Where Was Nicole Kidman’s ‘Holland’ Movie Filmed? Discover the ‘Holland’ Filming Locations
Nicole Kidman’s new Amazon movie Holland, which began streaming today, is a dark mystery-thriller, set against the backdrop of an idyllic, tulip-covered small town. We love cinematic juxtaposition!
Directed by Mimi Cave, with a screenplay by Andrew Sodorski, Holland stars Kidman as a school teacher whose quiet life in Holland, Michigan is upended when she becomes convinced that her husband (Matthew Macfadyen) is having an affair with another woman. She recruits a friend (Gael García Bernal) to help her investigate. But instead of a scandalous affair, they discover something much darker.
If you’re from the Midwest, you’ve probably heard of the annual Tulip Time festival in Holland, Michigan. But for some, this may be their first exposure to the quaint city on the coast of Lake Michigan, known for its Dutch-American population and, of course, yearly celebration of tulips. You’d think a movie named after a real city would actually film in that city, but Hollywood is, as always, full of movie magic trickery. Read on to learn more about the Holland movie filming locations.
Where was the Holland movie filmed?
A very small part of Nicole Kidman’s Holland movie was filmed on location in Holland, Michigan. However, the majority of Holland was filmed in locations around the Nashville, Tennessee area, the city where Kidman lives with her husband and four children. Less than a week of the 48-day production happened in the real town of Holland.
Director Mimi Cave was familiar with the Midwest, having grown up in a small town outside of Chicago. “The town I grew up in was not too dissimilar from Holland, so I just felt a real kinship with them,” Cave told Variety in a recent interview.
In an interview for the Holland production notes, production designer JC Molina said that he and Cave made multiple trips to the real Holland, to study the local architecture and design, in order to find a version of Nancy’s house in the Nashville area that felt authentic. They also relied on Cave’s personal experience with the Midwest.
“We’d be scouting houses for references and Mimi would mention, ‘Oh this was the wall color of my living room,’ and those memories became a big guide for how we stylized the Vandergroot’s home,” Molina said.
The climactic scene that takes place at the Tulip Time festival was not filmed in the real Holland. The production reportedly had been going to film this scene in the real downtown Holland, but changed its plans in February 2023, according to local reporting. The scale back of a full-week of filming in the real Holland to just one day was a disappointing decision for the downtown businesses, who had hoped to be featured in the movie.
“Nothing will be shot downtown,” Tulip Time Executive Director Gwen Auwerda said in an interview with The Holland Sentinel. “So, local businesses aren’t involved.”
However, this scene did use some archival footage of real, previous festivals.
“Making our version of Tulip Time was so much fun,” Molina said in an interview for the Holland production notes. “Thanks to the city of Holland, we were able to use reams of archival footage to pull out highlights that we liked from over the years. So, what you see is sort of a compilation of the best of all the parades.”
At least one scene in the movie filmed in the real Holland, Michigan. The scene where Nicole Kidman and Gael Garía Bernal sit on a windmill for a conversation was filmed at Windmill Island Gardens, a historic Dutch windmill and tulip farm that sees over 100,000 tulips bloom every spring.
The park is open to the public for an admission fee of $13 (or $15, during peak Tulip Time), and is especially popular during Tulip Time, which is May 2 through May 11.
