Was Taron Egerton's Netflix Thriller “Carry-On” Really Filmed in Los Angeles International Airport?

Taron Egerton saves Los Angeles' famous airport from disaster in Carry-On — but in truth, the movie never even filmed there.

In Carry-On, Egerton, 35, stars as a Transportation Security Administration officer at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) who accidentally falls victim to the scheme of a mysterious group of terrorists (portrayed by Jason Bateman and Theo Rossi) trying to smuggle a dangerous weapon onto a departing flight via a carry-on bag.

While the movie takes place almost entirely inside LAX, the production filmed in New Orleans, as its director Jaume Collet-Serra told Netflix's Tudum. 

"We were incredibly fortunate to use a retired airport as our set,” Collet-Serra, known for movies like Black Adam and The Shallows, said. “We took over the old MSY [Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport] in New Orleans and redesigned/decorated it to look like LAX. It was such a thrill to have the whole space at our disposal and be able to explore all these areas of an airport that we don’t normally get to see as passengers.”

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Carry-On largely features Egerton's character Ethan interacting with Bateman's character — known as the Traveler — via a headset that is sent through the TSA's luggage check. Egerton races to uncover the Traveler's plan of attack and save everyone at the airport, including his newly pregnant girlfriend (Sofia Carson), while Danielle Deadwyler portrays an L.A. police officer investigating the situation from another angle.

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Capturing Egerton playing the role of a TSA officer checking bags as they go through security proved a unique challenge for Collet-Serra and his team.

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“Our story in particular has a long section where we stay with Ethan at his post running a TSA bag scanner, so he’s sitting in a chair staring at a screen with very little space to move,” the filmmaker said. “This was certainly a challenge to shoot, but it also really helped us create the tension and claustrophobia that Ethan feels as he’s taunted by Traveler and can’t leave his little bubble."

The filmmaker also said that the production utilized the knowledge of two TSA advisers familiar with LAX. “They put our actors through proper TSA training before we shot the movie, and they were on set to advise us if anything didn’t look realistic," he noted. 

Carry-On is streaming on Netflix now.

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