seemed positively gruesome. Yet, against all the odds, this one works.
The neighbourhood, where Will Freeman (Hugh Grant) flouts John Donne (or is that Jon Bon Jovi) with his solitary island life is Clerkenwell, once radical working-class (Lenin once edited the Bolshevik newspaper Iskra at 37a Clerkenwell Green), now medi-darlingville.
You won’t find the entrance to his no-frills, techno-head flat, though, which was built for the movie at the St James Walk side entrance to 16-18 St James Walk, at the corner of Sekforde Street.
About a Boy filming location: Will thinks about volunteering: St James, Clerkenwell Close, Clerkenwell, London EC1
Will shops at Comptoir Gascon, 63 Charterhouse Street, (tel: 020.7608.0851), a mouthwatering French deli (an offshoot of restaurant Club Gascon and Cellar Gascon at 57 West Smithfield, alongside the Church of St Bartholomew (where Grant famously didn’t get married at the climax of Four Weddings And A Funeral).
About a Boy filming location: Will fakes it as a single parent: St James, Woodbridge Chapel, Haywards Place, Clerkenwell, London EC1
St James Clerkenwell, Clerkenwell Close, is the church where Will doesn’t volunteer to help at the drop-in centre (you can see the church again in Dance With A Stranger), and the nearby Woodbridge Chapel, Haywards Place, is where he does attend SPATs (Single Parents Alone Together), as a cheesy ploy to meet single mothers.
Will waits for his date outside the BFI London IMAX Cinema, South Bank, 1 Charlie Chaplin Walk, Waterloo, SE1 (tel: 020.7902.1234) www.bfi.org.uk/imax You can’t miss the giant illuminated cinema in what used to be the old concrete ‘bullring’ in front of Waterloo Station.
Big, big, big is the order of the day. Overwhelming cinematic experience or monumental headache? Your call. Part of the BFI, the 477-seat cinema, with the UK’s largest screen (20 by 26 metres) opened in 1999, with the emphasis on spectacular travelogues, occasional 3D features and showings of classic movies (which don’t occupy the full giant screen).
About a Boy filming location: Will splits up with a series of increasingly enraged women at the Otto Dining Lounge: 215 Sutherland Avenue, Maida Vale, London W9
He splits up with a series of increasingly enraged women at the. spacious, minimalist Otto Dining Lounge, which subsequently became Graze – which itself closed. The site is 215 Sutherland Avenue, at Maida Vale, W9 .
About a Boy filming location: the home of Fiona and Marcus: 31 Oseney Crescent, Kentish Town, London NW5
31 Oseney Crescent, Kentish Town, NW5, north of Camden, was home to terminally depressed thrift-shop hippy Fiona (Toni Collette) and her son Marcus (Nicolas Hoult).
The hairdresser, where Will gets a call from Marcus, was Parsons Skott, 243 Westbourne Grove, Notting Hill, W11. It’s since closed down.
About a Boy filming location: the home of Rachel: 1 St Stephen’s Crescent, Notting Hill, W2
By the Penguin Pool of London Zoo, Will and and Marcus chat about guy stuff.
1 St Stephen’s Crescent, W2 , opposite St Stephen’s Church at Talbot Road, Notting Hill, is home to single mother Rachel (Rachel Weisz).
About a Boy filming location: Will tries to unravel his web of deceit: Hakkasan, 8 Hanway Place, London W1
The really classy restaurant in which Will tries to unravel his web of deceit is Hakkasan, 8 Hanway Place, W1, off Tottenham Court Road (tube: Tottenham Court Road, Northern and Central Liines). Forget the rather dingy sidestreet, it’s high, high style in this Chinese restaurant from the creators of the Wagamama noodle chain – the interior did scoop a design award, and it’s regarded as not only the best Chinese restaurant in the UK, but one of the Top 50 restaurants in the world.
The school concert, where Will risks his cool to accompany Marcus’s shaky version of Killing Me Softly, is not a school at all, but Acton Town Hall, Acton High Street.
All material Copyright ©2008 The Worldwide Guide To Movie Locations
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About a Boy, 2002
Director
Cast
visit the film locations
London: Flights: Heathrow Airport; Gatwick Airport
Dine in style at: Hakkasan, 8 Hanway Place, W1 (tel: 0871.971.6481), off Tottenham Court Road (Tube: Tottenham Court Road, Northern and Central Lines)
Trivia
Clerkenwell is featured again in Mike Newell’s Dance With a Stranger; A Fish Called Wanda; and Notes on a Scandal