Naman Shrestha
With Kevin Macdonald at the helm, Prime Video’s ‘The Runner’ is a British psychological thriller movie that centers on a successful, high-powered lawyer named Maia Marten in London. While she is out on the run on the city’s bustling streets, emotional commotion follows her as she receives a phone call from a mysterious man, who tells her that her son is under his captivity. To keep her son safe, she must follow the caller’s instructions without involving anyone else.
Her son’s captor gives her a series of cryptic and sinister commands that Maia must obey with no questions asked. As she stays on the run as instructed, the lawyer must work alone to uncover the identity of the caller and rescue her abducted son. The high-octane and pulsating action film is set in London, which serves as an additional character in the narrative, with its crowded spaces, tunnels, alleyways, and bridges becoming obstacles in the protagonist’s path.
The Runner Filming Locations
The shooting for ‘The Runner’ was conducted entirely in England, particularly in the sprawling city of London. According to reports, principal photography for the thriller film commenced in April 2025 and went on for more than two months before wrapping up in early July of the same year. To prepare for her role as Maia, Gal Gadot reportedly trained with an Olympic trainer and learned to run the right way without thinking about it, as if it were second nature to her. She also sustained an injury while shooting the Prime Video production. She told People, “I finished the film on crutches. There was only so much (I could do). At one point I broke my feet and that was it. And afterwards I needed to recover and all of that.”
London, England
To bring the narrative to life in an authentic way, the makers of ‘The Runner’ lensed all the pivotal sequences on location in London, where the film is actually set. In the borough of Camden, the cast and crew were spotted filming several key scenes, including along the Regent’s Canal and St. Pancras Way. During the shooting process, Gal Gadot, who portrays Maia Marten, was spotted taping a few running scenes in Kentish Town, which is situated north of Camden Town. Numerous portions were also shot near canals, tunnels, and in crowded spaces like Canary Wharf, Covent Garden, and Hampstead Heath. During a conversation with Movie Fone, Gal Gadot elaborated on how mentally and physically challenging the role was for her.
She said, “Yes, it was very draining. I finished the film on crutches because there’s only so much the body could take. Look, I prepped for nine months with the most incredible trainers. I had an Olympic trainer, Malachi Davis, and I worked with another trainer who made sure I’d be strong enough to be able to run. Malachi taught me how to run for nine months. But then when you actually have to do it day after day, morning to night, it’s so exhausting that no matter how much I tried to channel Tom Cruise’s energy, I was like, ‘I can do it.’ At the end I finished on crutches, but that’s okay. We dealt with that too.”
Part of the challenge was to enact the scenes while being on the run and on the phone, without an actual person talking. Since there was no connection, Gadot had to use her imagination and “play with a voice that was someone reading.” In an interview with Comic Book Movie, the director, Kevin Macdonald, talked about how challenging it was for him and his team to shoot the film on the actual streets of London. They shot the running scenes of Maia along the real-life route, for which they had to obtain permissions.
“So one day we’d be down by the river, and then the next day we’d be up on Hampstead Heath, and the next day we’d be somewhere else. So you’re moving around, but you’re having to try and make it feel like continuity. But another thing we did a lot on this film that I think was very unusual was we actually filmed on live streets a lot. We didn’t close a lot of the streets,” he added. Gal Gadot reportedly ran through real crowds at multiple streets, where the makers installed hidden cameras to get authentic reactions from the civilians, “which, of course, are appropriate to the film because in the film she’s this desperate woman running through the crowd and most people are on their phones.”
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