Top Hollywood star comes to island 

Mena Suvari, star of the Oscar-winning American Beauty, will be 
here filming the psychological drama, Trauma, alongside Colin Firth. 
The news comes three weeks after the Examiner revealed Scream star Neve 
Campbell will be starring in wartime spoof Churchill: The Hollywood Years, 
with Christian Slater in the title role.

Churchill arrives on April 22, while Trauma reaches Manx shores six days 
later, joining the seventh series of ITV's Trial and Retribution which 
started filming on April 5 in making it an important month for the Isle of 
Man Film Commission.

Suvari, 24, shot to fame in 1999 when she followed up hit comedy American Pie 
with her role as the teenage temptress opposite Kevin Spacey in American 
Beauty.

Firth is hot off Bridget Jones' Diary and it will be his second visit to the 
Island after he appeared in Relative Values opposite Julie Andrews.

He's also starred in hits like Shakespeare in Love, Fever Pitch and The 
English Patient.

Trauma will be the 48th project shot in the Island since the Brylcreem Boys 
started the ball rolling in 1995.

It's being made by Little Bird, one of the production companies behind both
Bridget Jones and Churchill.

Trauma, which will shoot at the new film studio in Lezayre, will be directed 
by Marc Evans (Resurrection Man) from a script by Richard Smith. 

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.

                I'M ALL WRITE 

                Film Scot's madness scare

                Calum Macdonald Exclusive

                SCOTS writer Richard Smith thought he was going mad when
                he was writing his first Hollywood blockbuster.

                His creation Trauma will star Bridget Jones hunk Colin Firth and was sparked 
                by Richard's interest in madness and people who hear voices in their heads.

                He penned the film over a year while living in a flat in the Meadowbank area 
                of Edinburgh and at times thought it was driving him mad.

                He said: "I was sitting in a cafe writing one day and I could have sworn I 
                could hear a murmuring.

                "I was getting seriously scared and called a waitress over and asked if she 
                could hear voices as well.

                "It turned out that a stereo was turned on very low, but it scared the hell 
                out of me at the time."

                Trauma is a psychological chiller about a man who awakes from a coma to find 
                his wife dead and his life in ruins.

                Richard, 25, spent last week meeting the director and cast to put the 
                finishing touches to his script before the cameras start rolling in a couple 
                of weeks.

                American Pie beauty Mena Suvari has also been signed to star in the film.

                Richard's writing career started at university when he co-wrote and starred 
                in a comedy show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1999.

                He has also written for TV and won a Scottish BAFTA for his short film 
                Leonard.

                Just four years ago, Richard, from Dumbarton, was an unemployed marketing 
                graduate wondering what to do with his life.

                But now he says: "It's all like a dream come true."

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.