Aisling Byrne

I was so aware of how not particularly inclusive film sets can be.

And it's not something that we would want to... We wanted to set our artists up for success.

So they weren't stepping onto set for the first time, expected to know the ropes and know it all.

So we had workshops with the Bow Street Screen Acting Academy.

We had workshops with...

that looked at introduction to set etiquette and that kind of thing.

And I think one of the big take-homes that Derek is touching on there was that when you were trying to give a performance for film that's grounded, it has to become very small because the camera's right there.

Whereas on stage, it's that little bit more demonstrative.

And I think that prep work that we did in advance

really showed in the finished film.

The performances were so grounded and so excellent, really.

We were really, really proud of our actors.

Oh, deeply.

Yeah, deeply.

I mean, as a director, the best thing you can do is get out of your actor's way and enable them to give a great performance.

And the truthfulness of the performances in Mary is Missing is probably, I feel that they're some of the best performances I've ever directed as a filmmaker.

So I was just beaming with pride.

So we were very fortunate to premiere the film down at Cork International, which we were so proud to get into because it's one of Ireland's most prestigious film festivals.

So just to be there, we felt like we had won.

But imagine our delight and shock when we won the Grand Prix.