HOLLYWOOD came to Scotland yesterday and one of its top stars made it a day to remember for a 10-year-old boy.
Kerr Edwards was treated to a personal tour of Rosslyn Chapel by Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks during a break in filming of the international best seller The Da Vinci Code.
The medieval church in Midlothian is being used for part of the [GBP]53m adaptation of the mystery by Dan Brown.
The book's plot suggests the 15th century chapel near Edinburgh was built to house the secret of the Holy Grail.
Kerr, from Kirkintilloch, had been staying at the cottage home of his uncle, Charlie Middleton, which was inside a security cordon set up yesterday at the chapel.
From a distance, he watched the start of four days of shooting of the film.
Early in the day, Hanks, who plays the lead role as Professor Robert Langdon, spotted the Lenzie Moss primary school pupil and the two exchanged a thumbs-up. A few hours later, Kerr received a visit from the actor's personal assistant who asked his mother, Trisha: "Could the little boy in blue come over to see Tom Hanks?"
When Kerr reached the chapel, the actor said: "Hi, my name is Tom Hanks. What's your name?", adding "have you ever been inside the chapel?".
The schoolboy, who had seen Hanks in the film Castaway, was then allowed to watch part of the filming before being invited to go upstairs for a better view of the scenery.
Hanks then signed Kerr's copy of the book first in his own name and then as Robert Langdon.
Also close to the action was Jim McGeehan, 62, an Ayrshire businessman from Largs who had been handed a part, through a casting agency, as a relative of the character Sophie Neveu, who is played by Audrey Tautou, the star of Amelie.
Not so lucky were the many tourists who turned up to visit the chapel unaware it had been closed for four days for the filming of the controversial book, which has been derided by the Catholic Church.
Some had travelled from as far afield as New Zealand and the US but were turned away by police officers and security guards blocking the chapel.
Diane Barke, 52, and her family had travelled from Australia to see the chapel. She said: "Although my husband Frank and I are big fans of the book we have no interest in seeing Tom Hanks. We just wanted to see the chapel."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article