The series focuses on Amelia Sacks (Eve Hewson), who is set to marry into one of the wealthiest families on the island.
Amelia's future mother-in-law, famed crime novelist Greer Garrison Winbury (Kidman), has spared no expense and has done everything she can to ensure the wedding goes off without a hitch — but that all changes when a body turns up on the beach.
The majority of the six-episode series, directed by Susanne Bier and adapted from a best-selling novel of the same name, revolves around the wealthy Winbury's beachside estate, Summerland.
Here's everything you need to know about the real-life locations behind the Netflix show.
The real Summerland property isn't located on Nantucket but in the nearby Cape Cod.
The exterior of Summerland, the Winbury's beachside property at the center of the show.
Seacia Pavao/Netflix
Despite Nantucket being an important part of the show's DNA, it turns out that most of the show wasn't filmed on the island.
Instead, "The Perfect Couple" was mostly filmed in Chatham, a seaside town at the southeastern tip of Cape Cod that's just over 20 miles from Nantucket.
According to the Cape Cod Times, Sean Gibbons, a location production assistant for the series, said the decision to film in Chatham was one of convenience, noting the transportation limits that filming everything on Nantucket would have entailed.
During an interview with Netflix's Tudum, showrunner Jenna Lamia confirmed that the real-life Winbury estate was located in Chatham.
"That was our home base, and we did enhance it with blue hydrangeas," she said, adding that their goal was to make the show look like "absolutely delicious candy."
"It's wealth that looks like it isn't trying," she added.
Some exterior and interior sets were built completely from scratch.
Nick Searcy and Michael Beach seen in the Nantucket police station set that was constructed for "The Perfect Couple."
Netflix
Seemingly unable to find a building exterior that suited their needs, the location team constructed a fake police station facade on a street in Chatham, the Cape Cod Times reported.
A brown brick building with white columns and a sign reading "Nantucket Police" was placed between a liquor store and a coffee shop (which were both given temporary new signage because both had Chatham in their names).
According to The Cape Cod Chronicle, one scene featuring Liev Schreiber was filmed in the basement of a raw bar in Chatham. The outlet reported that the production crew built sets at the venue that posed as an interrogation room and jail cell in the police station.
Other locations in Chatham the crew used include Eastward Point Beach (where a body is discovered washed up the morning of the wedding) and Chatham Beach and Tennis Club, per the Chronicle. Hyannis Harbor was also reportedly used in filming.
Lamia said it "didn't take a lot to transform" Cape Cod into Nantucket.
However, Nantucket was used for establishing shots and moments that the crew couldn't fake.
Nantucket's famous bookstore Mitchell's Book Corner is featured on the series.
Netflix
Speaking to Tudum, Bier said production did rely on the real deal for "bits we couldn't do anywhere else," including scenes with a local bookshop where Kidman's character's book is on display and a bar where she meets with the local chief of police.
Many Nantucket attractions that local residents and tourists to the island might recognize were also filmed by location crew in 2023, including Mitchell's Book Corner, the Brotherhood of Thieves restaurant, and the Soldiers and Sailors Civil War Monument, People reported.
Despite the minimal filming on the island, Elin Hilderbrand, whose book the series is based on, said that for her, it was vital that "Nantucket was done correctly."
"Jenna would call and text me all the time with tiny questions about the way Nantucket was referred to. I feel confident that anybody on Nantucket, and any of my readers, will get a real sense of the authenticity of Nantucket that comes out in my books," she told Tudum.
Hewson said filming was like being at a "New England summer camp."
Eve Hewson as Amelia Sacks in "The Perfect Couple."
Seacia Pavao/Netflix
Speaking at a Q&A after the show's UK premiere at the BFI Imax in London, Bier and cast members reminisced on their time shooting the series, with Hewson saying that it was like being at a "New England summer camp."
"What did we not do? Whale watching, axe-throwing, lobster rolls, the drag show in Provincetown. We did barbecues, lots of sushi," Hewson said at the event, which Business Insider attended. "We did everything we possibly could."
Kidman added that alongside the cast's group activities, she also took some time to go swimming — with sharks.
"I was the only one who saw the big signs that said 'Sharks,' which I totally ignored. One person congratulated me when I came out of the water," she said.
