‘I got all the Holywood stars to eat spice bags!’
Teen star of Irish-shot Abigail says she introduced cast to local cuisine
RISING film star Alisha Weir introduced the cast of Abigail to a local delicacy while shooting the bloodthirsty film in Ireland last year – the spice bag.
The 14-year-old actress plays the titular character in Abigail, a modern take on the 1936 horror Dracula’s Daughter, from the same directing team who made the last two Scream films.
And Alisha said her co-stars got a taste of an Irish takeaway staple in the spice bag – usually made with chips, chicken, peppers and chilli salt – at her insistence.
‘Me and Melissa Barrera were talking a lot about spice bags and she had no idea what it was,’ Alisha told the Irish Mail on Sunday. ‘I was telling her that you need to have one – if you’re over in Dublin, you can’t go without having a spice bag.
‘And then we got spice bags on set one day so I could make everybody try them and they all loved it.’
Alisha’s mum Jenny said Mexican actress Barrera was ‘so good, so kind’ with the younger actress throughout the shoot.
‘He made every person smile and laugh’
Barrera was among a group of cast members who went to support Alisha during ballet scenes shot at the Bord Gáis Theatre.
‘It was amazing for them to see that but I know that the spice bag was definitely at the top of my list that they all needed to try,’ Alisha said.
‘Every single person’ in the Abigail cast was ‘incredible’ to work with, its youngest star said, not least Euphoria actor Angus Cloud, who died aged 25 last July shortly after filming his scenes.
The tragic actor, whose father was Irish and died just a week ahead of him, was ‘an amazing person in real life’, Alisha said.
‘He made every single person smile and laugh. He gave everyone hugs. He was always such a joy on set. He always came in with the best attitude.’
The second-year pupil is getting used to the company of worldfamous actors. She was the star of Matilda the Musical alongside big names such as Stephen Graham and Emma Thompson and had a smaller part in
Wicked Little Letters with Olivia Coleman and the ‘amazing’ Jessie Buckley.
But the biggest thrill yet came at the IFTAs last weekend, where she found herself at the same table as Cork’s first Oscar winner.
‘I think most of the time I was just looking at him,’ she admitted. ‘He was probably like “why does that girl keep looking at me?” I was just in awe. I couldn’t believe that I was sitting at the same table as Cillian Murphy. He’s an incredible person and everyone in Ireland is so proud of him and so happy for him, so to be sitting on the same table as him was incredible.’
The word ‘incredible’ recurs when Alisha talks about the past few years, and why wouldn’t it? She was even included in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list
of ‘ones to watch’ in entertainment earlier this month.
‘I honestly couldn’t believe it when my mom and dad told me,’ she said.
‘I was in shock. I remember saying after Matilda that I don’t know when this crazy world will ever sink in, and after doing Abigail and doing the press for Abigail and having had such an incredible experience, it honestly doesn’t sink in for me. When I came home after being on the set
‘My grandparents were covering their eyes’
of Abigail or after doing press I think: “Did that really happen?”’
Her first horror film, which was second in the US box office last weekend, was made in Ardmore Studios in Bray, Co. Wicklow and a house that ‘was definitely haunted in real life’ in Castleknock, Dublin, meaning her family could come visit the shoot.
‘My granddad came on set and saw all the blood and that was the last time he came on set,’ Alisha said. And when her grandparents saw her on the big screen as a twisted vampire ballerina, they were ‘covering their eyes at a lot of moments’.
‘I think they were very shocked. But they loved it. They thought it was amazing and a lot of fun as well, although it is a horror film.’
And it was a lot of fun to make, according to its young star, who loves watching horror films with her two older sisters.
She ‘100%’ wanted to do ‘every stunt that I could do’ – ‘especially the flying’.
‘It was so exciting and also getting to be covered in blood every day, which seems really strange, is actually so much fun.
She ‘especially’ enjoyed shooting a scene at the end when she and Berrera ‘get splattered with that big, huge blood cannon’.
‘I really didn’t want to mess it up because it would take a very, very long time to clean all that up. We were practising it so many times because you only get one take. But I remember being so shocked after the blood cannon, I couldn’t even speak – I had no idea what just happened.’
The schoolgirl from Knocklyon,
Dublin admits she is ‘not really’ looking forward to sitting her Junior Cert next year, but is happy to return to her ‘very, very normal life when I’m not in this crazy world’ of making movies.
Mum Jenny told the MoS: ‘It was amazing to get over to LA and see everything and do press and red carpet, but we’re very simple people. We came back and we both went back to work on Monday, Alisha went back to school on Monday and she’s back in the throes of it, like this never happened.’