Where was A Man on the Inside shot? Revisiting key filming locations of the Netflix comedy 

A Man on the Inside is Netflix's charming comedy crime series, which debuted in 2024 and recently released its sophomore season on November 20. The series is created by Michael Schur (Parks & Recreation) and led by Ted Danson (The Good Place). Schur's latest series is loosely based on Maite Alberdi's 2020 Chilean documentary and Academy Award-nominated film The Mole Agent.

Ted Danson stars as Charles, a widower and recently retired college professor who finds a new lease on life when he becomes an undercover agent for a private detective. While Charles' undercover mission took him to the Pacific View Retirement Community in San Francisco in Season 1, A Man on the Inside Season 2 is set in the fictional Wheeler College in the Bay Area. Charles poses as a teacher to uncover a blackmail conspiracy on the campus.

Filming for the freshman season took place mainly in San Francisco, where the production used many iconic landmarks and spots in and around the Bay Area. However, the production moved to California in the recent season, offering diversity and changing the stakes for Charles' second mission.

Here are all the major filming locations for A Man on the Inside Seasons 1 and 2.

A Man on the Inside Season 1 was shot in San Francisco

When Schur was considering a setting for his new comedy-drama series back in 2024, he looked back to the original Chilean documentary. The retirement home was named 'San Francisco Nursing Home', which became Schur's muse and he decided to set his series in the fog-drenched Bay Area. While San Francisco is known for its dense and thick fog, Danson and the crew had a pleasant filming experience, as he told SFGate:

“We needed to get all these shots. And San Francisco stepped up big time. Just crisp, gorgeous, beautiful vistas everywhere you look every day.”

While the interiors of the retirement house were shot at Universal Studios Hollywood and at an exterior location at 1201 California Street, the city of San Francisco had many shining moments in the debut season of A Man on the Inside.

One primary filming location was the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, which proved challenging for the cast because of the high density of tourists that surrounded the cast and crew.

Additional filming locations in San Francisco for Season 1 include Oracle Park, Piazza Pellegrini in North Beach and the Palace of Fine Arts.

While A Man on the Inside featured many iconic San Francisco landmarks in the freshman season, it was essentially a love letter to the city, filled with culturally-rich easter eggs and callbacks. According to a report by SFGate, San Francisco natives might spot some cheeky geographical Easter eggs like a cup of Philz Coffee, the B-roll of a cable car and the editions of the East Bay Times.

A Man on the Inside Season 2 was shot in California

The action in the sophomore season of A Man on the Inside was set in Wheeler College in San Francisco. The majority of the scenes were filmed in Southern California, particularly in Los Angeles County. The scenes involving Wheeler College were shot at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) at 1200 East California Boulevard in Pasadena, a city located just 11 miles from Downtown LA.

Built across a 124-acre campus, CalTech is a popular private research University that was heavily featured in the sophomore season. CalTech alumni might have even spotted popular areas around the campus like the Kerckhoff Laboratory of the Biological Sciences, the Beckman Audi and the Bridge Laboratory of Physics. Additional filming locations also include Eagle Rock, LA and the coastal city of Santa Barbara.

While San Francisco was not a primary location in A Man on the Inside Season 2, the production still returned to the Bay Area to film some additional exterior shots. One known location is the exterior property at 374 The Embarcadero, which was used to film scenes for the Kovalenko Investigations office building. Additionally, exterior shots of the property at 1201 California Street were utilized to represent the Pacific View building in the show.

The sophomore season proved that the show will continue to honour its San Francisco roots, even if in small measures.

Both seasons of A Man on the Inside are streaming on Netflix.

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