I was lucky enough to get tickets to last nights UK premiere of Clint Eastwoods new film Invictus. Based on the book Playing the Enemy by John Carlin the film stars Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar, the captain of South Africa’s rugby team. Mandela enlists Pienaar’s help to unite South Africa – a task he thinks can be achieved by winning the 1995 Rugby World Cup.

As one of the biggest Premieres of the year the crowd barriers ran all the way round from the Odeon West End in Leicester Square to the opposite corner by the Vue and security was very tight with Hollywood stars Freeman, Damon and Eastwood all in attendance. Among the other celebrities attending were many Rubgy legends including Francois Pienaar himself. Whilst Eastwood and Freeman spent time only on the Red Carpet talking to the official TV cameras and having their photos taken Damon was a big crowd pleaser, first to arrive and last to enter the cinema spending at least an hour signing autographs etc.

Standing outside for over an hour it was absolutely freezing but well worth the wait – I was given a perfect vantage point to watch all the red carpet action from just between the TV cameras and photographers and Freeman, Pienaar and Damon all came over to talk to us for a very brief moment – I’m not a professional but here’s the pics I managed to snap on my camera below! Once the red carpet drama was over we were ushered in to the Odeon where they were showing the film in both screens and there was a brief introduction by a Warner Bros executive and Eastwood ,Freeman and Damon all came on stage for a brief chat. My film review is to follow but you can watch the Invictus Trailer here