{"id":451451,"date":"2026-02-01T10:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-01T10:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/451451\/"},"modified":"2026-02-01T10:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-01T10:44:12","slug":"how-i-found-the-locations-for-the-second-series-of-the-night-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/451451\/","title":{"rendered":"How I found the locations for the second series of The Night Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"

Matthew Patnick has a dream job. The producer and location manager for The Night Manager spent a year and a half travelling to and from Colombia to find the ideal settings to film the second series of the thriller starring Tom Hiddleston, Olivia Colman, Hugh Laurie and Camila Morrone, which concludes on Sunday night.<\/p>\n

When we speak, he\u2019s in Liverpool on a job for an ITV drama. Not quite as glamorous (or warm) as South America, though Liverpool is lovely, he insists. <\/p>\n

The Night Manager was filmed variously in Cartagena, Medellin, Spain<\/a>, Tenerife<\/a>, Oxfordshire and London<\/a>. The team arrived at Colombia as the principal location via trips to Panama, Brazil and the Dominican Republic. Patnick admits the prep side to the job is pretty good and downtime in Colombia \u2014 including weekends on the beach in Cartagena during filming \u2014 were no hardship. Though the cast and crew didn\u2019t really let their hair down until the wrap party in Casa Cruxada, a venue known for its music in the historic heart of Cartagena.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t have been the only viewer to have enjoyed being transported to the warmth and vibrancy of Colombia in this horribly dank start to the year.<\/p>\n

When Patnick received the script for this second series, it was set mostly in Bogota, the capital, which thanks to its high altitude (at 2,640m), is quite often enrobed in cloud and grey. I remember this from a previous trip \u2014 that and the fact that landing there is an ear-popping experience (it requires particular techniques from the pilot).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d go to these incredible locations and would stand at the top of an office block, for example, and it looked superb,\u201d Patnick tells me. But at ground level the city didn\u2019t \u201cdeliver visually\u201d what the show required.<\/p>\n

\"Matthew<\/p>\n

Matthew Patnick on the set of The Night Manager<\/p>\n

The cast and crew stayed in Medellin\u2019s best hotel<\/p>\n

When Patnick visited Medellin, the capital of Colombia\u2019s Antioquia department in the northwest, he knew straight away it was something special \u2014 and would make the ideal contrast to Cartagena, where the Spanish influence is more visible, especially in the old centre. \u201cMedellin just opened up this whole different world and we just looked at Colombia in a very different way,\u201d he says. It\u2019s a vibrant city keen to shake off its narco past and associations with the drug king Pablo Escobar. I liked the brilliant gondola system, opened in 2004, which connects the hillside neighbourhoods with the city centre and has been instrumental in cutting the city\u2019s crime rates. And Plaza Botero, filled with the inflated-style sculptures by the country\u2019s most famous artist, Fernando Botero. It has a thriving hotel and restaurant scene too.<\/p>\n

The cast and crew stayed in one of the best hotels in the city, the five-star Elcielo, with slick wood veneer-walled suites and a spa (B&B doubles from \u00a3219; elcielohotel.com). Patnick is meticulous when it comes to selecting not just locations but the accommodation for everyone involved. \u201cWhen you\u2019re dealing with actors, you have to make sure\u2026 that they\u2019re happy,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I wouldn\u2019t put the crew in a hotel that I wouldn\u2019t stay in \u2014 it is important. When you\u2019re away from home you want to be somewhere that\u2019s safe and comfortable and feels like home.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Metrocable<\/p>\n

The gondola system in Medellin opened in 2004<\/p>\n

ALAMY<\/p>\n

When his wife came to visit \u2014 his rule is that he\u2019s never apart from her for more than six weeks \u2014 they had a fantastic meal in the Elcielo Medellin Restaurant from the acclaimed chef Juan Manuel Barrientos (tasting menu from \u00a3139). There\u2019s also an Italian, La Sere by Juanma, and a local-fare bistro. His wife got to see more of the city than he did, Patnick tells me.<\/p>\n

Luxury hideouts, Richard Roper style<\/p>\n

If you watched the first series you\u2019ll remember the Mallorca villa of Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie\u2019s character), a beautiful converted fortress called La Fortaleza in Port de Pollensa, said to be Spain\u2019s most expensive property and now a wedding venue (event rental from \u00a3520,310; alagoevents.com). <\/p>\n

Roper\u2019s Colombia hideout (a private house in Girardot, four hours from Bogota, which gave Patnick a spine-tingling sensation when he first saw it) was captivating for its remoteness, surrounded by jungle. Though, with its snakes, ticks, humidity and tricky access, the actual Colombian jungle was too challenging for filming, so some of those scenes were shot in the mountains of northern Tenerife, where they built a whole set. \u201cThere\u2019s a different side to Tenerife that nobody\u2019s aware of,\u201d Patnick says. \u201cIt\u2019s absolutely stunning\u2026 we would go up into the mountains, and it\u2019d be like eight or nine degrees colder up there.\u201d The Canary Island also doubled up as Syria in the opening episode.<\/p>\n

\"Roper's<\/p>\n

The private house in Girardot used as the character Richard Roper\u2019s Colombia hideout<\/p>\n

MATTEW PARRICK<\/p>\n

\u2022 8 of the best hotels with swim-up rooms in Tenerife<\/a><\/p>\n

Props to post-production for bringing it all together so seamlessly. Take the shipment scene in last week\u2019s episode, which includes a drone shot of the real-life Cartagena port and then a subsequent sequence that was shot in Tenerife. You\u2019d never know. <\/p>\n

The desirable French retreat to which Colman\u2019s character, Angela Burr, had semi-retired was actually in the Spanish Pyrenees. And Teddy\u2019s glamorous charity party in episode two where the go-between character, Roxana Bola\u00f1os, played by Camila Morrone, appears in that fabulous red dress was shot in Barcelona\u2019s naval college, Facultad de Nautica, in the Barceloneta district (fnb.upc.edu). Meanwhile, the conference centre attached to Barcelona\u2019s Gran Melia hotel was where Pine\u2019s character stays in Cartagena (B&B doubles from \u00a3207; melia.com).<\/p>\n

\"Torre<\/p>\n

The Gran Melia hotel\u2019s outdoor pool in Barcelona<\/p>\n

There is more visual trickery when it comes to the offices of the Night Owls (where Hiddleston\u2019s character, Alex Goodwin, is working when viewers first meet him again). The exterior was shot in Holland Park, London, the interior in Barcelona.<\/p>\n

With series three already in the works, does Patnick have any location requests? He\u2019d love to go to Tokyo\u2026 or back to Cuba, he tells me. And, if he\u2019s ever in London, he books a room at the art deco Beaumont, in Mayfair (B&B doubles from \u00a3510; thebeaumont.com).<\/p>\n

\u2022 34 of the best luxury hotels in London<\/a><\/p>\n

Patnick also recommends travelling with your own pillow. \u201cYou can stay in a bad hotel, but if you\u2019ve got a good pillow, life\u2019s so much more palatable,\u201d he says. The ones at Bogota\u2019s two luxurious Four Seasons hotels are so good, he bought one (B&B doubles from \u00a3360; fourseasons.com). <\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s safe to say that Hiddleston and co were in very good hands.
All episodes of both series are streaming on BBC iPlayer <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Matthew Patnick has a dream job. The producer and location manager for The Night Manager spent a year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451452,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":["post-451451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451451\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}