Blue Moon is a 2025 American biographical musical drama directed by Richard Linklater and written by Robert Kaplow. The film tells the emotional and tragic story of legendary songwriter Lorenz Hart, best known as one half of the songwriting duo Rodgers & Hart. As the story takes place over the course of one evening on March 31, 1943—the opening night of Oklahoma!—Hart deals with the end of his creative partnership with Richard Rodgers and falls deeper and deeper into depression and alcoholism.
Ethan Hawke stars as Lorenz Hart, alongside Bobby Cannavale as a bartender at Sardi’s, the iconic restaurant in New York’s theater district where much of the film is set. Margaret Qualley and Andrew Scott also play important supporting roles. The movie is set to come out on October 24, 2025.
Where Was Blue Moon (2025) Filmed?
The story takes place in Manhattan in the 1940s—but the production chose to film in Dublin, Ireland—to make it look and feel like New York City‘s famous theatre district.
Filming for Blue Moon ended in September 2024. The main filming started in early July 2024 and went through August 2024. Dublin’s historic buildings and flexible interiors made it easy to imagine mid-century New York, especially for the set of Sardi’s pub, where most of the movie takes place.
Fictional Sardi’s Restaurant Recreated in Dublin
Inside a soundstage in Dublin, the production team built a detailed, period-accurate copy of Sardi’s Restaurant, the famous Broadway hangout where Lorenz Hart spends most of his last night. This one place was the emotional centre of the movie; it showed the tension, reflection, and fall apart of a once-great artist. In interviews, director Richard Linklater said that the choice to film in one place was on purpose, as he wanted to create the intimacy of a stage production while putting more pressure on the actors to carry long scenes without stopping.
Cast member Patrick Kennedy wrote in an old Instagram post from July 19, 2024:
“So long, Blue Mooners and our little dream of New York in Dublin.”
This confirmed the creative team’s use of Irish locations to simulate a New York atmosphere — and marked the end of their immersive shoot in the Irish capital.
Why Dublin?
Richard Linklater and his crew selected Dublin not for budgetary reasons but for creative control. Shooting the entire film in a single, meticulously designed interior helped establish a sense of real-time storytelling. The film, which plays out like a stage play, benefited from the controlled setting — one that allowed for extended rehearsals, uninterrupted takes, and emotional consistency throughout.
This approach allowed actors like Ethan Hawke to deliver emotionally complex performances without the disruption of frequent set changes or cuts. According to Linklater, the team had been developing Blue Moon for over a decade, and the Dublin shoot brought their long-standing vision to life.
The use of a single-location interior shoot in Dublin also gave the film a stylized, timeless look. It allowed the filmmakers to focus on the characters’ emotional journey, rather than sprawling across multiple cityscapes.
One of the key locations believed to have been used is the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin, which helped capture the theatrical ambiance of 1940s Broadway. The theatre’s vintage interiors added authenticity to the film’s recreation of Manhattan’s golden-era theater culture.
Official Trailer
For more filming location updates and behind-the-scenes stories from movies and TV, visit netfilming.com — your source for all things production.
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