HOLDING FAST
Casting someone to play
11-year-old Anna, who has apparently survived months without eating, took place during the pandemic with many actors viewed on tape.
‘The search was really careful and thorough,’ says producer Tessa Ross. ‘It’s so difficult to find somebody who could particularly play the scene where the confession comes out of why this child is starving herself. That’s a very, very hard scene for a child to play, and for a child to be sophisticated enough to play that, while childish enough for it to be shocking. So it was not an easy search. But once we saw Kíla Lord Cassidy, it was easy.’
It transpired that Kíla is the daughter of No Offence star Elaine Cassidy, who was then cast as Anna’s mother, Rosaleen.
Also appearing in the film are Belfast’s Ciarán Hinds, Detectorists’ Toby Jones and Hatton Garden’s Brían F O’byrne.