Remembering a dear friend

THE recent death of Oscar-nominated actor Pete Postlethwaite touched many film fans. However, for one Clare family they weren’t just losing their favourite actor, they were losing a very close friend.
The acclaimed British actor spent a number of months in Sixmilebridge while filming The Serpent’s Kiss on location at Mount Ievers Court back in 1996.
While staying in Clare he and his family struck up a close friendship with the Casey family, Anne, her mother Cora and the late Paddy, of Casey’s Bar in the village. That friendship was so strong that Anne was even invited to Beverly Hills to stay with the Postlethwaite family while he filmed Jurassic Park II.
“He was an absolutely fabulous, lovely guy. He was really jolly, very sincere and a very caring fella with a pep in his step and a word for everybody. He mixed with everybody, he didn’t care who they were or what they were, he just got on with everybody. He was a true gentleman, without a doubt. It was a pleasure and privilege to know him and may he rest in peace,” Anne explained.
When asked if she had any particularly special memories of the man, she said, “There were so many good times, it’s hard to pick one out. There was just this closeness, the friendship he had with myself, Mam and Dad. He really did get involved with the family.”
She recalled one day when a local child fell asleep on Pete’s lap in the bar. “She was just talking to him sitting on his lap and the next thing she was asleep. He was just so gentle with her, brushing her hair. That kind of thing always stuck in my mind.”
The Serpent’s Kiss featured a number of high-profile actors who all spent much of their time in Sixmilebridge in Casey’s Bar. Among Pete’s co-stars were Ewan McGregor, Greta Scacchi, Richard E Grant and Charley Boorman. In fact, Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman’s long-running friendship began in Sixmilebridge, with the idea for their Long Way Round trip being thought up in Casey’s Bar. Actor Sean Bean also came to visit the set and of course spent some time in the bar.
“The excitement here during the filming was unbelievable. There was constant traffic up and down and then there were so many people coming out to see them. It was great craic,” she added.
“The whole lot of them, the actors, the electricians, the carpenters, everybody got on from top to bottom. They were like a family and every evening come five o’clock they’d be straight in here. I remember Ewan McGregor playing the guitar in the corner. They were just great sessions and great fun,” she said.
“At a certain time of the day the crew, who had their offices across the road, would make the phone call to my dad to bring over the drinks and you’d see my daddy walking across the road with the tray to them.”
Visitors to Casey’s would sometimes be greeted by Pete himself, in full historic costume, pulling pints behind the bar.
“This place was like a home away from home for him. My mother, Cora, was just talking about him the other day and was saying how she remembered all the times he used to come into the kitchen here, sit down and cut the loaf of bread and make his own sandwiches and cup of tea and have a chat. She remembers him rehearsing his lines; he’d be walking up and down the floor here with a pint of Guinness in one hand. Next thing the car would arrive outside to take him to the set and within 10 minutes he’d be back down again with his filming done.
“He was just a part of the family and he got on so well with the locals. He loved watching the hurling matches. He just became a very good, personal friend.”
He became such a close family friend that when he left Ireland after filming he left his own personal telephone numbers with Anne.
“We were so sad when we heard about him dying. I’ve tried calling his wife Jacqui but I can’t get through to her. I was talking to Ewan McGregor’s mother to see if she had another number for her but she didn’t. I will get her eventually, it would just be nice to talk to her so she knows we’re all thinking about her and her family,” she said.
She recalled the day the cast and crew of the film left the village, with Anne seeing Pete and the rest of them off at the airport. “I remember the day Pete left, Dad, lord have mercy on him, it was like a son of his was leaving, and the tears were rolling down his face. My dad got a Guinness clock to give him because Pete loved the clock behind the bar and he was very touched by that.
“After they left we were all sitting around the bar and it was like that Guinness ad with the clock ticking. We were just waiting for the action to happen because it was like a ghost town.”
Before he left Clare, Pete asked Anne if she ever visited the States, and when she told him she was planning on going to see a neighbour, he insisted she stay with him.
“He rang me a few times asking me did I have flights booked and when I did he said before I go to my friends I should come and stay with him for a few days. He was in Beverly Hills doing Jurassic Park II.
“I got off the flight in LA and it’s different there because people can literally meet you off the plane. There is this guy in front of me and I hadn’t a clue who he was because he had his head shaved for Jurassic Park. I was just staring at him until he called me. He had his limo and his driver there and then off we went to his house in Beverly Hills, where I stayed four nights with his family.
“He was just a real normal guy, he would get up and cook the breakfast. It was just super being out there with him and his family.
“I mean, staying out there in Beverly Hills, that’s far from where I thought I’d be. But that’s the kind of person he was, really genuine,” she said.