Trinity is once again set to act as a backdrop to a film. A new production starring actors Gemma Arterton and Rupert Penry-Jones will see various parts of the college used in a new film about Virginia Woolf.
Next Monday, September 4th, the campus will play host to the two actors as they work on Vita and Virginia, a new period drama that’ll tell the story of the love affair between writer Woolf and 1920s socialite Vita Sackville-West.
The Rubrics, Library Square and the College Chapel will all be temporarily blocked off from members of the public, as well as staff and students, to allow filming to take place.
The one-day shoot will see filming take place from 8am to 5pm, with some restrictions to parking and pedestrian access across campus.
In an email sent to staff and students this morning, the Head of Central Events in Trinity, Jillian Wilson, said that the “financial contribution from this filming will be invested in supporting the College’s academic mission”.
Arterton, an English actress whose most famous roles include St Trinian’s and Clash of the Titans, will star as Sackville-West. Her love affair with Woolf is widely credited with having provided the inspiration for Woolf’s novel Orlando.
Penry-Jones is best known for his role in BBC dramas Spooks and Silk.
The film, which stars actor Isabella Rossellini as Woolf, is an adaptation of an award-winning play by Eileen Atkins. Trinity will not be the only Irish location used in the film, which is being part-funded by the Irish Film Board.
It was only last November that significant chunks of the College campus were taken over to film parts of a new Mel Gibson movie, The Professor and the Madman. The college has often found itself 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.
