IT'S Oscars weekend and Irish interest is high, with several nominations for Irish talent, including Michael Fassbender for Best Actor for his role in Steve Jobs and Saoirse Ronan for Best Actress for her performances in Brooklyn.
Room, based on the book by Irish author Emma Donoghue and directed by Dubliner Lenny Abrahamson, is nominated for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, as is Brooklyn, based on Colm Toibin's 2009 novel. There's also hope in the Best Live Action Short category with Stutterer, written and directed by Benjamin Cleary.
But one invitation holder who has to content herself with watching the events of the 88th Academy Awards unfold on her television screen back in Belfast, due to filming commitments, is Eileen O'Higgins.
The Castlewellan actress played the role of Nancy, best friend of Saoirse Ronan's character's Eilis Lacey, in the Oscar-nominated Brooklyn, which tells the story of a young immigrant torn between her home in Co Wexford and 1950s New York.
But having recently enjoyed an award-winning red carpet experience with her colleague earlier this month, when the Irish drama scooped a gong for Outstanding British Film at the Bafta awards in London, Eileen isn't too disappointed.
"I’ve had my celebration of Brooklyn. We had a great time,” she says, alluding to the award after-party. She took to the stage to receive the award alongside colleague's Julie Walters, Domhnall Gleeson and Saoirse Ronan, wearing a stunning red dress.
"It’s very stressful when you receive these invitations and panic about what to wear. I was very lucky that Belfast designer Shauna Fay made me the dress and took the worry away."
Eileen's theatre credits include performances at London's Old Vic and the English National Opera and she has starred in the television mini-series Emma and Enid alongside Helena Bonham Carter, before her movie debut with Brooklyn.
"I was delighted to get the part of Nancy. She really wears her heart on her sleeve and there's something quite endearing about her," says Eileen.
As well as seeing her behave like an excitable teenager with a crush and take on the role of matchmaker, viewers witness Nancy getting married. Eileen describes those wedding scenes as "very surreal".
"My wedding dress looked amazing at the front, but it didn't actually have a back in it and underneath I was wearing a pair of welly boots," she laughs.
“It was even more bizarre walking into a chapel with 400 extras who all went 'Wow' as I walked in,” she says. “And they had a real priest there who whispered in my ear before I did my scene 'Don’t do it'."
Having trained at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, Brooklyn's theme of homesickness rang a personal chord with Eileen.
"I was the first one in my house to move away," she says. "I was very fortunate in that when you are in drama school you are kept extremely busy but it's when you return home and see how you've missed a bit that you get nostalgic.”
Eileen recently took the opportunity to visit her former school, Assumption Grammar in Ballynahinch, and visit the senior book club who were currently studying Colm Toibin's novel.
Eileen studied A-level English and drama at Assumption and enjoyed being involved in the debating society, but she was also a very talented mathematician and admits that she almost went to Queen's University to study law and accounting.
"The Royal Welsh College was the only drama school option on my UCAS form and was almost like my wild card as I was almost too shy to admit to my family I wanted to something so unsensible as a career."
Eileen is relishing on her choice of career and is particularly enjoying the psychology of acting.
“It’s definitely not an easy choice of career but it's incredible that I get to pretend to be someone else for a living. The best actors totally understand the part they are playing. You have to learn to empathise with people you might not like yourself and understand why they are like that to play the part."
Although realising she was working on something "very special", Eileen admits that as she stood shivering on a beach in Enniscorthy during filming she never dreamed that Brooklyn would be such a global success and be nominated for an Oscar. She puts much of the credit down to Cork director John Crowley.
"He's an incredible director and was definitely in charge of that ship and got everyone from A to B in quite a beautiful way. To John every detail was so important and we worked with Belfast dialect coach Brendan Gunn, to ensure our Wexford accents sounded the same."
Aside from the major career boost, Eileen is treasuring a close friendship forged with her on-screen best friend Saoirse Ronan, and has even had the Carlow star visit her family in Castlewellan.
“We’re very good friends and talk all the time," adds Eileen, who recalls the first time they met.
“It was St Patrick’s Day 2014. She was wearing a green shirt and we were doing rehearsals for Brooklyn in London. After rehearsals I tasted my first Guinness of my entire life with Saoirse and [Irish actresses] Fiona Glasgot and Jane Brennan.”
This is the second time 21-year-old Saoirse Ronan has been up for an Oscar after missing out for her supporting role in Atonement when she was just 13. She faces tough competition from Cate Blanchett, Brie Larson, Jennifer Lawrence and Charlotte Rampling but Eileen believes her friend thoroughly deserves the Academy nod.
"Saoirse is so truthful in the people she plays. I, like many, really believed she really was Eilis. People forget how good Saoirse is because she make acting look effortless. In reality there are so many thoughts and decisions she has made in order to play that character."
Although now based in London, Eileen is enjoying an extended period at home as she films the new BBC One drama series My Mother And Other Strangers, written by Co Tyrone Horslip-turned screenwriter Barry Devlin (Ballykissangel, Darling Buds Of May).
It follows the fortunes of the Coyne family and their neighbours as they struggle to maintain a normal life after a huge United States Army Air Force airfield with 4,000 service men and women lands in the middle of their rural Tyrone parish in 1943.
"Similarly to Brooklyn, I believe Barry is writing from a world he understands and makes it seems so real and alive. The story centralises around the Coyne family and I am the 16-year-old daughter."
Although having been cast in a number of period dramas, Eileen hopes to broaden her repertoire in the future and ideally feature in a film set in the future or based around artificial intelligence.
:: Brooklyn is out now on DVD. You can watch Sunday evening's Oscars exclusively on Sky Movies Oscars. It will be repeated on RTE 2 on Monday evening at 9pm.
