Poor old superstars. Time was, they used to love Ireland for its discretion. Nowadays, they're hardly through Arrivals at Dublin Airport before everybody who's anybody knows exactly where they're staying, their schedule, and what kind of toothpick they use. This week the town was buzzing with the news that actors Willem Dafoe and Mira Sorvino, as well as director and author Paul Auster and Mira's boyfriend, mega-director Quentin Tarantino, had arrived for a two-day film shooting in Temple Bar last weekend.
The film, Lulu on the Bridge, is a directorial debut for Paul, who is better known as the cult author of The New York Trilogy. So it can't have helped his nerves that Quentin Tarantino stopped off on the way to London to promote his latest film and likely mega-hit, Jackie Brown, to support Mira at work. Despite these on-set tensions, the team managed to spend plenty of time getting to know Dublin culture. Well, drinking culture at least. On Saturday, Willem Dafoe fell in with location manager Naoise Barry, actor Rory Egan, and Frank Mannion of Scala Productions at the Clarence, and Rory, Frank and Willem then headed off to Lillie's Bordello. The Irish wrap party was held at Isolde's Tower restaurant off Parliament Street on Sunday and the crew then moved on to a small, after-hours "coffee house" in Essex Street where the carousing continued. And they call us the drinking Irish.