'Premiere must go on', insists Brosnan
Hollywood star Pierce Brosnan insisted the show must go on last night as he celebrated St Patrick’s night at the premiere of his latest movie.
There had been fears the screening of touching Irish drama Evelyn would have to be cancelled in the face of the looming war in the Gulf.
However, the 49-year-old James Bond star delighted fans in London’s Leicester Square by pressing ahead with the event at the Odeon West End cinema.
Brosnan said: “There was a point where we thought we would cancel but it’s very difficult to cancel an event like this.
“And on St Patrick’s Day we have to celebrate a movie that will touch people’s hearts.
“I think there will be a few pints raised at the end of the evening.”
In the film, which he produced, he stars as Desmond Doyle, a single dad who has to win back his children in a real life tug of love which occurs in Ireland in the 1950s.
His three youngsters are taken away from him and put in orphanages after his wife walks out on them. Doyle then has to mount a ground-breaking legal challenge to reunite his family.
He said the story struck a chord with him: “I’m Irish, I’m a father and there were emblems in it that had meaning to my life.
“This man Desmond Doyle had the courage to stand up in the rather dark days of the ’50s and say this is wrong. To go against the church and against the state, that was heroic.”
“I’m deeply proud of the picture, I’m deeply proud we made it and every man and woman in it shone brightly.”
The film has been on the cards for a number of years after Desmond’s daughter Evelyn wrote a synopsis that was then turned into a script.
She heard many times over the years that it would eventually become a movie but began to have doubts until she received a call at home from Brosnan himself.
“I thought someone was winding me up,” said Evelyn, who was at tonight’s screening.
“He said he wanted to play my father. I was so excited – it was wonderful to have a man like Pierce Brosnan playing my dad.”
The film – which also stars former ER star Julianna Margulies and Alan Bates – opens in cinemas on Friday.
