Film Star looks in
Gwyneth Paltrow is coming to the Yorkshire Coast.
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The Oscar-winning actress is filming scenes from her latest movie Possession at the Raven Hall Hotel in Ravenscar tomorrow.
Crew members have been at the hotel preparing the set since Sunday and getting things ready for the arrival of the star, who is staying at a secret location.
The crew, from Shepperton Studios in Middlesex, are staying at the hotel, which will be featured in Possession, based on AS Byatt's Booker-prizewinning novel set along the North Yorkshire coast.
Raven Hall Hotel sales and marketing manager Yvonne Rounding said: "The outside of the hotel will be predominantly featured with six horses and carriages. The production crew have been using a local stable. "Things are getting hectic and it doesn't help that we are fully booked."
The film, directed by Neil LaBute, follows the story of two literary detectives investigating the lives of two Victorian poets.
Paltrow, who is rumoured to be back with Oscar-winner Ben Affleck in what is one of Hollywood's most on-off relationships, plays the part of Professor Maud Bailey, an academic who researches the life of poet Christabel LaMotte.
It is not the first time Paltrow has made films in England. She made Sliding Doors and Emma here and caused a storm when she criticised British food and diet.
Starring opposite her in Possession is Aaron Eckhart, who plays the part of an American scholar in London on a fellowship to study the poet Randolph Henry Ash. The pair fall in love as they follow a trail of clues across England to the continent, the same journey taken by the Victorian poets.
Whitby was also chosen as a location, with filming starting there yesterday and features the purchase of two Whitby jet brooches.
AS Byatt, who is the sister of author Margaret Drabble, was born in Yorkshire and set some of Possession in Robin Hood's Bay and Boggle Hole.
Scarborough Evening News 06/09/2000