How Glasgow has become 'stunt double' for US cities in blockbuster films
Glasgow has played New York, Philadelphia and Gotham City, among other roles
Over the next few days, passengers on Glasgow’s number 23 bus who are more prone to a flight of fancy than most may imagine they have been magically transported to the United States on entering the city’s Bothwell Street.
They need not worry. For while it may look like they have suddenly arrived in the US, instead the street is among those that have been redesigned to look like New York for the filming of the new Spider-Man movie.
Glasgow’s streets, laid out in a grid, make it a good ‘stunt double’ for cities in America. So throw in a few NYPD police cars, buses, and food trucks, and no one will notice the difference.
Scotland’s largest city has also played the roles of 1960s New York in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Philadelphia in World War Z, and Gotham City in The Batman. Such are its talents, Glasgow can also ‘put on a cockney accent’, playing London in Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw.
So while Edinburgh struts its stuff with the Festival and Fringe, no one should doubt Glasgow’s increasingly impressive thespian credentials.
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