North London Mansion To Princess Diana Villa: Inside Prime Video’s The Girlfriend

As the fanfare around the internet’s unapologetic ‘boy moms’ fades into the background, Prime Video has released its anticipated new thriller, The Girlfriend.

Which wealthy mother wouldn’t be suspicious of a social climber vying for her only son? At least that’s how Laura Sanderson (Robin Wright, who also directs) sees it. When her son Daniel (Laurie Davidson) brings his new girlfriend Cherry Laine (Olivia Cooke) home, Laura just can’t help but be suspicious. Is this just paranoia? Or is Cherry hiding something grave?

Based on Michelle Frances’ 2017 novel of the same name, The Girlfriend is set against an opulent backdrop: the high society world that Laura commands as an art curator and which Laurie was born into as her son, but which Cherry must grapple to stay in as a working class grifter and captivating salesperson. Lucky Londoners will recognise some of the filming locations. Here’s what you need to know.

Daniel (Laurie Davidson) & Cherry (Olivia Cooke) in The Girlfriend.
(Christopher Raphael © Amazon Content Services LLC)

Prime Video’s The Girlfriend: The Filming Locations To Know

The Girlfriend was filmed in London and Spain in the summer of 2024, specifically in ‘very much high-end London, smart London’, says supervising location manager Ben Mangham, reflecting on the brief.

‘Robin’s character is a very successful businesswoman in her own right who’s married to a very powerful guy,’ Mangham explains. ‘So that’s one side of the story, and then Olivia’s character, the girlfriend, comes from the other side of the tracks – but by no means is she any less sharp. There was that juxtaposition between the two worlds because Olivia’s character very much wants to fit in. She portrays herself as though she is part of that world but that very quickly began to unravel.’

The series – which also stars Waleed Zuaiter as hotelier husband and father Howard, Tanya Moodie as Laura’s best friend Isabella, and Shalom Brune-Franklin as Isabella’s daughter and Daniel’s former girlfriend Brigitte – spans six episodes and features an array of splendid filming locations befitting the family’s lavish life. Here’s the run down.

Howard (Waleed Zuaiter) & Laura Sanderson (Robin Wright) in The Girlfriend. (Christopher Raphael © Amazon Content Services LLC)

Where Is Laura & Howard’s Home?

When your boyfriend finally brings you home to meet the parents, you’re not always welcomed into a property quite like this one. Laura and Howard’s home – the home Daniel grew up in – is a gorgeously well-appointed property in St John’s Wood, which Mangham says the team was ‘very lucky to come across’.

The series opens with an ominous whip around the property as we follow about five steps behind a vicious fight soundtracked by Lorde’s spooky cover of ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’, originally by Tears for Fears. It’s all gloom and shadows, as we see a whisky tumbler knocked onto its side on a drinks cart, an abandoned stiletto and a bloody knife plunging into the swimming pool.

And then we flash back five months earlier: everything is lighter, and we get an aerial shot of Laura’s house in the leafy London suburb, just a stone’s throw from the famous Abbey Road. There’s a curvaceous sculpture in the back garden of the mansion – which Laura gazes through as she deals with a frustrating work call – and tasteful art adorning the walls in every room. A whistlestop tour of the house introduces us both to the property and to Laura: an immaculate woman with opulent taste and everything in its place, including towels rolled up and ready to go in cubby holes beside her basement swimming pool. Laura catches up with her son Daniel in their home’s very own sauna with a beer in hand – and this is when Cherry enters the picture. ‘Look at you, head over heels!’ she laughs as her son gushes. ‘You remind me of her,’ Daniel says.

And our first tension: ‘You mean she reminds you of me,’ Laura corrects him. Then we progress into the magnificently spacious kitchen for that fateful first meeting.

Laura (Robin Wright) & Daniel (Laurie Davidson) in The Girlfriend. (Christopher Raphael © Amazon Content Services LLC)

‘You can just smell the wealth when you walk around,’ star Olivia Cooke recently joked in an interview. ‘Every house is just so manicured and beautiful. It doesn’t feel quite real.’

‘I mean, it’s just how the other half live, isn’t it?’ Cooke continues. ‘We spent six weeks there, so you start to fantasise about things like, what would you do with the bedrooms? How many times a week would you use the pool? Would you have a sauna every day?’

And how did the series get their hands on such a palatial property? A serendipitous refurbishment project. ‘The [owner] was refurbishing her house – four floors, five bedrooms, basement swimming pool – in leafy St John’s Wood, and her house was empty and free for the whole summer,’ Mangham explains. ‘It is very rare that you come across a location like that – basically we got very lucky. Otherwise, production would have had to have built this fabulous set in a studio, because a lot of the show played out in the house.’

According to Cooke, the St John’s Wood house ‘really helps to sell the world that Laura lives in’. ‘She is an art gallerist and dealer. She has just got impeccable taste, so every corner of her house, and her life, is so well thought out,’ Cooke explains. ‘I think you can really feel that by watching the show. So you can see how it must be so nerve wracking for Cherry walking in for the first time, because she’s walking into this £20 million house, which is just so opulent, and there’s no quick escape route, because it’s so maze-like and vast.’

‘We shot for 11 weeks from prep, shoot and strike, in a residential street in St John’s Wood, and we still have friends there!’ Mangham adds. ‘So that was the miracle: shooting for such a long time and still being welcome.’

Laura Sanderson (Robin Wright) in The Girlfriend. (Christopher Raphael © Amazon Content Services LLC)

Laura’s Art Gallery

Another key location we spend a lot of time in is Laura’s Soho art gallery, which was filmed in a real gallery in London. Mangham reflects ‘there was a lot of chat about how we were going [film the art gallery scenes]’ before the team started. In the end, ‘we used a real gallery in Soho in between their shows,’ Mangham says.

‘Like theatres have dark periods, galleries have swap-over times, and so we hired the gallery and had our own exhibition, which was part of the character’s work,’ Mangham explains. ‘We had beautiful artwork all over the walls, and we had two different exhibitions in the storyline, so the circus of filming descended on the gallery world in Soho a couple of times, which was great.’

Howard (Waleed Zuaiter), Laura (Robin Wright) & Daniel Sanderson (Laurie Davidson) in The Girlfriend. (Christopher Raphael © Amazon Content Services LLC)

Where Is The Spanish Villa?

When it came to shooting in Spain, a local location manager took over the reins from Ben Mangham to ensure the series showcased the sun-soaked European nation with authenticity and an insider’s touch. The brief was to showcase ‘the ocean, the beautiful landscape, the romance of the area, but also the affluence,’ explains Irene Manrique Martin. ‘They wanted to show that the people with a lot of money go to spend the holidays in Marbella, a summer village that has an old money style.’

Filming spanned Malaga where a cruise terminal was transformed into an airport, to Ronda where an olive oil factory plays the role of a vineyard. This is La Almazara, a striking new venue designed by Philippe Stark. But most of the action (other than the yacht scenes which were filmed closer to Cádiz, where the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea meet) was filmed in Marbella – ‘in the centre of the old town, which is beautiful’, Manrique Martin says. ‘We try our best in this industry to control every single element, but you can’t control the sea,’ Cooke tells Condé Nast Traveller.

And then the main event: Villa Tramores, the alluring Spanish villa which acts as Laura’s second home in The Girlfriend. Villa Tramores ‘is located in the most exclusive village in Marbella, called Benahavís,’ Manrique Martin explains. And it’s not just any villa: it has royal connections.

Brigitte (Shalom Brune-Franklin) & Daniel (Laurie Davidson) in The Girlfriend. (Christopher Raphael © Amazon Content Services LLC)

‘Part of Princess Diana’s family owns the villa and she stayed many times,’ Manrique Martin explains. ‘There were a lot of pictures of her in the house. It’s an amazing house and the family also own half of a mountain and they’ve got a heliport, too. They also have a lot of natural, beautiful areas leading up to the house. The actors felt at home because we spent nearly four weeks there.’

Star Shalom Brune-Franklin reflects on her ‘two-week stint’ filming in Spain, which involved filming on a boat and staying in a ‘lovely’ hotel – but it’s these Diana connections that stick out. ‘I’m pretty sure that’s where she went after the divorce to mend her broken heart,’ Brune-Franklin reflects on Villa Tramores. ‘So, you’re sort of walking around going, “If these walls could talk, I wonder if she sat on that sofa. Has she laid on this bed? Has she looked in this mirror?” We were all just freaking out the whole time.’

Villa Tramores is a sprawling countryside estate comprising a seven-bedroom main house and a three-bedroom guest house, along with a tennis court, two swimming pools, multiple al fresco dining terraces and breathtaking views of the Andalucian countryside in all directions. Sleeping up to 19 guests, anyone is welcome to reserve a stay at Villa Tramores – just note prices start from around £15,400 per week. tramores.com

Laura (Robin Wright) & Cherry (Olivia Cooke) in The Girlfriend.
(Christopher Raphael © Amazon Content Services LLC)

Where Else?

There are a few more striking filming locations in The Girlfriend, not least Syon House which stars in the first episode’s wedding scenes. A Grade I listed Neoclassical villa, Mangham describes Syon House as a ‘stunning location’: ‘They have this beautiful floral inner courtyard where there was a very calm, beautiful wedding reception going on – and then chaos ensues involving a wedding cake,’ he teases.

You might also recognise Syon House from its starring roles in Gosford Park (2001), Killing Eve (2018–22), Belgravia (2020) and Bridgerton (2020–present). Perched just across the Thames from leafy Kew Gardens, this West London manor is home to the Duke of Northumberland but also opens its doors to the public (syonpark.co.uk).

Tracey Lane (Karen Henthorn) in The Girlfriend.
(Christopher Raphael © Amazon Content Services LLC)

Elsewhere in London, the London penthouse Cherry and Daniel visit is a real property near Charing Cross, ‘just across the road from the Corinthia hotel’, Cooke tells Condé Nast Traveller. ‘It’s an amazing location, and it has the most incredible views of the Thames. We got to be in there from sunrise to sunset, it was very beautiful.

‘I love being able to film in locations within London that you would never ever go to before,’ Cooke adds, ‘because then you feel like you get to do all the tourist bits that you never allow yourself to do anyway.’

And further afield, if you were equally enamoured with the breathtaking rock climbing scenes, they were filmed in Wales. ‘We found an absolutely stunning quarry near Chepstow, inside the Welsh-English border,’ Mangham says.

All six episodes of The Girlfriend are streaming now on Prime Video.

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