Large parts of Trinity were out of access to the staff and students today, with both the Dining Hall and the Old Library taken over by film crews and cameras, to allow Mel Gibson to shoot scenes for his latest film.
Parts of the film, The Professor and the Madman, based on the best-selling historical novel The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words, were shot in College today, with the Old Library surrounded by lights and large parts of campus taken over by film equipment from early this morning.
Trinity is not the only part of Dublin to be filmed in. Large parts of the city are being used as a substitute for 19th century Oxford, with the film telling the story of the creation of the Oxford English Dictionary. Sean Penn, star of films such as Milk and Mystic River, has also been cast in the film.
Gibson has filmed in Ireland before, with one of his most famous films, Braveheart, filmed largely in Meath, Dublin, Wicklow and Kildare.
The film, which is supported by Bord Scannán/the Irish Film Board, has spent weeks filming across Dublin. The cast includes a number of Irish actors and production crew.
This is not the first time Trinity has been used in films, making appearances in everything from the Neil Jordan’s 1996 film Michael Collins to his less successful Byzantium.
One of the most famous films shot in Trinity, the award-winning Educating Rita, starring Julie Walters and Michael Caine, saw college stand in as a Liverpool university, with the inside of the Graduate Memorial Building (GMB) and the Public Theatre, commonly known as the Exam Hall, making appearances in the 1983 film.
