He was spotted with crew around Belfast last year but Patrick Kielty could not be drawn on what he was filming.
But now he has finished on location in Northern Ireland and we can reveal he was shooting his latest work 'Ballywalter' in which he plays the lead character, a comedian.
The movie follows a university drop-out living with her mum, making money as an unlicensed taxi driver who picks up a budding stand-up comic whose marriage has recently broken up.
The work is Kielty's first leading film role and a feature directorial debut of former doctor Prasanna Puwanarajah.
Puwanarajah wrote 2012 short Boy starring Timothy Spall, which featured in the opening ceremony for the London 2012 Olympic Games. And his debut stage play Nightwatchman premiered at the National Theatre in 2011.
But before his career in the arts Puwanarajah trained as a medical doctor at Oxford University and worked for the NHS and Médecins du Monde for three years.
The film was written by Belfast-born Stacey Gregg, the writer-director of the upcoming psychological thriller Here Before, and writer of The Innocents, Riviera and Your Ma’s A Hard Brexit.
And the story is described as “a bittersweet comedy set in the village of Ballywalter”.
The script was written by Stacey Gregg, who shot her debut feature Here Before in 2019 and the movie stars Kielty alongside Seána Kerslake who played Aisling O'Dowd in RTÉ2's comedy-drama Can't Cope, Won't Cope. She was named one of 16 young actors by Screen International as a Star Of Tomorrow.
It also stars Paul Mallon, from Derry Girls, Joanne Crawford, Wildfire, and Tara Cush from The Windermere Children and The Party.
The film was financed by the BFI Film Fund, Screen Ireland, Northern Ireland Screen and Salmira Productions with a £860,860 production grant awarded by the British Film Institute.
The release date is to be revealed.
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