A distinctive Suffolk landmark is set to feature in the latest Ridley Scott movie after the veteran director decided it was the “perfect location” for one of the scenes.
Production for All the Money in the World, the latest thriller directed by the famed filmmaker, arrived at Elveden Hall in west Suffolk for a week at the end of July.
The Grade II-listed stately home doubled for a Moroccan palace in a series of flashback scenes.
The film charts the true story of the left-wing Italian paramilitary group Ndrangheta, which hatches a kidnap plot in the early 1970s of Jean Paul Getty III – the grandson of oil tycoon Jean Paul Getty.
During filming at Elveden Hall, up-and-coming young actor Charlie Plummer played Getty III as a youngster at his grandfather’s palace.
A spokeswoman from Screen Suffolk, which helped organise the shoot, said: “They [Ridley Scott’s production] said it was the perfect location for playing that role of a palace and it was just very, very easy to get to and work with.
“The work we did was providing accommodation for them, because they were filming during the height of summer, and we also had to help them out finding some of the crew.”
The hall was once owned by Maharajah Duleep Singh, ruler of the Sikh empire, who bought the estate in 1863 and remodelled the interior to look like an exotic Mughal palace – a feature key to the filmmakers’ decision to film there.
The film, which also stars Hollywood A-listers Kevin Spacey and Mark Wahlberg, is due for release in the USA in December and in January in the UK, where audiences will be able to see the scenes shot at Elveden Hall alongside the rest of the movie.
The hall has been a well used location for filming, with Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, James Bond thriller The Living Daylights, Stardust and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider all having had scenes filmed there.
Karen Everett, Screen Suffolk director, added: “We are extremely grateful that the production made this opportunity available, setting a brilliant example to future big-budget film makers in the county.”
The film is the latest project by the 79-year-old Ridley Scott, whose blockbusters include Alien, Gladiator, Blade Runner and The Martian.
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