Some of you may remember that last year, at the 2025 National Celtic Festival in Portarlington, I gave a session about a project I was developing called Molly Says Yes. At the time, it was still very much an idea.
Now, after many months of writing, planning and re-imagining, I've put together a great film team and we have made the film: filming is complete, editing is on its way, and that's where the magic happens.
The script began, of course, with this book.
James Joyce's Ulysses has been part of my creative life for a long time, and Molly Bloom's extraordinary voice has always fascinated me. Her final soliloquy is one of the most famous passages in modern literature — but what interested me was not simply the fame of the words. It was Molly herself: her memories, her desires, her disappointments, her sexuality, her humour and her determination to say yes to life.
I began wondering what might happen if Molly's voice could move beyond the page and into film.
And so Molly Says Yes began to take shape.
It isn't an attempt to reproduce Ulysses on screen. Rather, it is my own contemporary response to Molly Bloom and to Joyce's extraordinary creation.
There has been a long journey between that first idea and the film we have now made. And after keeping rather quiet about it for the past year, I'm very happy finally to be able to start telling the story of how it came about.
There is much more to come.
Our Film Day: 26 August 2026
After writing, re-writing, building our team, meetings and rehearsals, then, suddenly, it is film day.
And at the centre of it all is our Molly, actor Joey Lusty.
From the beginning, Joey understood something about Molly that I found very exciting. She brought warmth, humour, sensuality and a real sense of life to the character — and she threw herself into the role completely. Watching her become Molly was one of the great pleasures of the film day. Suddenly the words that had been living on the page had a face, a voice and a body.
Here's one of Joey's tricks to learning the words of the script. It's a clever code she uses.
I am incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful team around me.
My co-director, Stephanie Grapsas, bringing her own ideas, energy and instincts to the project. It is a real pleasure to share the directing with her. I don't think this would have happened without Steph's involvement.
Behind the camera our talented cinematographer, Riley Earl, has a wonderful eye for the film. Riley is also taking on the editing, so the film is in the hands of someone who will see it right through from the first shot to the finished piece.
Our sound is in the capable hands of Chay Willingham, and Harley Biskup kept everything moving as our well organised assistant director.
And then there is Leo. The mysterious man in Molly's bed. We know him only as her husband. We don't really see him. We know his hair. We know his feet. We know his snoring! Our Leo, Ryan O'Connor, took on the challenge of perhaps being the least conventionally visible character in a film.
There really is something wonderfully surreal about watching this project develop, which has existed for so long in my head and on the page, and all in one day of filming it is suddenly becoming a reality.
Lights. Cameras. Sound. Action.
And Molly, finally, saying yes.
