Tamal Kundu
Directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite (‘Blackfish’), ‘Our Friend’ (formerly known as ‘The Friend’) is a heart-warming tale about friendship, love, grief, and acceptance. It is based on the award-winning autobiographical essay ‘The Friend: Love is Not a Big Enough Word’ by Matthew Teague. Published in the May 2015 issue of Esquire magazine, it documents how Dane Faucheux, the mutual friend of the Teagues, moved to their residence to help the couple and their two daughters – Molly and Evie – after Teague’s wife, 34-year-old Nicole, was diagnosed with cancer.
Nicole eventually passed away in September 2014, at age 36. Faucheux stayed with the family until a few months after her passing. ‘Our Friend’ stars Casey Affleck as Matthew, Dakota Johnson as Nicole, Jason Segel as Dane, Isabella Rice as Molly, and Violet McGraw as Evie. The film is predominantly set in Fairhope, Alabama, where the family resided. Let’s find out whether ‘Our Friend’ was filmed on location or elsewhere!
Our Friend Filming Locations
Gabriela Cowperthwaite and Director of Photography Joe Anderson shot ‘Our Friend’ on location in Fairhope, Alabama. Production began February 19, 2019, and lasted for around six weeks, concluding in March 2019. Locations in Louisiana and Los Angeles, California, were also used to film certain scenes of the movie.
Fairhope, Alabama
Loocated in Baldwin Country, Alabama, Fairhope is where Matthew, Nicole, and Dane’s story takes place. Filming the movie on location gave it an extra layer of realism. “It’s a story about Fairhope, filmed in Fairhope,” Matthew said in an interview. “It made more financial sense to shoot it somewhere like Savannah, but there’s an authenticity that comes with shooting it where it happened.”
Some of Fairhope’s specific locations used during the production are Fairhope Municipal Pier and Park at 1 N Beach Rd, and Bohemian Park at Co Rd 48. In recent years, the picturesque city on the Eastern shore of Mobile Bay has become a popular destination for film tourism. Several sequences of writer-director Jordon Peele’s ‘Get Out’ were filmed there. In the past, it hosted the production crew of Steven Spielberg’s 1977 sci-fi ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind.’
Louisiana
The film is produced by Ridley Scott’s Scott Free Productions in collaboration with Black Bear Pictures and Endeavor Content. Matthew and Nicole had met Dane in New Orleans, Louisiana, over a decade earlier. And although the couple later moved to Fairhope, they remained in touch. When Nicole fell sick, Dane came to live with the family. Initially, they all thought it would be temporary, but as the circumstances worsened, Dane decided to extend his stay.
This meant leaving behind his job, friends, and apartment in New Orleans. Louisiana plays an important role in the narrative, so, understandably, the production crew visited there. Previously, MCU superhero film ‘Captain Marvel’ and Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’ were shot in the Bayou State.
Los Angeles, California
According to reports, the cast and the crew of ‘Our Friend’ were in Los Angeles as well. The city of Angels is the epicenter of global entertainment. Numerous movies and TV projects are shot every day in the city, including Christopher Nolan’s ‘Tenet’ and Netflix’s ‘Cobra Kai.’
Read More: Is Our Friend a True Story?
