Breakout star Aisling
Franciosi is tough,
committed and willing to
go the extra mile in period
thriller The Nightingale
LEECHES, HYPOTHERMIA and
uncontrollable crying on set would be the
unmaking of most actors, but for Aisling
Franciosi — the star of period drama/
thriller The Nightingale — it was a career
highlight. “This is going to sound corny,
but the story lit a fire in my chest. I felt so
passionately about it,” says the Irish-
Italian actress, whose name is pronounced
“Ash-ling Fran-ch-(like CHeese)-ozi”, as
her Twitter bio helpfully clarifies.
The Nightingale is director Jennifer
Kent’s second feature after her hair-raising
debut The Babadook, and follows young
Irish convict Clare’s quest for revenge after
suffering unforgivable crimes at the hands
of British troops in rural Tasmania.
Until now, Franciosi has been best
known for her TV work, starring
alongside Jamie Dornan in The Fall, and
playing the small but crucial role of
Lyanna Stark in Game Of Thrones. In
The Nightingale, Franciosi saw the
opportunity of a lifetime, and in spite of
the tough storyline, wrote to Kent all but
begging for the part. “I was terrified, but
I also knew that a role like this doesn’t
come along very often,” she says.
Describing the shoot as the hardest
thing that she’s had to do, Franciosi breaks
down the challenges of bringing a film like
The Nightingale to fruition. “On the last
day of principal photography I was
shooting a scene in a river and fainted from
hypothermia. Jen got attacked by leeches
more than once,” she recalls. “And the
subject matter was very dark. There’s a
huge feeling of responsibility to tell the
stories of people’s pasts properly.”
The film — which won the Special
Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival last
year — plunges into Australia’s violent
colonial history, with Sam Claflin playing
the sadistic British officer who changes
Clare’s life forever. “For the scenes with
Sam I was sobbing in-between takes. We
had crew members in tears,” Franciosi
recalls. “But Sam was so considerate.
We’d all hug and comfort each other on
those days.”
It takes determination to roll with the
punches of a film this powerful — but
Aisling Franciosi is an actress who knows
the worth of a good story, and will go
through hell to make sure it’s told right.
BETH WEBB
THE NIGHTINGALE IS IN CINEMAS 29 AUGUST
Aisling Franciosi spoke
to Empire on the phone
from New York on 14
May, ahead of The
Chicago Critics Film
Festival.Acting
against
the odds
(and hypothermia)