Behind The Scenes
This film about George Washington didn't begin on a soundstage or with a studio. It started with a drive, a handshake, and a belief that George Washington's story has never been told like this before.
This is the making of WASHINGTON: American Hero location by location, season by season.
The Wardrobe Test
Before the locations, before the cameras, there was the test.
A wardrobe test is the moment a character steps off the script and into real life. Spencer Vaughn Kelly walked in wearing his own clothes, and changed into George Washington. It's one of the earliest days in production and one of the most important. It was the first time we saw the importance of the materials that we used in real-life.
For WASHINGTON: American Hero, getting the period right was one of our loftiest goals. The 18th century doesn't forgive shortcuts, not in the fabric, not in the textures. Every piece had to make sense, and remind the audience that we were in the 1700s.
These photos are from that day. This is the first time that we began to see George come to life on screen.
The First Scout · Huntington Beach · February 2025
Every film has a moment when it stops being an idea or a script, and becomes a film. Ours happened in February 2025.
We partnered with the Huntington Beach Historical Society and visited The Revolution for our first production scout. We walked the camp, met the people who have dedicated themselves to keeping this history alive, and began to understand what it would take to bring Washington's world to the screen.
That weekend we shot our first pieces of footage. The world of George was beginning to come to life. We learnt how to work with the Living Historian communities to share their enthusiasm, and capture authentic moments. Throughout production we would go on to work with Living Historians across the country, from Gloucester, Massachusettes to the Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Virginia.
On the Road · Bunker Hill 250 & The Battle of Monmouth
To make a film about George Washington, you have to go battle with him.
We traveled across the country to Bunker Hill 250 and the Battle of Monmouth reenactments, two extraordinary gatherings of historians and living-history enthusiasts who put on the uniform and step back in time so that the rest of us don't forget. Bunker Hill 250 featured over 1000 living historians, and completely transformed a Gloucester, Massachusettes park into 18th century colonial America.
Standing on those fields, bearing the heat of a New England sun, watching musket smoke rise over men in Continental blue, we stopped asking whether the story is worth telling. We knew that answer.
Telling the Story · American Revolution Podcast & WMEX Boston
Alongside production, we started talking publicly about the film and the history behind it.
We joined Michael Troy on the American Revolution Podcast to discuss George Washington's story and what makes this moment, America's 250th birthday, the right time to tell it. We then spoke with Ben on WMEX, Boston radio, to an audience for whom American independence isn't just history, it's civic identity.
Every conversation deepened our understanding of who this film is for. The answer: everyone who has ever wondered what kind of man Washington really was.
The Kitchen · Historic London Town and Gardens, Maryland · Fall 2025
There is a scene in this film that we knew, from the very beginning, was going to be important.
This is also the story of Chef Hercules, George Washington's personal chef, one of the most celebrated culinary figures of 18th-century America, and a man who would eventually escape to freedom. We searched for a setting that could hold the weight of that history. We found it on the East Coast, in the beautiful fall light of Historic London Town and Gardens in Edgewater, Maryland.
Historic London Town is a real historic site. The kitchen we filmed in is a real, period-accurate 18th-century kitchen. Nothing was built for us. It wasn't pretend.
We filmed there with Chef Rush, whose experience as the real-life White House Chef, brought Chef Hercules' world to life in a way we couldn't have fabricated on any set. The smells, the fire, the walls, all of it was authentic.
This is the section of the film that will surprise people most. We couldn't be more proud of it.
We Took the Cast & Crew to Mount Vernon
On this first trip we took some of the cast and crew to George Washington's Mount Vernon in Virginia, his estate on the Potomac where Washington farmed, lived, entertained, and ultimately asked to be buried. The place he loved and spent his whole life trying to get back to.
Walking those grounds as a group changed things for many of us. You can read every biography, study every portrait, memorize every speech, and none of it prepares you for standing on the land of the man's actual home.
The actors found something there that rehearsal couldn't give them. The crew understood, viscerally, what they were being asked to honor.
Mount Vernon is where George Washington was most human. That's the version of him we came to make a film about, and going there made sure that we understood exactly what that meant.
Some films are researched. For this one, we traced footsteps.
Martha, Family, & Home
We returned to Historic London Town for a second time, this time to film George's family life with Martha and the immediate Washington household.
Martha Washington has too often been a footnote in her husband's story. In WASHINGTON: American Hero, she is not. Their relationship, partnership, love, the long stretches of separation during the war, is one of the emotional cores of the film.
After Martha was widowed at 26, she became the wealthiest woman in Virginia. George and Martha first met in March 1758 at the estate of a mutual friend in Virginia. George was a mere 26-year-old rising Colonel returning from the French-Indo War. He fell for Martha quickly. After a brief, flirtatious courtship that spring, they were engaged and married in January of the following year. Patsy and Jacky were Martha's children from her previous marriage whom George loved very much.
Coming back to a location you already know changes the way you work in it. By our second visit, Historic London Town felt familiar. Not only that, there were actual archaeological excavations happening while we were on site. In the first photo below you can see the orange tape of the marked excavation sites as one of our actors walks to set. These scientists were looking for materials left over by the docks and surrounding life from the 1700s. They found lots of oyster shells they told us.
The President · Bob Hope Patriotic Hall, Los Angeles
For the Presidential era of George Washington's life, we came home to Los Angeles.
Bob Hope Patriotic Hall in downtown LA gave us what we were looking for, Veteran partnership, scale, history, and a gravitas that fit the weight of Washington's years in office. The man who led an army and then, remarkably, handed back power, who refused a crown and chose instead to be a citizen, deserved a setting that could hold that moment.
We found it here.
The Wrap · Malibu
Our final days of photography ended with a pick-up day in Malibu for some final shots with a horse.
You'll understand when you see it.
