As part of a six-part series “Fantastic Friends”, James and Oliver Phelps traveled to Donegal with their former “Harry Potter” co-star Evanna Lynch.
In the fifth episode of “Fantastic Friends”, James and Oliver Phelps visited their former co-star Evanna Lynch in Ireland, taking in the sights and sounds of Ireland, including a visit to Croke Park and stack climbing in Donegal. In their new travel adventure series, the Phelps, who played Fred and George Weasley in “Harry Potter”, gate crash their friend’s holidays around the world including Lynch who played Luna Lovegood in the wizarding franchise.
In their six-part series, the Phelps also crash other “Harry Potter” co-stars holidays – Bonnie Wright, who played Ginny Weasley and Luke Youngblood, who played Lee Jordan). They also filmed episodes with “Game of Thrones” star Maisie Williams, “Outlander’s” Sophie Skelton and “The Sixth Sense’s” Haley Joel Osment.
“Fantastic Friends” is part adventure-travel series, part magic-infused challenge show and part celebration of friendship. Each episode sees the Phelps twins travel to a destination to meet up with one of their famous friends, who then take on the role of tour guide.
Off The Fence Productions describes the episode as follows:
“In the space of two weeks, Evanna Lynch went from being a Harry Potter superfan to lighting up the film’s cast as whimsical teen-witch Luna Lovegood. In this episode, James and Oliver Phelps catch a “private” flight to Ireland to catch up with writer-actor-activist Evanna; the twins join her father and the rest of the Lynch clan in the Irish countryside for hurling, dancing, discussing the
Harry Potter movies, and a date with the spirits.”
Filming of the episode took place in Lynche’s hometown of Termonfeckin, in County Louth, where they met with her Dad, Donal who invites them to a hurling match. Filming also took place at Slane Castle, and Newgrange, in County Meath, Croke Park in Dublin, and the cliffs near Glencolumbkille in Donegal.
Daniel Sharp, at Dash Pictures who produced and directed the show, told the Sunday Times “In every episode, we found one of their actor friends somewhere — obviously, some are structured for TV — and then kind of gate-crashed their holiday and went exploring with them.”
Sharp explained that “Evanna’s family are all mad on hurling so they went out and watched a game.”
During the episode, the twins were taught how to play by the Kilkenny midfielder, Richie Hogan, as well as watching a match.
“We shot a lot around Dublin, then we spent a lot of time in Donegal where we went climbing on the Sea Stacks and also went to Glencolumbkille village. We then spent the last night at Slane Castle — they had a look around there and went foraging and had a big feast. The episode closes when James plays a prank on Ollie at Slane Castle which was very good fun,” Sharp revealed.
“Fantastic Friends” was launched on Bell Media’s Crave in Canada on June 17, and is rolled out on HBO Max in Europe, the Middle East and Africa on July 2, and on TVNZ in New Zealand on Aug. 6.
Check out the trailer here: