Netflix’s latest six-part British psychological thriller series Unchosen examines the chilling rise and harsh realities of conservative religious cults in the UK. The Julie Gearey-created and written series follows Adam (Asa Butterfield) and Julie (Molly Windsor), a young married couple who live with their tightly knit Christian community called Fellowship of the Divine, which is detached from the outside world. When Rosie encounters an outsider named Sam, she starts to see the unsettling, cult-like reality of her community and begins yearning for a life of freedom beyond it.
Production on Unchosen began in August 2024 in England under the working title of Out of the Dust. The cast and crew worked together for four months to bring this dark & unsettling cult romance to life, before wrapping up in December 2024.
More on this in our story.
Unchosen filming locations
Netflix’s latest psychological thriller series was primarily filmed in the Capital city of England and Surrey, a county in South East England bordering London. The stark contrast between London’s big-city energy and Surrey’s leafy countryside perfectly captures the ambiguous position of Rosie’s sect in Unchosen. British director Jim Loach explains his thought behind choosing filming locations for this latest project, in an interview with Country & Town House:
”The challenge was to find locations that had a really cinematic scale, and had a familiarity about them, but always with something slightly “off”. We wanted everywhere to feel a little unsettling, even if it wasn’t always obvious what it might be…We were aiming for a psychological claustrophobia for the characters set on a cinematic landscape. They have the illusion of freedom, but they’re living in a prison of their own making.’’
The Unchosen production set up camps in London’s countryside, which doubled as Adam and Rosie’s tight-knit Christian community. The scenes where Adam and Rosie sit with the members and have food were primarily filmed in London. Popular landmarks such as Big Ben, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus and more can be spotted in key frames.
The ceremonial county in South East England became the perfect substitute to capture the eerie detachment of Rosie’s cult from the rest of the world. While many outdoor scenes were shot in the lush green areas of Surrey, the crew chose many sound stages at Shepperton Studios on Studios Road near the village of Shepperton to film interior scenes. The Surrey film studio is home to about 31 sound stages, with two large backlots, 20 cutting rooms, meeting rooms, a canteen, nine mixing theaters and a hardware store.
Bringing the fictional Fellowship of the Divine cult alive in Unchosen
In an interview with The Independent, director Jack Loach revealed the importance of the Fellowship of the Divine cult assembly room, which was one of the major filming locations for Unchosen. After the director revealed that they used a former assembly hall, previously used by one of the organizations, for the meeting scenes, one Reddit post claims that the series’ crucial scenes were shot at a meeting space located on The Ridgeway North Harrow, London, the real-life (former) gospel Hall of Plymouth Brethren Christian Church.
Loach described the chilling details of this meeting space, which had no windows and just one entrance with an electric sliding door that could seal the place. It became the perfect stand-in for the Fellowship of the Divine meeting scenes in Unchosen. Unpacking the chilling energy of the space, Loach described to The Independent:
”They were very memorable scenes to shoot because the building had no windows and only one door – an electric sliding door that sealed the whole place shut…you get 250 people in a room, seal it off from the outside world, you’re not allowed to ask questions or hold people accountable and you put one man in the middle telling us how to see the world”.
Unchosen is streaming on Netflix.
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Edited by Aashna