Carry-On is set in Los Angeles’ busiest airport, but it wasn’t actually filmed there

So much work went into the set design

5 seconds ago

Carry-On had the biggest opening for a Netflix film this whole year, and the gripping thriller set during the festive period has had everyone hooked.

It follows a young airport security guard, played by Taron Egerton, who is blackmailed by a mysterious passenger and forced to smuggle a dangerous package onto a plane on Christmas Eve.

The entire film is set in Los Angeles’ hectic main airport, better known as LAX, but if you’ve ever been there before, you’ll know that’s definitely not where it was filmed.

Credit: Netflix

Filming took place at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY), but they didn’t have to close down an entire terminal of the airport to shoot the movie.

The Louisiana airport has an old, decommissioned terminal that was once used for passengers but closed down in November 2019 and was left abandoned.

Carry-On’s director Jaume Collet-Serra told Netflix they were” incredibly lucky” to use a retired airport as their set.

“We took over the old MSY in New Orleans and redesigned/decorated it to look like LAX. It was such a thrill to have the whole space at our disposal and be able to explore all these areas of an airport that we don’t normally get to see as passengers.”

As you can imagine, the set designers had to do a lot of work to actually make the run down wing look like a real airport in Los Angeles.

“It is such a gift whenever you get to create a movie in practical sets, and not green screen. We were physically inside of an airport, which is so exciting,” Sofia Carson, who plays Nora in the film, also told Decider.

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“The whole airport was transformed to really look and feel like LAX. It was amazing to literally bring to life this film, inside of an entire airport in New Orleans.”

Credit: Netflix

Production designer Diane Lederman gave the space a new lease of life and even partnered with some local LA brands like Lemonade and Pinkberry to make it feel as authentic as possible.

They had to make replicas of all the things you see in the airport like the TSA scanners as it would be far too expensive to use actual ones, and Travel Pro provided hundreds of pieces of real luggage.

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Featured image by: Netflix