I’ve been a fan of Ben’s ever since I saw him on a T4 special just before Prince Caspian was released and I’ve lurked around the forum enjoying other people’s comments. However, I’ve never felt the need to post until now.

Why the sudden change of heart? Well, I spent yesterday as an extra on Killing Bono!
I know some of you just want to know how gorgeous Ben was (and believe me I’ll get to that part) but I’m going to detail the whole experience.

The studios are in the Titanic quarter (basically in and around the buildings where the Titanic was made) and I had to arrive by 3pm. First stop was the costume department which was in a freezing cold, temporary structure. The costume people had to check out your outfit and make any changes they felt necessary. I was wearing a black, puffy, net dress, leggings, lots of plastic bangles and a denim jacket. My denim jacket was replaced with a black velvet one complete with gold thread and MASSIVE shoulder pads. Nice!

After receiving costume’s approval we were taken over to the main building and ushered into a large hall. One of the assistant directors briefed us on the scene and explained that we would have to be quiet when asked etc. The scene we were filming was a club scene, Shook Up were playing at the club and only a couple of people have heard of them and are having a dance but as the song goes on more and more people get interested and join in. At the end of the song we all had to go mad.

When we were taken in to the club Ben and the others were rehearsing on stage! The urge to simply run at him was great but I didn’t want to get thrown out so I contented myself with staring. He looked good (of course), tight leather trousers (he struggled slightly with bending down) and a sleeveless t-shirt. His hair was shoulder length and kind of scruffy, all very rock n’ roll!

The club was basically a rectangle with the stage at one end, a dance floor in front of it then a load of tables and then a bar. There were little raised platforms with tables along both sides, Krysten, Pete Posthelwaite and a couple of the other main actors were at these tables on one side and I was at one of the tables on the other side.

We were filming for at least 4 hours! The boys in the band were brilliant, they had to repeat the same scene so many times and each time they were fantastic. The best part for me was that Ben was actually singing!!!!!! They had a backing track too but he was definitely singing live!!! And it was brilliant – you’re gonna love the song!!! As far as I can work out they were playing the instruments too, one of the actors told someone “the boys make an amazing band, don’t they?” At one point they were playing the track but not filming the band and Ben played the drum part perfectly. But I’m getting carried away. Before we actually started filming, while they worked out the order in which people would start to dance, Ben was doing some stretches and push-ups at the side of the stage, luckily my platform provided the perfect point from which to watch this.

When the track starts Ben is standing at the back of the stage stretching one arm and then he comes forward to grab the microphone. He sings to Bobby (they all seem to call Robert Sheehan this) quite a bit, at one point he puts his arm around him. When Bobby has a guitar solo Ben steps back and all the girls in the crowd had to go wild. When Ben sings the second chorus which goes “Come away, come away, get away” he gets us all to join in (the guy in charge of the music is awesome but I have no idea what his name is) and then he finishes with “we are right here where we wanna be” repeated. Then the crowd goes wild and we all scream and jump up and down. Then everyone shouts “Shook up, shook up” over and over while Bobby and Ben hug and everyone in the band high fives each other. The fact that the guys were so good made our job so easy.

There was a lot of waiting about involved as they wanted loads of different angles and sometimes they did close ups of Krysten and Pete. At one point the director shouted “Ben, Bobby this is the hero shot!” and Ben, who was facing away from the crowd, flexed his muscles, nearly making me faint!

Ben seemed really relaxed, he obviously gets on well with Robert (he hit him on the head with a plastic bottle for laughing during someone else’s scene). There was one point where he thought that he wasn’t needed and he was playing the air guitar while Robert and Slinky (the other guitar player) were messing with theirs. He joked with us all after one take “and for our next song we’re going to do the same thing all over again.” At the very end we had to record some sound stuff and when we were singing he was pretending to conduct us.

Unfortunately I didn’t actually get to meet him, he was whisked away fairly quickly but actually getting to watch him (and the rest of the cast and crew work) was a total privilege and who knows, maybe I’ll actually be in the final cut!

I know that was like the longest post ever but I wanted to give you an idea of what it was like, I know lots of you would have liked to be there. I think the film is going to be awesome and one of the assistant directors said they might release the song as a single!

neil_mccormick:

Met at Belfast airport by a driver bearing sign Killing Bono. I wonder what other passengers made of that murderous greeting?