Hollywood director in Laois to make film at iconic castle ruins

A Hollywood writer, director and producer has arrived in Laois to make a short film at an iconic location.

John Gray wrote the hugely successful television series Ghost Whisperer starring actress Jennifer Love Hewitt, and has directed or written many other series and films over his long career, including Grimm, Gone, Helter Skelter and Reckless.

Now retired from Hollywood, the New Yorker is moving to Ireland with his wife, producer Melissa Peltier, as both of them have strong Irish ancestry. 

They are keeping a hand in the arts entertainment industry, by self funding one short film a year, and then touring film festivals with them.

His latest will star well known Irish actors; Aoibhinn McGinnity from Love/Hate, Desmond Eastwood from Blue Lights, Derry Girls and Normal People, Brian Moore from Bad Sisters 2 and Fair City, and upcoming actor, write and director Zara Burdon Yeates.

He told the Leinster Express / Laois Live about it, while he was scoping out the Rock of Dunamase this week, the film's location.

The Ghost Whisperer with Jennifer Love Hewitt, written by John Gray. 

"It is going to be called The Stones of Dunamasc Castle. It is a crime thriller. Four people meet here after pulling off a heist in Dublin, to split up the money. But it doesn't go exactly as planned," John Gray said.

"It's the profit from Ghost Whisperer that allows me to do these short films. It has a budget of €40,000. I am lucky to have had a career in Hollywood. I love making movies, and working with actors. I write and direct them and my wife produces them. Then we travel to the festivals, give seminars and meet other film makers," he explains.

He has a very simple reason for choosing the Laois castle as his film location.

"I found the location from New York simply by googling Irish castle ruins near Dublin because we knew we wanted to base the film out of Dublin," Mr Gray said. 

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They will be filming on site, with the permission of the Office of Public Works, this July. 

The couple are planning to live in Wicklow. On why he is moving to Ireland, he said "it seems a good time to be here".

"My wife got her Irish citizenship, her grandmother is a Friel from Ballina. I am fully Irish on both sides, but one generation further away, my mother was a Driscoll originally from Donegal, my father a Gray from Cork," the movie maker said.