Netflix’s Heartland movie, now streaming, reveals a far moodier side of Nashville. Rather than the party buses and bachelorette crowds often associated with the Tennessee capital, this mystery thriller presents the city as a shadowy neo-noir setting for a story about a missing country singer.
Written and directed by Shana Feste, who also wrote and directed the 2010 country music drama Country Strong, Heartland stars Jessica Chastain as Misty Jones. Misty is a fictional former country star who returns to Nashville to search for her missing niece. Along the way, she must face the people, memories, and locations from her past that she would prefer to leave behind.
The cast also includes John Hawkes, Carter Faith, Garrett Hedlund, Jennifer Nettles, Ross Lynch, and Ben Dickey. With its country music storyline and Nashville setting, Heartland is unmistakably a Nashville movie. Still, as Hollywood productions often demonstrate, a film’s setting and its actual filming locations are not always the same. Here’s where Netflix’s Heartland was filmed.
Where was Netflix’s Heartland filmed?
Most of Netflix’s Heartland was filmed in Atlanta, Georgia, and nearby communities. Production took place both on location and on soundstages at Shadowbox Studios in Atlanta.
Even so, the production traveled to Nashville for several important scenes, capturing a handful of locations that give the movie its authentic connection to the city.
In a recent Zoom interview with Decider, writer-director Shana Feste said she would have preferred to film the entire movie in Nashville. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t afford to do that,” she explained. “So we had to pick and choose our Nashville locations really carefully.”
Netflix’s Heartland movie Nashville filming locations
One of the film’s most notable Nashville locations is the legendary Bluebird Cafe in downtown Nashville. The venue appears in a scene near the end of the movie, with real-life country singer and songwriter Carter Faith performing there.
“It was really important to me that our film ended at the Bluebird Cafe for the intimacy, the authenticity of that space, just how revered it is,” Feste told Decider. “I did not want to recreate the Bluebird.”
Another genuine Nashville location featured in Heartland is Printer’s Alley, the historic cobblestone passage running between Union and Church Street and Third and Fourth Avenues North in downtown Nashville. The alley appears shortly after Misty Jones performs onstage with Jace, a younger singer played by Ross Lynch, before she walks away into a nearby passage.
“Printer’s Alley feels like this heightened underbelly of the city,” Feste said. “That was one location that was incredibly important to me that we definitely shoot in Nashville.”
Feste also made a point of filming Chastain on Lower Broadway, Nashville’s famous entertainment strip, where live music pours out of nearly every bar.
“We couldn’t shut down Lower Broadway. It’s like shutting down the Strip in Vegas; we didn’t have that kind of money,” Feste explained. Instead, the crew filmed directly on the crowded street. A camera was mounted to the back of a box truck, with the lift used to create the camera movement while cinematographer Khalid Mohtaseb operated from it.
According to Feste, the crew had to repeat the shot several times because Nashville visitors kept noticing the camera.
“[Cinematographer Khalid Mohtaseb] walked onto Lower Broadway and followed Jessica into the club,” Feste said. “The whole time we were just crossing our fingers like, ‘Please do not look into the lens!’” The people in the background were simply passersby who had no idea what was happening.
Feste added with a laugh that the crew filmed the sequence approximately 15 times. “The final one—maybe there’s one or two,” she said of the people looking toward the camera. “But every single take, you just see people staring right at the camera, pointing at it. It was a tough shot to get, but I knew that was a location that I needed.”
Netflix’s Heartland movie Atlanta filming locations
Alongside the Nashville sequences, much of Heartland was filmed in Atlanta and the surrounding area. The production used both practical locations and sets at Shadowbox Studios.
For instance, the scene in which Misty faces off in a musical “sing-off” against the younger country singer Jace, played by Ross Lynch, was filmed at the Ameris Bank Amphitheatre in Alpharetta, Georgia, just outside Atlanta.
“Misty gets up on stage and sings ‘Family Ties’—it’s one-sixteenth of a page, but I could have shot that song for three days,” Feste told Decider. “We’re under these time constraints. We have multiple cameras. We have 500 live extras, our background players, which was amazing.”
Atlanta’s historic Fox Theatre also serves as a Heartland filming location. The landmark opened as a movie theater in 1929 and now hosts Broadway productions, concerts, and other events. In the film, it stands in for the venue where Misty performs with her longtime friend Winnie Jo Lean, played by real-life singer Jennifer Nettles.
Some of the scenes showing Carter Faith preparing to take the stage are also set in Atlanta. According to MovieWalks, those sequences were filmed at the Tabernacle, a large concert venue housed in a former church.