Where was The Diplomat filmed? Inside the political thriller's season 4 locations

On Location peels back the curtain on some of your favourite films, television shows, and more. This time, we ask: where was The Diplomat filmed? This story contains major spoilers for season four.

Watching The Diplomat is like being a fly on the wall in some of the world’s most powerful rooms and buildings. But the Netflix series, though often immensely dramatic, rarely puts its characters in places that reflect them intimately. Instead, as production designer Curt Beech explains, The Diplomat is about “bringing the characters together physically but never emotionally in spaces the public don’t get to see.”

“The places may be historical, but they're almost never personal,” he says. “That is what's so different about this show from a design standpoint. Usually, we're creating someone's bedroom or their house, and we dig into their family history and who they are and what they like. We don't get any of that here because the spaces that they inhabit are not theirs. They are almost always visitors.”

The fourth season of The Diplomat opens with a bang, literally. In the first episode, US President Grace Penn, played by Allison Janney, survives an assassination attempt outside Windsor Castle. She becomes increasingly unpredictable afterwards, confusing her husband Todd (Bradley Whitford), Vice President Hal Wyler (Rufus Sewell), and Kate Wyler, the US ambassador to the UK (Keri Russell). The story brings the characters from Windsor Castle to Washington, DC to Lucca, Italy, where it concludes on a cliffhanger at a meeting of the G7.

Beech used some of the same locations and sets from past seasons, but also brought new locations to life in England, New York, and Italy. The interior sets were created at Steiner Studios in New York, while Wrotham House returned as Winfield House, the residence of the United States ambassador in London. Here Beech breaks down the key locations from The Diplomat Season 4.

Windsor Castle

Season 4 opens with an impromptu visit to Windsor Castle. As the envoy leaves the British royal residence to fly back to the US, President Penn gets shot by an unknown assailant. Beech combined nine different locations to create Windsor Castle and its grounds. The exterior and inner courtyard were filmed at Burghley House, while Belvoir Castle, Lancaster House and the British Foreign Office were used for interiors. Back in the US, the team filmed at Woolworth Estate, St. Josaphat Monastery Library and Sleepy Hollow Country Club. The grandiose panic room where Kate and Hal are locked down after the shooting was filmed in the crypt of a church on the Upper West Side.

“It's a lot of different architectural styles, but that is typical of these houses,” Beech says. “Windsor has a bunch of things going on because these houses are very, very old, and they've been built during different centuries with different people in charge of the construction. We embraced that. We also have a mix of things that are accurate to Windsor Castle and things that aren’t.”

The aircraft carrier

After she is shot, President Penn is airlifted in Marine One to a docked United States aircraft carrier for surgery. Beech used the parking lot at Steiner Studios for the helicopter landing, while a Marine training facility in New York City was transformed into the interiors.

“We did real takeoffs and landings with the helicopter,” Beech says. “While it was on the ground, we dressed the interior because Marine One feels like a private jet inside. It's very luxurious and well appointed. But you can’t add weight to a helicopter like that without going through a lot of different FAA approvals, so we couldn’t keep it dressed while flying.”

Winfield House

As in the past, Winfield House’s exterior was filmed Wrotham Park, an estate in Hertfordshire. Some of the interiors were built at Steiner, while others were filmed inside Wrotham Park.

“There's a blue room, a library, and a red room in the real building,” Beech says. “The foyer is also there. The green room, the Wedgewood hallway, and the blue study are on stage in New York. It takes a lot of coordination to keep track. The actors are incredible because they're able to tap back into whatever they were doing at that moment two months ago, and make it feel like they just turned the corner and are walking into a room.”

The US Embassy

The US Embassy in London’s Nine Elms was built on a soundstage in London for earlier seasons. The set was shipped to Steiner for Season 3 and rebuilt there. In Season 4, not much has changed. “We moved some furniture around to get better lighting, but nothing major has changed in those spaces,” Beech says. The production did shoot one scene, a meeting between CIA station chief Eidra Park (Ali Ahn) and deputy chief Stuart Hayford (Ato Essandoh), in Nine Elms. “That was right around the corner from the embassy, which was incredible to see,” Beech says. “That building is in so many different shows now and it’s beautiful.”

Eidra's apartment

Eidra’s modern apartment, where Stuart eventually moves in as they begin a relationship, was a real apartment in Tribeca. “This is another space that's personal, but not,” Beech says. “We told the story that she moves a lot for the safety of her position. She’s never in the same place for very long. So it’s very stark and doesn’t have a lot of personality.”

The White House

For Season 4, Beech made some alterations to the White House set. He decided not to use the Oval Office seen in prior seasons and to shift the action into President Penn’s private study.

“The president typically does have a study, and it's right off the Oval Office, but it’s very small,” Beech says. “You see lots of pictures of Obama sitting in his. We made a very large study for her that has three separate zones – a work zone, a meeting zone, and a power zone where her desk is. That does not exist in the real White House, but it does in our White House.”

In one scene, Todd is swimming laps in the White House pool. That also doesn’t exist in real life. The scene was filmed in the basement of the Woolworth Building in Tribeca. “There used to be a pool years and years ago in the White House,” Beech says. “They plastered it over, and it's now the press briefing room. But you see in the old pictures there was a really beautiful room with arched windows and that’s where the pool was.”

10 Downing Street

Although 10 Downing Street has appeared in previous seasons, the set this year was new. “That was filmed at a location in the UK that was no longer available, so we built it on our stage,” Beech says. “We also used the Steinway Mansion in New York for the building’s iconic stairs.”

When a new prime minister comes into power midway through the season, viewers might notice subtle shifts in the décor. “It got a bit more sparse, indicating that she had just gotten there,” Beech says. “They had moved him out; she hadn't completely moved in yet. So some pictures are off the walls, and the lamp on his desk changed. It's small stuff.”

The exterior of 10 Downing Street was filmed outside the British Foreign Office in London. “We wound up building the doorway and the lectern in a parking lot in Brooklyn with a green screen, and then we added it together with what we shot in London on that street,” Beech explains.

The Prime Minister’s residence

Kate goes to meet with the newly-minted British prime minister in the family home of the prime minister’s husband, offering a rare glimpse into a character’s private life. Beech used two different locations to create the vast manor house. The entry and gate were shot at Ingatestone Hall in Essex, and the interior was filmed in a house on Long Island.

“In England with these huge estates, it's very expensive to keep them going, so the family compresses to living in one wing of the house,” Beech says. “We wanted to tell that story about her house, and there’s a coldness to it. Her office space is in a room that is gigantic for an office. And there are heaters everywhere.”

Lucca, Italy

The season concludes with a tumultuous visit to Lucca, Italy, where the members of the G7 are holding a summit. The production went to Lucca for six weeks to film in eight different locations. These included Villa Viesca, the former summer home of Salvatore and Wanda Ferragamo, and Dimora Ghirlandaio, a resort in Tuscany, both of which comprised the villas where the American envoy stays during the summit. The G7 meetings were held at the recently restored Villa Reale di Marlia, Villa Medici in Poggio a Caiano, and Villa Medicea La Petraia.

“We were going play Florence for Lucca, but we leaned into Lucca as Lucca, and it felt better and more authentic,” Beech says. “We went to the Pitti Palace in Florence and determined that it wasn't right. Most of the time, the vibe is very modern in these meetings. We decided to make it very classical. We embraced the vibe of this incredible room with floor-to-ceiling frescoes, and we built custom desks that had little fresco elements that matched the walls. These meetings are very bespoke, so everything is always created for them. We did that, but in a slightly different manner.”