Two Liverpool landmarks appear in a huge stunt scene in Amazon Prime film Heads of State

Heads of State, starring Idris Elba and John Cena, shot to number one on Amazon Prime movies as soon as it was released.

And if fans of Heads of State look closely, they’ll be able to spot two famous Liverpool landmarks in one of the big stunt scenes.

The Port of Liverpool building and St George’s Hall were both used for shooting stunt sequences for the action comedy.

They double as the location for a fictional NATO summit set in Trieste in Italy featuring the main stars who play the US President and British Prime Minister.

The plot sees the President, played by wrestler-turned-actor Cena, and Prime Minister putting aside their disagreements and rivalry to stop a global conspiracy and a threat to their own lives.

Filming actually took place not just in England but in France, Serbia, and Italy, with scenes being shot in Liverpool back in June 2023.

Liverpool Locations were responsible for choosing the perfect settings for filming, which also included drone footage around the Tobacco Warehouse at Stanley Dock.

The company, set up by Faye Newton and her sister Claire, worked closely with Liverpool Film Office and various teams from Heads of State after being shown the action sequence scripts.

Faye explains: “Both buildings were part of a similar sequence with a really big stunt scene and we were asked to find somewhere that had that grand beautiful listed building look.

“Normally when big film crews come here there’s one unit with hundreds of people, but Heads of State had two units shooting at the same time.

“While we were filming at one building the second unit would also be filming at the other and then they’d swap, so it was on a huge scale, almost the size of two feature films in one.”

The film’s rigging team construction a massive stunt rig within the domed Port of Liverpool building and an art department added props to create NATO summit authenticity.

“We did a walk-through with the stunt team and they gave us a storyboard of the sequence, frame for frame, so we knew what would be happening around each part of the building.

“The stunt rigs were set up to keep people safe but also to look after the building because obviously Port of Liverpool and St George’s Hall are both listed so that’s part of our team’s job, to look after the building and the people in it.

“We always look after a building, wherever we film, but these buildings need an extra layer of protection so it’s important to have a really strong experienced team, everyone knows the rules of that location and we pass that on to everyone entering the building as well.

“An art department came in and dressed the set so if you see the scene you’ll notice things that aren’t normally there. Even some of what looks like marble was actually polystyrene – they’re bashing into fake walls to protect the real thing.”

Faye says the NATO summit action shoot took a week, although recces took place at what was a very busy time for the city and the Film Office.

“We did the drone shot in May with the main filming in June, and we were doing site visits to Port of Liverpool around the time of Eurovision. We were really close to where the Eurovision Village was at the Pier Head, so even though it was quite hectic it was just a really nice time to be down there. 

“We liaised with the Film Office to get permissions and we had around 100 new entrants to the industry acting as marshals, helping to stop people walking into shot when filming was happening in Port of Liverpool and St George’s Hall.”

Although it’s been two years since their involvement in Heads of State, Faye says they’re happy to see it take the Amazon Prime number one slot.

“When you’ve worked really long hours and put a lot of effort into something to make it work, it’s always lovely when it does well,” she adds. 

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