First Behind-the-Scenes Imagery of Gemma Arterton in Byzantium

Steve Barton   |  

Dec 7, 2011

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Flipboard
• Share on Reddit
• Share on Pinterest
• Share on WhatsApp
• Share via Email

Excuse me for a moment. It’s going to take a few seconds for me to insert my eyes back into their sockets after seeing the latest behind-the-scenes imagery of star Gemma Arterton in costume on the set of Neil Jordan’s latest vampire flick, Byzantium!

Arterton stars in the film with Saoirse Ronan. Our duo play a mother and daughter vampire team who sometimes pose as sisters. Moira Buffini penned the script, adapting her own stage play.

Play Synopsis
Two young women arrive in a nameless British smalltown. Their names are not their own. They don’t declare their ages. Their relationship with each other is not clear. Are they sisters, as their assumed identities declare? Or are they mother and daughter? The eldest, Claire, takes a job in a pub. The youngest, Eleanor, goes to school.

During a truth exercise in her drama class, Eleanor confesses that she has been alive for over two hundred years and has survived by drinking human blood. Her classmates think she is utterly crazy and Mint, her teacher, puts her in touch with the school counsellor. She makes one friend, Frank, a boy who has been home educated and is as much of an oddity as Eleanor. He tries to get to the bottom of her vampire delusion, thinking it an epic and compelling psychosis. Why would anyone want to be undead?

Frank’s parents believe that Ella is an anorexic – why does she never eat? Eleanor has started to write her life story as a play. She describes Claire’s background as a prostitute in 19th century London and her own as a child in a private orphanage. Meanwhile, things are falling apart. People are disappearing. Are Eleanor and Claire vampires? Or are they troubled young women on the run?

Click on the image below for lots more eye candy!

Subscribe to our Newsletter