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The Alpine setting of the second season of Nine Perfect Strangers is a far cry from the California wellness resort portrayed in season one. This new season, currently airing weekly on Hulu, continues the unorthodox efforts of Masha Dmitrichenko (Nicole Kidman), who hopes to heal her unwitting guests using psychedelics. This time, she moves on from Tranquillum to a mountainside resort called Zauberwald.
“Masha is a person who has to evolve,” explains executive producer Bruna Papandrea. “The move was a natural progression for her as a character, but also to be in this incredible environment and have her guests come there is a very natural story element that we always anticipated doing for a second season. What we felt was that a winter setting was both slightly ominous, but also incredibly beautiful and also luxurious.”
To film season two, the cast temporarily relocated to Munich, where they lived for six months. Shooting took place around Austria and Germany, as well as on a soundstage. Locations included Salzburg, Hallstatt, Alpendorf, Leopoldskron Palace, and Gradonna Ski Resort. “We really did get to do a lot of very cool bopping around to some crazy locations that I don't think we would have ever found ourselves in otherwise,” notes Annie Murphy, who plays Imogen, one of Zauberwald’s guests.
On set, the actors became especially close, and Christine Baranski, who plays the wealthy Victoria, encouraged their bonding. In the series, Murphy plays Victoria’s estranged daughter, Murray Bartlett plays former children’s TV host Brian, Henry Golding plays rich kid Peter, and musician King Princess plays a struggling pianist who travels with her girlfriend Wolfie (Maisie Richardson-Sellers).
Below, Papandrea, Murphy, and King Princess speak to Condé Nast Traveler about their experiences filming Nine Perfect Strangers.
What vibe did you want Zauberwald to have?
Bruna Papandrea: What we all really wanted was the sense of history, because Masha has history with this place and there is that incredible sense of the old that you get throughout Europe. But [it has] been redone to be very luxurious and very opulent. Soho House does it brilliantly all over Europe. That was one of our references for how you take something incredibly old and historical and update it and make it really beautiful and new. We wanted it to feel very warm and very beautiful, and to have elements of any luxury wellness retreat.
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Was the exterior of Zauberwald an actual resort?
King Princess: The exterior was Franz Ferdinand’s hunting castle, Schloss Blühnbach.
Annie Murphy: The reason we shot in Germany in the first place is because they wanted such a stark difference between season one and season two, and they wanted season two to be this beautiful snow globe-y winter wonderland. Then cut to it being the hottest winter on record for decades and decades. These poor ski towns that make their entire annual income from tourism, everything ground to a halt. In so many shots of us in our parkas and our hats and our mitts we’re just pretending to have chattering teeth and we’re sweating underneath there. Behind the scenes, the crew was there was shoveling like snow that had been trucked in and was slowly melting. But one day at Blühnbach there was the most glorious snowstorm—it’s a scene where we’re all snowshoeing. But then it snowed so much that we got snowed in and had to wait to be shoveled out.
KP: There was only one road in and out. We were stuck in this car on this one road for hours and we were getting hungry. We were not in ski gear because it had been hot. These trees had fallen down and they were trying to get the trees out of the road so we could get back to the hotel. We were probably five to six miles away and Annie was like, “I'm walking.” She was in sneakers. I was like, “You can’t walk.”
AM: My best friends had just flown in and I hadn't seen them in like four months. I was a tree across the road away from reuniting with these loves of mine. So I was like, “I'm just going to walk.” And then I realized that it was a full-blown death wish. So we went on Yelp, and I was like, “Guys, there's a restaurant right around the corner. I think all we really need is one little beer.” We got out of the car and we went and sat down and ordered a beer at this restaurant. By the time we'd finished the trees were cleared.
So is most of the snow we see on the show not real snow?
KP: No. And what they did at the end, which was very Hitchcockian, was made the outdoor nighttime snowstorm on a soundstage for the climax. It looks like an old movie, which I thought was really cool. And a really cool, deliberate choice made out of necessity to some degree, but it worked. It was pretty crazy to be in a soundstage and it's fully snowing inside and it's on you, and it's paper.
AM: They got really creative. Everyone was so thirsty for real snow. We were in the Alps, down in the most beautiful green area, and you look up and you see all the snow that you could possibly want and dream of. So what they did for a few of the shots was they drove us up to a certain location, and then the van had to stop, and then they brought in an all-terrain vehicle to come meet the van, which then took us up another level, and then we ended up hiking for like 15 minutes. The poor crew had all of their gear, and they were lugging everything up, including water bottles and snacks for the actors. But we finally got up to where there was real snow.
KP: It was really about confronting global warming, if we're being quite honest. There’s nothing sadder than a ski slope that's green.
In spite of the weather, were you able to go skiing?
KP: No. They made a sign this thing that says we couldn’t ski. Because if I broke both my legs, I don't think they're going to CGI my legs back in.
AM: We had to sign a very lengthy waiver of things that we would not do. No extreme sports.
KP: Which was a super bummer for me, because I'm not good at any extreme sports, but I think I could do all of them.
BP: This is absolutely normal. For insurance reasons, when we are shooting on location particularly, there are restrictions around anything that could injure an actor because we can't film without actors. Horse riding, skiing—things that can cause injury pretty easily.
What was your favorite shooting location?
AM: Mine was Hallstatt in Austria. We had such a special time there because Christine Baranski—who's just one of the most perfect, shimmering women of all time—really took it upon herself to be the hostess with the most-est. She was so generous. One night, she invited us all to a Champagne sunset experience. The hotel that we were staying at was this beautiful old hotel that backed onto the alpine lake in the town. We arrived and she had beautiful tables and flowers set up, and there was Champagne, and she had curated a classical music playlist that was echoing over the lake. That was truly a “What is my life moment?” that she arranged for everybody.
KP: Mine was Alpendorf. The whole city was one road, so you would walk down and there was a valley, and in that valley was a hike that I would take my dog on. There was what I can only describe it as a babbling brook. And in that brook was this blue, silver mud. It was so soft. And I was like, “What is this mud?” It was glacial silt. Do you know what glacial silt is? It is one of the key ingredients in all the expensive beauty products. I put that head to toe. I was covered in mud.
AM: She started trying to sell it to us.
KP: I was like, “Try this mud. It’s amazing!”
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In one of the episodes, several characters go to the spa, where they take a wine bath. Was that a real spa?
BP: We built the bath on stage. The hallways and mud bath were a real spa hotel [Hotel Krallerhof].
KP: They rented out the whole spa. It was crazy. The wine bath was about 3,000 tablets of red dye. I was scrubbing it off for weeks. It stained.
BP: Watching the actors in the wine bath was pretty brilliant!
Did you explore Munich on your days off?
AM: We spent a lot of time in the English Garden at the beer garden, sitting by the river. King Princess brought her dog and we would like walk Raz around and ogle all the Germans. We spent a lot of time wandering around, especially when the spring came.
KP: You forget how how weird it is that in the States it's very rare to have a potable and swimmable water source in your city park. In Munich, on a hot day, you can get a blanket and sit by the river bank and you can swim in it. I got to go swimming, and so did my dog, which was awesome. You can't go swimming in Central Park. You’d die.
Did you discover any good restaurants or bars there?
KP: There was one just called Bar. We loved Bar. There was a hotel down the block from me that had a really cute pub attached and that was my spot. I’d take my dog out and then go sit and have like a beer by myself. I’d never experienced anything like it because when you’re on tour you’re on a stinky bus with a group of your friends. For this, everyone was in different parts of the city, so there was a lot of alone time. To be earnest, it was such a good group of people, and it was so familial that you could pretty much call anyone and be like, “What are you doing today?” We were each other's community and we happened to really get along. It was fabulous to be able to call Annie or call Murray and be like, “Hey, let's hang out.” No one let me forget that it’s not always like this on a TV show.
