- Film And TV
- 12 Jan 24
The Philadelphia comedian performed several gigs in Belfast during his time in the city.
Kevin Hart’s Northern Ireland-filmed movie Lift has been released on Netflix.
Filmed in Harbour studios and on location across the country, Ulster University, Titanic Hotel, Ridell’s Warehouse, Ward Park in Bangor, Shackleton Barracks in Ballykelly, Castle Ward, Whitehead station and Ardglass harbour are amongst the notable landmarks featured in the comedy.
The feature was Directed by F Gary Gray, and tells the story of an international heist crew, led by Hart’s character Cyrus Whittaker, attempting to retrieve $500m in gold from a passenger aircraft.
During his stay at the Culloden Hotel just outside Belfast, Hart performed several gigs in the city at the Limelight, Lavery’s Bar and the SSE Arena.
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"I do know that he did think about doing a comedy set in Belfast because he had never done it and went down and watched comedy incognito and then said, 'Maybe we'll approach these guys and do one without telling the audience' - and that's exactly what happened," comedian Paddy McDonnell told BBC’s Good Morning Ulster.
Lift is the second Netflix film to be shot in Northern Ireland, following up from 2021’s The School For Good and Evil.
Last year, the UK government said that Northern Irish screen productions directly contributed over £330m (€384m) to the local economy across the past five years