Shari O’Donnell, the young Irish Actress and Producer, has made her Cannes Film Festival debut to rave reviews, after a spectacular performance in ‘The Lost World of the Crystal Skull’.

Miss O’Donnell, hailed as the rising star of this year’s festival, made her first visit to Cannes for the premiere of ‘The Lost World of the Crystal Skull’ as the delicate yet feisty on-screen daughter of Mitchell Hedges. This documentary explores this lost world where the crystal skull was linked to Atlantis, the Mayan Prophecies of 2012 and a lost white tribe of Thule.

The real life artefact which inspired the movie Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was on board a private ship were A-list celebrities and premier attendees were invited to join the cast before being treated to a performance by Enrique Iglesias.

She won the part after a weird and wonderful audition in which she convinced director Gabriel Murray she could help get the TV movie into Production because she was studying to be a Producer and knew everything about the business and was finishing her degree in Film Studies. Murray saw a striking resemblance in the character she was auditioning for – a feisty explorer who pushed her way through the world. She subsequently won the leading role of Anna.

In an interview with the Hollywood Reporter, she modestly told how her acting career began by breaking into a party at Venice Film Festival. She was waiting outside for her friend and decided to walk around the back of the famous hotel. She hopped over a large wired fence in high heels and a soft pink gown, she then found herself running through a field before hoping over a wooden fence and walking through a bush into the lavish party where she approached Director Gabriel Murray and secured her audition. After proving she could be quiet the explorer and adventurist herself she won the part and never looked back.