Highmore and Nesbitt to star in IFB-funded film My Name is Emily
Exciting casting news for Simon Fitzmaurice’s debut feature film, My Name is Emily: Freddie Highmore (The Spiderwick Chronicles, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and James Nesbitt (Bloody Sunday, Five Minutes of Heaven) are attached to star.
My Name is Emily is a teenage love story and road movie produced by Newgrange Pictures and Kennedy Films. It tells the story of Emily, who escapes from her foster home on her sixteenth birthday with the help of Arden, the boy who loves her. They set out to find Emily’s father, Robert, who is a visionary writer locked up in a psychiatric institution.
Writer/director Fitzmaurice commented, “To make this film is the fruition of years of work and a lifetime’s love of film and I’ve been looking very carefully for individuals that completely inhabit the parts. It’s so invigorating to have the opportunity to work with actors like Jimmy and Freddie who give everything to their craft.”
Jimmy Nesbitt: “This film has such a heart and soul. It’s a really original piece of writing – I’m very excited to be a part of it and to be exploring a role I haven’t played before.”
And Freddie Highmore said, "It’s fantastic to be on board for Simon’s latest project. It has that fresh and spontaneous angle of all great Irish scripts: characters go out and happen to things before things happen to them.”
Award-winning film director and writer Simon Fitzmaurice was diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease (ALS) in 2008, just after his second short film, The Sound of People, screened at the Sundance Film festival. Shortly after his diagnosis, Simon started writing the script for My Name is Emily. As his condition worsened, Simon gradually lost all physical function, but he persisted over five years and eventually completed the script using an iris-recognition screen.
My Name is Emily is a co-production between Irish companies Newgrange Pictures and Kennedy Films and is set to shoot in summer 2014. Irish finance comes from Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board (IFB), BAI and TV3, with UK and Swedish partners also on board. The producers ran a highly successful crowd-funding campaign in late 2013 and raised over €100,000 towards the costs of enabling Simon to direct his film. Celebrity endorsers included Alan Rickman, Colin Farrell, Sam Neill and Jim Sheridan.
For more information, visit the film's official website.