The new Prime Video thriller Kill Jackie gives Spain's Basque coast its first proper starring role. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Jackie Price, a former cocaine dealer living large in Bilbao, where she profits from a tax loophole selling fine art stashed in a freeport. Her past comes knocking when a group called The Seven Demons is hired to kill her, and the eight-part hunt for the assassin sweeps from Spain to London, Swansea and San Sebastián.
Bilbao is the real headliner. Executive producer Peter Lawson says the city has usually doubled for other destinations, purely for its tax credits, but nobody had shot Bilbao as itself before. The results are hard to miss: the opening sequence sends a drone off a bridge to reveal Zeta-Jones in a cocktail dress strolling past the Guggenheim Museum. Sharp-eyed viewers can also spot Albia Gardens in the Abando district, the white Zubizuri footbridge over the Nervión River, and the Palacio Lezama-Leguizamón near the sea. Several restaurants appear too, including Restaurante La Revelía in Amorebieta, plus Farketa 56 and Lasai in the city itself.
London provides the glossier counterweight. Jackie's anonymous flat pairs a real London exterior with a Bilbao interior, and other scenes were shot at Queen Alexandra House, The Landmark Hotel and King's College London's Strand Campus.
Filming in Wales was a homecoming for Zeta-Jones, who keeps her Welsh accent as the series brings Jackie back to her roots. She grew up near the Swansea locations used, close to where she attended dance school and her grandmother lived. Her off-screen priorities are refreshingly simple: a visit to Johnnies, her favourite fish and chip shop, and Joe's Ice Cream, whose classic vanilla she rates phenomenal. Spotting locations in the city itself means looking out for North Road Service Station, Pant St, Port Tennant and the Monkstone Cruising and Sailing Club.
For travellers, the show works as a unofficial guide to a city that punches well above its weight. Bilbao offers world-class architecture, pintxos culture and Guggenheim-calibre art without the crowds of Madrid or Barcelona, while Swansea makes a low-key coastal base with genuine food credentials. Watching the series before visiting is an easy way to build an itinerary.
