Set in Ireland during the late 1700s, The Abduction Club is a new rom-com with a period setting – think Friends set in Castle Rackrent.

The movie is inspired by the once common practice of abduction marriage. Basically, younger sons from the Big-House set who found themselves out of luck (and pocket) thanks to inheritance laws would set about kidnapping the daughters of wealthy families in order to persuade them into marriage, thereby securing their financial futures.

The Abduction Club sees this played out as a Taming Of The Shrew scenario between leads Daniel Lapaine and Alice Evans. Although, this is the first central movie role for either actor, Daniel is already a well-known face thanks to turns in TV’s The 10th Kingdom and movies such as Brokedown Palace. As an Australian actor, it’s not too surprising that Daniel has become widely tipped as the next Heath Ledger. Alice Evans meanwhile is best known as a society girl in her native England, but has built up many screen credits cross-channel in French movies such as L’Escort. Movie House caught up with them both recently to discuss their new movie and corsets in the rain.

He’s Australian and she’s British but with a French film career. How did they come to be involved with the Irish based The Abduction Club?

Daniel Lapaine: “I was living in London at the time, read the script, loved it, and threatened to kill the director if he didn’t give me the job. But we had to hunt Alice here down in Italy. I think the film had been kicking around for a while, and she’d gone off somewhere!”

Alice Evans: “Danny was always involved, for five years or something. I only came along at the last minute, I was doing a film in Italy and I thought I wouldn’t be able to do it, until I got a call saying that I could. But I loved the script, I wanted to do it immediately.”

It’s very Jane Austen isn’t it?

DL: “It’s like Jane Austen after having had a good shag. Or Jane Austen after a few pints of Guinness. There was never enough sex in Jane Austen’s books for my liking.’

AE: “There’s not enough sex in our movie, either! But it’s there really, under the surface. Bubbling away.”

Wealth is an all important consideration where romantic attachments are involved in the movie. As people who’ve featured in The Sunday Times’ Style Section, which seems to concern itself similarly, do they feel qualified to tell us if ‘marrying up’ is still as rife?

AE: “Yes, absolutely. Nothing’s changed, if you look at it. We’d like to think it has. I think what’s changed is that we say that’s not true now.’

DL: ‘In fact if anything, I think people were more romantic than than we are now. There’s probably less social pressure now than there was then.”

AE: “Yes, because now you have this Big Brother society going on, where if you’re not famous you’re nothing. And fame is no longer linked to any talent or vocation, it’s just fame. I think that’s replaced what at the time used to be social standing. While it appeals to me, I think you can confuse it with success. The few times I’ve had so far where things have gone well for a while, you realise quickly that it’s absolutely nothing to do with work whatsoever. If you’re in the business for long enough with all the little ups and downs, you get used to the fact – where if you’d asked me a few years ago, I’d have gone ‘Yes, I want to be really famous within two years and I want to be Victoria Beckham on the cover of Heat. It is possible to become famous by wearing the right clothes or whatever, especially if you’re a girl – I’ve had so many occasions where people have said, ‘Will you do this or that, will you wear this dress?’ and you think you could push it and go into that sea-level quite easily. But you’d be limiting your choices.”

DL: “And it would be shortlived, ultimately the most important thing you want is longevity.”

It’s been reported that the Irish rain rendered the already uncomfortable breeches-and-corsets gear unwearable. Was the costumery torturous?

DL: “Not for me, but I think for Alice here, it was.”

AE: “Yeah, it was the worst thing in the whole world. Worse than working with animals. I’d go with the mutts rather than look at a corset again.”

DL: “What about a movie with dogs and corsets? But no really, dressing up is the fun part of acting. Besides, there’s nothing weirder than going into your trailer before a movie to take off your jeans and trainers to put on different jeans and trainers.”

And had he ridden horseback before?

“I had, yeah, so it came very naturally. Although I hadn’t really done this style of riding, which is quite upright and rigid – I’d done Western American style riding which is more comfortable, like having a massive big armchair that puts you to sleep. But this was much more British style, ‘rising trot’, which sounds like a horrible disease – ‘I’ve got a bad dose of rising trot’. That’s hard, especially when you’re acting as well.”

How has the film been recieved generally?

AE: “Really well, but I think that we’ll have to work very hard to bring the guys in!”

DL: “But there’s been a really great response from women, they’ve really gone for it. Cause it’s romantic and there’s not a lot of violence in it. And people don’t know what to expect from it, because there’s no massive stars in it apart from Alice and myself. And it’s romantic and I think the girls will drag...er...it’s a date movie.”

AE: “Once the World Cup’s over.”