Fresh from receiving his Art Director’s Guild award for his work on the recent blockbuster, Sherlock Holmes, Mullingar man Niall Moroney will attend his second Oscar ceremony next weekend after his department was nominated in the Best Achievement in Art Direction category.
Niall (40 ) is the son of Mick and Val from Lynderry Court in Mullingar and was the supervising art director on Guy Ritchie’s €67m smash hit movie starring Robert Downey Jnr. and Judge Law, which took over €150m at the box office.
The movie has been nominated for two awards, with the art direction nod going to two of Mr Moroney’s staff, Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer.
Niall attended his first Grumann Theatre red carpet event three years ago when he shared the red carpet with Keira Knightley and Saoirse Ronan for his part in the classic Atonement.
He received his Art Directors Guild award in Los Angeles the weekend before last from the Oscar-nominated Kathryn Bigelow, director of the riveting treatise on Baghdad bomb disposal, The Hurt Locker without actually recognising her, according to his father Mick.
It seems Warners flew him out on the Friday for the award ceremony and back again on the Saturday night to make it back to work in Berlin in time for Monday morning.
Niall did his Leaving Cert in St Marys CBS in 1986 where his art teacher was John O’Reilly, before going to UCD to do a degree in mechanical engineering. From there he went on to do a diploma in business management at the Smurfit School before taking an MA in the Royal College of Art in London.
After that he worked his way in the freelance world through commercials, TV and then cinema.
He has worked on such TV series as Prime Suspect, Madame Bovary before moving on to the big screen.
At present, Niall is in charge of art direction on the latest Guy Ritchie movie Hannah in Berlin with Saoirse Ronan.
