Welcome to Ballywood chapter 4: "We're gonna need a bigger baby"
Aubrey receives a mysterious delivery
A text from Tessie Daly: “Aisling, this is an official Tidy Towns missive. Tell those paparazzi to stay out of our flower beds and off our daffs. Or else. 🙁 ”
It’s not even 8am and I’m already trying to put out fires. Mandy told me I’d have to forge some relationships with the paps to try to get them to leave the cast alone. Give them a few scraps, throw them a few bones, that sort of thing. With Eoin Mac Piaras arriving to BGB sooner than expected though, I’m already on the back foot. The last thing I need now is this shoot rubbing locals up the wrong way. The Rathborris Players are already put out that they’ve had to postpone their production of Wicked til after Easter because we need to use the Scout’s Den for casting. At least it means Una Hatton can lay off the green facepaint for a while.
“How did they know he was here?” Aubrey flips on the heater in our little shared portacabin. Today is the day the crew is arriving en masse and the transformation of Ballygobbard from cute Irish hamlet to even cuter Irish hamlet will begin. Out of the three men from the Three Men and a Baby remake cast, only one has arrived in town so far, but he is arguably the most exciting one. For me, anyway. He’s in training for a big action hero role so production contacted John at the last minute to see if he could act as PT until his own guy gets here from LA.
“Some girl got a selfie with him in the Applegreen on the N7 and put it on Instagram,” I explain, turning my phone face-down on my desk. The daffodils will have to wait. “I suppose they put two and two together. He’s kind of a big deal.”
That’s an understatement. Eoin Mac Piaras is probably the most famous Irish person on the planet right now. He was nominated for an Oscar last year after playing a blind bus driver and is expected to be nominated again this year for his role as Ainsley Harriet’s manager in the new biopic Can’t, Won’t. He’s from Meath. Maybe only the second famous person to come from Meath besides CMAT. He’s going out with
Stefanie Spielberg who, despite being no relation to Stephen, is another A-Lister. They confirmed their romance while filming Blind Turn together and now they’re hounded wherever they go. I need to let the paps know that Stefanie is not here, so hopefully they’ll leave him alone so he can focus on the job at hand.
Aubrey puts her head in her hands. “I still can’t believe he–“
“I know. I know. I can’t think about it.”
I can feel my cheeks turn pink as I think about Eoin Mac Piaras walking in on me and