Irish film-makers grab interview with John Cusack - and tell him where his family's from

Well, with a name like Cusack…

Two film-makers who travelled from Cork to Belfast to interview Hollywood star John Cusack have revealed the rocky road to successfully interviewing him.

Naoimh Reilly and Denise Lavelle told RTÉ's Today Show they were half way to Belfast when they received an email saying Cusack was not in fact doing any interviews. He was a guest at the Belfast Film Festival.

Naoimh and Denise had commissioned a genealogy report and thought that would "get us in there", but had started to worry it could actually count against them.

"On the drive up, we were thinking this could make us look even more like stalkers...This could go horribly wrong," said Denise.

Technical problems with their gear, a broken car window (on a hired car) and a few other hitches along the way were finally overcome to bring them to the doors of the Belfast Film Festival, where a man "who felt sorry for us" had a word that resulted in - the interview!

The ladies presented Cusack with a genealogy report that showed his extensive Irish roots. He thought he knew his mother's family was from the west and his father's from Meath. However, the ladies' report showed his father's family hailing from Galway.

"It's your company versus my mother and father...I'm going to have to say your company's wrong," a game Cusack joked.

It turns out all 16 of his great-great grandparents were Irish.

"We did a long interview with him and when we got onto the topic of his family history he was clearly interested and moved," said Denise. "He initially didn't believe the story. He was told his whole life by his mother that it was the other way around that his father's family was from Kerry and his mother's family was from Meath. Our report showed that this was incorrect. He discovered things that he never knew.

"He was called away to the event he was speaking at but asked us to stay around after so he could talk to us more about his family heritage. We had a long chat with him after that and he was very thankful to us for giving him the report. He also said we may have caused a war within his family!!"

Naoimh and Denise agreed he was "really, really nice" - once he realised they weren't actually stalking him.

Denise concluded: "They always say you should never meet your heroes, but it's total rubbish - you should."

Cusack's genealogy report was conducted by Eneclann who also carried out research on Barack Obama and Tom Cruise.