Titanic role for Mr Big: €22m series a boost for Irish industry

A TRAILER in the car park of a rainy Irish castle is a world away from the bright lights of Manhattan for Sex and the Cityactor Chris Noth.

The actor, best known as Mr Big, Carrie Bradshaw’s on-off love interest, had never been to Ireland before, but its reputation goes before it.

“I heard you had some flooding recently,” he said as the rain beat down outside his trailer in the grounds of Howth Castle in Co Dublin.

Noth is the biggest star in Titantic: Blood and Steel,one of the most ambitious television series ever made in Ireland.

The 12-part series will cost €22 million and is being made for RAI, Italian state television, and will be dubbed into several languages, an indication of how this story still fascinates.

Noth, sporting a handlebar moustache, plays the financier JP Morgan who bankrolled the ill-fated ocean liner which sank on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic in April 1912.

There have been plenty of dramas made about the Titantic, but this is probably the first where the sinking does not feature at all.

Instead, the series will tell the story behind the building of the ship in a Belfast riven by labour strife and sectarian conflict.

Noth may have moved on from Sex and the City,but for millions of devoted followers he will always be Mr Big.

" Sex and the City– it's the cancer. Global media, you can't get away from it. I'm laughing," he adds, lest he do down the series that has made him a household name. "There is not much for me to say about it any more. It is hard to try and rediscover new ways for yourself to be excited about it."

A total of €12 million has been generated in Ireland to make the series. The money is coming from section 481 funding and a €300,000 grant from the Irish Film Board.

Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht Jimmy Deenihan visited the set and said the series proved the importance of section 481 funding.