Where was SAS Rogue Heroes season 2 filmed?

Along with O'Connell and Boutella, the cast for season 2 also includes returnees Dominic West and Connor Swindells, while new stars joining include Gwilym Lee and Jack Barton.

But where was the new season shot? Was it all filmed on location, or did UK-based settings double for those in Italy?

Read on for everything you need to know about the filming locations used for SAS Rogue Heroes season 2.

Where was SAS Rogue Heroes season 2 filmed?

While the first season focussed on the front in North Africa, season 2 sees the SAS fighting on a new front in Europe, as part of the incursion into Italy.

This means the location work had to shift as well, moving from Morocco to Croatia, which doubled for Italy – although, of course, a lot of the season was still shot in the UK

Director Stephen Woolfenden revealed in a post on Twitter, which has been re-branded as X that the show has shot over 81 says, with filming taking place in "Croatia, Italy, England & Scotland".

One of the locations used in England can be found around Hertfordshire, with Woolfenden explaining in a Q&A for season 2 that a clifftop firefight in episode 1 was shot there.

"The firefight on top of the cliffs of the Capo Murro di Porco was in Hertfordshire, which you will have seen on Deadpool," he explained. "There's a big sequence they shot on Deadpool there, and it's very chalky white cliffs. We had three nights.

"It rained on one of the nights really, really badly, and it was caked full of clay. And Jack said he actually weighed twice his normal weight with the clay on his boots. And they had to run and a lot of the stuff that you see is real. So we were laying explosives, we were laying mortar around, we were doing effects with grenades."

Another location used in Hertfordshire was a "tank near Watford" where some of the water-based and boat-based sequences were shot, including a notable sequence in the first episode.

Producer Karen Wilson said at the Q&A: "That was all shot in a tank near Watford. We were there, and I went to see them, and I was like, 'why are we shooting the stuff inside the boat where we can't see the water? Why are we doing that here?' And it was all about getting the performance that we needed out of the actors. We needed them in that boat feeling it."

She added that the team had been "slightly worried about going into season 2 without the benefit of the desert, and the scale and the beauty and the character that that provided".

Wilson continued: "And when we set out to find what our new world of war would look like, it was really important that it we encountered civilians, and we encountered real life. And I think working in Croatia was, across the board, a really positive experience, it absolutely delivered on what we needed.

"And I think we're all in agreement, having all talked about it, that we absolutely still get the scale, it's just a completely different look and feel."

Paddy Mayne star Jack O'Connell said he was hoping that filming in Croatia "would feel like a holiday compared to Morocco, but it was as hot sometimes".

He continued: "It's a demanding schedule, it's got to be hasn't it? But beautiful. And we were in the part of Croatia that used to be Italy, so using a lot of towns that were Venetian built. So yeah, it was an amazing experience."

Where was SAS Rogue Heroes season 1 filmed?

The first season of SAS Rogue Heroes was filmed predominantly around England, with additional location work being completed in Morocco.

Location Manager David Kellick revealed that a number of locations in England doubled for settings in Cairo. For instance, specific locations used included a stately home in Norfolk, former RAF Bentwaters in Suffolk, Minley Manor in Hampshire, a former Malta Barracks and a disused limestone quarry.

Meanwhile, White Waltham Airfield in Berkshire became the hub of operations for the season, with Kellick explaining: "White Waltham had a runway, old hangars, buildings for prop stores and a brand-new grain store which (after a little negotiation) became our set build space.

"It also had a large field with a light-coloured soil that once cut, sprayed, ploughed and then rolled, became an expanse of desert that played German and Italian airfields; a British desert camp; an RAF base; and a parachute training and landing area… along with a few other elements."

When it came to the location work done in Morocco, David Stirling star Connor Swindells said: "It was so hard to film out there in the Sahara in those conditions, but it brought a real truth to it that you couldn’t have cheated in any other circumstance.

"I feel grateful for that. It is a character in itself and was something we as a crew had to wrestle with. I’m very grateful for how tough it was and I think it will influence our performances and make it that much better."

Alfie Allen added: "I have shot in very cold conditions before so this was the polar opposite to that. I have to admit that I just lapped it up, I just loved it. Apart from the two to three day period where I was suffering from heat stroke and food poisoning at the same time… that was not nice."

Meanwhile, director Tom Shankland said of the location shoot: "Day one we had a sand storm, day two we had half a sandstorm, day three we had an all-day sandstorm, day four we had a quarter of a day of a sandstorm… We then started to schedule round the possibility of sandstorms. You always try to create an environment where people can do more work.

"There’s just some things that you can’t control and you just have to rock and roll with that. Sandstorms we can’t do anything about and also we got some great footage of them for the series which were otherwise going to costs us a lot of money in visual effects, and we got that for free! I like to be positive about that!

"We are doing a story about people who were fighting an unbelievably awful war against an unbelievable, awful ideology. What they put up with was unthinkably more distressing and traumatic than anything that us TV people were having to put up with. If they stuck it out through all of that then I don’t think I’ve got anything to complain about."

SAS Rogue Heroes season 2 will air at 9pm on New Year's Day on BBC One and BBC iPlayer, while season 1 is available on BBC iPlayer now.

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