Doug Liman Discusses How He Talked His Way Into Harrods to Film 'Locked Down'

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We recently shared the trailer for director Doug Liman's heist thriller Locked Down, which is available today over at HBO Max.

Written by Steven Knight (Peaky Blinders), the movie stars Anne Hathaway and Chiwetel Ejiofor as a couple who uncouple right as a pandemic begins. The two are stuck home together with some extra time on their hands, so they come up with a plan to rob Harrods department store, where Hathaway's character previously worked for five years.

When the trailer released, we did wonder, "How did they get access to the department store to film?"

And, lo and behold, it wasn't just us thinking about this, with Liman talking to Vulture about how that all fell into place.

Liman approached the store with an unconventional pitch, recapping the conversation, saying, "We said, ‘We don’t have a script. We don’t have an idea for a movie. In fact, if you don’t say yes, we’re not going to write the script because we don’t have a Plan B. It can only be Harrods."

That's one way to go about it...

He points out, "Under normal circumstances, Harrods would never have said yes. But again, these are not normal circumstances.”

And, apparently, his way of going about it worked.

Liman skipped over the nitty-gritty of negotiations, but apparently Harrods allowed filming in their food halls, showrooms and... their vault. At first Harrods said no to the vault, but it appears Liman is a smooth talker.

The director explained how it went down, saying, "We decided we wanted to shoot in the Harrods vault, that’s where the diamond would come from."

The diamond he's referring to is what the couple is after in the movie, valued at three million dollars.

There was a bit of back-and-forth, with Liman saying, “And Harrods was like, ‘No, that’s our vault.’ And we’re like, ‘Okay, would you let us just see your vault? Just so we can try to re-create it somehow?’ It’s in this secret place in the building. They took our production designer and he took some pictures. From there, they were like, ‘Okay, we’ll let everybody in. You can shoot in the vault. You just can’t show where it is in the building.’"

If you haven't seen the trailer for Locked Down just yet, here's a peek:

Do you now find yourself thinking about Harrods' not-so-secret vault?