Over 10 years Emerson LA Has Starred in Films, TV

Scandals, murder, runway models, hip-hop, and pain-relief. What is the connection between those five topics? They’ve all been featured in shows, movies, and commercials that were filmed at Emerson Los Angeles.

The reason is obvious: Even among the glitz and glamor of LA, Emerson’s building, celebrating its 10th anniversary this fall, steals the spotlight on Sunset Boulevard.

That’s what Architectural Digest wrote about the building when it opened in 2014. The building designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Thom Mayne was also regarded as a “dynamic exercise in form-making” and “the structure’s sculptural aluminum-clad walls providing an eye-catching backdrop.”

Event: Emerson Los Angeles: Celebrating 10 Years on Sunset

That backdrop has caught the eye of many a director and location manager.

Check out some of what has been filmed there in just 10 years’ time:

Both the interior and exterior of the building were included in an episode of the Emmy Award-winning show Scandal in 2016. Blogger iamnotastalker.com, which writes about Hollywood filming locations, pointed out that the hallways were used in the show.

How to Get Away with Murder has also used the building, according to ELA staff.

The building has appeared in several hip-hop videos starring some of the biggest stars on the planet.

Yung Bleu and Nicki Minaj’s “Love In The Way” opens with a spiraling shot looking up through ELA, filmed in 2023.

In 2018, the building showed up in about two seconds of Drake’s “Nice for What” video. If you blink, you might miss this “daring edifice” (again, Architectural Digest’s description, not ours).

ELA shows up at the 1:37 and 2:41 marks. Did ELA’s brief appearance lead to the video racking up 421,000,000 views? We’d like to think so.

The building pops up in the Erin Brockovich-inspired Rebel TV show, and America’s Next Top Model, as well as movies such as Netflix’s Your Place or Mine with Reese Witherspoon, and The Circle, starring Tom Hanks and Emma Watson.

And if you just tossed your head back in amazement and threw out your neck, check out this Advil commercial featuring a 62-year-old skateboarder filmed at ELA in 2019, thanks to Eric Sherman ’95.