Dromore Castle in County Limerick is the location for the Neil Jordan film 'High Spirits'.
Dromore Castle has been temporarily taken over by a film crew and actors for the production of a Neil Jordan film. The Limerick location has become Castle Plunkett the setting for 'High Spirits' a ghost story with romantic comedy.
Derek Meddings, the Special Effects Director the man who made Superman fly tells Michael Dwyer about the techniques being used in the film to create a haunted atmosphere.
That’s going to be quite a programme for us, to get that done. We started about a month ago doing some experiments with the ghost of Mary...we’ve done some tests which we are very pleased with...so when we get back, we’ve got to start on doing all those sort of ghosts.
The cast is a mix of Hollywood and Irish actors. Neil Jordan explains why he wanted to work with Irish actors.
I’ve done one film with Irish actors, and I was very anxious to work with Irish actors again, because they’ve got such a particular quality, and in this it’s rather marvellous really, because we’ve got Ray McAnally, Donal McCann, Liam Neeson, Tony Rohr, Tom Hickey, Mary Coughlan making her film debut, and then we’ve got Peter O’Toole...
The film also stars well-known American actors Daryl Hannah, Steve Guttenberg, Beverly D’Angelo and Peter Gallagher. Jordan notes how the Irish and American approaches to acting work well together,
You’ve got two very different styles of acting, you’ve got two very different ways of approaching characters, and it’s fascinating to me to see how it mixes.
This episode of ‘Freeze Frame’ was broadcast on 15 February 1988.
The presenter is Michael Dwyer.
Freeze Frame was A Yellow Asylum Production For RTÉ.
The first episode of ‘Freeze Frame’ was broadcast on 11 January 1988. In an article in the RTÉ Guide on 8 January 1998 it promised to 'concentrate each week on the film career of an individual – generally an actor or a director, Irish or international, who will be the subject of an extended interview.' Being filmed on different locations allowed the show’s production company, Yellow Asylum Films, access to a wide range of actors and directors.
