Faye Dunaway to star in NI 'low budget film'

Hollywood legend Faye Dunaway is to star in a low-budget film due to be shot in Belfast next year, it was announced today.

Local independent film company Seventy Percent Films were celebrating their coup after holding talks with the actress and her agent during the recent Cannes Film Festival.

Filming of the dark thriller Postage Due – about a local actress offered the chance to star in a Hollywood movie – starts filming early in the new year.

Its budget of £5.5m (€7.7m) is a far cry from those of the films which made Miss Dunaway a star – including Network, Chinatown and Bonnie And Clyde.

But according to Belfast writer/director Philip Young, she was taken by the script he sent her some weeks before their Cannes meeting.

“Faye was always one of my favourite actresses and I am really looking forward to working with her,” he said.

“It’s a great compliment to have her even read my script, but to say she wants to star in my film is a dream come true,” he added.

Ms Dunaway will take the part of a tough, no nonsense American casting director who is casting for the Hollywood movie at the centre of ‘Postage Due’.

Also starring in the film is English actress Emily Lloyd – taking the part of a stripper in a seedy club.

Andrew Melmore, the film’s executive producer said: “Faye’s commitment has been brilliant and is spreading the word around Hollywood as we speak.

“She and Emily are only the first of the major stars that we will be bringing to Northern Ireland to shoot Postage Due early next year.”

Development money for the film has been provided by the Northern Ireland Film and Television Commission.

Seventy Percent Films is also part of the team behind model Rachel Hunter’s much talked about Sex in the City style TV series Denial which is about to start filming.