Glenn Close expresses delight at filming in Dublin

Hollywood actress Glenn Close has revealed it was her dream to make her latest movie in Dublin.

Filming on 'Albert Nobbs' begins on Monday, with Close taking the lead role, co-scripting and making her feature film producing debut on an emotional story based in 19th Century Ireland.

The big-screen star, who has a small budget of just €6m, revealed several other locations around the world were considered for the independent production.

"It is a real trick to bring off a movie, a period movie, on the budget that we have, but so far so good," said Close.

"At one point we were thinking of filming in Hungary, eastern Germany, Montreal in Canada.

"We've been all over the place but I'm really happy that we're here because this is where it should be."

Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Brendan Gleeson and Maria Doyle Kennedy have been cast alongside a host of international names including veteran actresses Pauline Collins and Janet McTeer and young stars Mia Wasikowska and Aaron Johnson.

They will film for seven weeks around Dublin and Wicklow - but the exact locations are under wraps in an attempt to keep the storyline secret.

'Albert Nobbs' was also co-scripted by Man Booker prize-winning novelist John Banville, who admitted he would have liked to have been a 1930s script writer in a cabin in the Hollywood Hills.

Close, 63, who is most famous for her role in 'Fatal Attraction', will play a woman who passes as a man to work and survive in Victorian Dublin in 1898.

She previously won an Obie Award for the character of Nobbs in an Off-Broadway theatrical interpretation of the short story, 'The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs', by Irish novelist George Moore.

The actress revealed she was so moved by the role she has spent the last 15 years trying to get the movie, directed by Rodrigo Garcia, off the ground.

Close paid tribute to the Irish Film Board for its support in ensuring the production came to Dublin. It gave €750,000 in funding to the project.

"It's a really wonderful partnership and I'm very excited," she said.

"Never in my wildest dreams did I think we'd have this extraordinary group of talent both before and behind the camera."

But the film's Irish producer Alan Moloney ('Neverland', 'Treasure Island', 'Breakfast On Pluto') maintained the industry would be non-existent without government support and tax incentives for visiting film and television makers.

"It's crucial. It's good to see consistent governments have supported film," said Moloney.

"One would hope as we move forward to another government that we would have continued support."