By Andrea Cleghorn
There’s a small town in County Wexford that is celebrating its 1500th birthday, but that is not the only noteworthy event this year. For the first time since the 1960s, Enniscorthy is serving as backdrop to a major motion picture.
“Brooklyn,” the movie, is based on the 2009 best-selling book by Colm Toibin of the same name. It’s a story about a young Irish girl, Eilis (played by Saoirse Ronan) who is sent off to America to find, if not exactly fame and fortune, a more promising future than she might expect in post-WWII Ireland, where she is working in a dead-end job. At various points in the story, she finds trouble and romance in on both sides of the Atlantic.
When the call went out for extras, Marion Roantree of nearby Gorey was ready. This woman has talents galore – painting, gardening, running a business – but had never tried acting. She was intrigued, though, to see what happens in the making of a film. Her cousin Imelda, on the other hand, is a veteran extra, having been in “The Tudors” and “The Vikings,” both popular series. They set off together to try their luck in March of this year.
Twenty-five hundred people turned up for the casting call. Each was given a form asking for name and contact information, measurements, clothing size, work experience. Soon Marion got a call back, one of 500. (Sadly, Imelda was not one of them.) From there, Marion was a winner again. “I was delighted,” she said, when she got the call. “Would you be available these dates to be in Enniscorthy?” the Sunset Films rep said. As it happened, she would. Of course she would.
Asked why she thought she beat the odds and ended up in the movie, freckle-faced, green-eyed, curly- haired Roantree said, “I guess maybe because I look Irish.”
It is a romantic comedy set in the early 1950s in the ancient town of Enniscorthy, somewhat but not entirely coincidentally the hometown of author Toibin. Other scenes were shot around the general Wexford area but the bulk of the filming, the part that takes place in Brooklyn, actually was filmed in Montreal. The Enniscorthy segments would end up being a quarter to a third of the film itself.
In the interest of full disclosure, I must say Marion is a friend of mine and had told me about the movie when the film when all this happened in the spring. So when I arrived in Ireland this week, I had barely slept off the jet lag when I convinced Marion drive me down to Enniscorthy.
We went into town, to Castle Street where four buildings had been made over to look like the 1950s, including Kelly’s Grocery where Marion’s scenes took place. Behind the film’s facade, the real-life Bourke Roche department store sells home furnishings.
But one of the real reasons to go to Enniscorthy was to pay a visit to photographer Ibar Carty, as we knew he had stills from the movie. His store was across the street from Kelly’s Grocery – the façade still in character from “Brooklyn.” The sign on Carty’s door said “back in 10 minutes” with his mobile number. We gave him 30, which gave us time to take a look at the former Bank of Ireland building (in the movie the post office) and imagine how easy it was to transform the street by adding vintage cars but blocking out the bright red Vodaphone store.
After we had poked around, we gave Ibar Carthy a ring and he arrived in 10 minutes. He was the local photographer who has been compiling material for a celebration of the movie in town.
Together we went through the stack of pictures looking for our favorite extra. Haven’t we all wondered how much fun it would be to be transformed by professional movie star makeup? But maybe not decades older. When we came to the ones of Marion she looked terribly serious and somewhat matronly. “I look just like my mother!” Marion said. Carty roared laughing.
Marion was shocked at how much she was aged in just a few minutes. “I guess they had very few color choices of lipstick in those days…I really did look like someone from the ‘50s.”
For “Brooklyn,” Marion was suited up with a blue tweed jacket, blouse, hat and skirt for her non-speaking role as one of a handful of shoppers. She and a handful of others were supposed to be chatting with each other inside Kelly’s Grocery where the star, Saoirse Ronan works as a shopgirl. “People were coming in for the usual provisions: bacon, rashers, that kind of thing. The owner of the shop was calling people by name, as in ‘May I help you Mrs. So-and-So.’ Typical service.”
So, who did Marion see up-close? “Nobody recognizable, except of course Saoirse” and the snobbish storeowner who served the “upmarket customer” in front of the others who had been waiting in a queue. “And that was what we were supposed to be talking about among ourselves. We didn’t have lines to speak, just marks on the floor where we were to stand and mumble as if we were complaining to each other about the poor treatment of the ordinary customers who were being ignored.”
Marion had one other scene where she needed to walk back and forth in front of Kelly’s. And back and forth, and back and forth, and back and forth.
The filming took one long day from 8 in the morning to 6 at night, with a hot or cold lunch provided from the nearby food van. Extras were paid 100 euro – about $135 – for the filming plus 20 more for the time they had spent at the fitting. “We were told it would be an hour, but it actually took most of one Thursday afternoon.”
Enniscorthy is a pretty town, with a Norman castle rebuilt most recently in 16th century, and streets winding up the hills from the River Slaney below. On this July day, several Travellers (Ireland’s itinerant segment of the population) are picking horses out of a pack grazing on the opposite bank and loading them into two trailers. The remaining ones, relishing their freedom, thunder off back to the pastureland.
The original book by Toibin that spawned the screenplay is exquisitely written, with universal themes of sibling rivalry, family responsibility and aspiration, as well as good look at the differences between American and Irish culture. Nick Hornby wrote the adaptation for the screen.
The last film shot in Enniscorthy was the 1969’s “Underground” starring Robert Goulet. Several other small Irish towns were considered, and Toibin’s hometown eventually chosen. There are other scenes set around Wexford and Dublin.
Marion, who went to the first casting call to see what happens in making a movie, has a bit of the acting bug now. She has signed up to be considered for the popular series “The Vikings” on the telly.
“Brooklyn” also stars Dromhnall Gleeson as Jim (Irish love interest) and Emory Cohen (American love interest), as well as Julie Walters. It is due for release in January 2015.
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