Where Is 'The School for Good and Evil' in Real Life?

Netflix's 'The School for Good and Evil' was filmed on location in Northern Ireland, notably St Anne's Cathedral in Belfast (below via The National Churches Trust)

Soman Chainani, author of "The School for Good and Evil," did not really have Hogwarts in mind when writing the 2013 novel. Instead, his love of Disney and female baddies propelled him to put the fictional school to paper. 

The seeds of "The School for Good and Evil" were planted at a real institution, Harvard. As a freshman at the university, Chainani took a seminar with folklorist Maria Tatar, under whom he discovered the darker origins of classic fairy tales. The experience led him to concentrate in English and American Literature and eventually inspired the world of his bestselling fantasy series.

"I literally created my own major around fairy tales, with a focus on female villains," he told Cracking the Cover. "I wanted to understand: What makes a female villain so compelling? 'The School for Good and Evil' seeks to answer that question."

The novel was eventually adapted for Netflix, with director Paul Feig at the helm. Think the magical school in the 2022 movie was a castle? Think again. It's actually St. Anne's Cathedral in Belfast, whose interiors the filmmakers recast as parts of the schools for Good and Evil. 

They also transformed the Northern Irish countryside into fictional landscapes, with the Big Dog Forest in County Fermanagh and Woodburn Forest in County Antrim doing heavy lifting as the Endless Woods. 

The movie was also filmed on location at the 19th-century estate Mount Stewart in County Down, its water features playing a big role in Agatha's transformation. Another County Down site, Clandeboye Estate near Bangor, was also utilized. 

While Feig practically used St. Anne's as a soundstage of sorts for weeks, other production work took place in Belfast Harbour Studios.

Originally meant for adults, "The School for Good and Evil" was rewritten with young readers in mind. As it happens, they're the audience most in need of its lessons. With the novel, Chainani hopes to teach them to get away from labels: that the world is more complex than the us-versus-them morality play they grew up seeing on media. For that alone, you should see this movie in a crown.