Auld Reekie Got Freaky When I Was Stalked By Will Ferrell's Ghost

Rachell tells of co-star’s prank on eurovision movie

- Rick Fulton

From Annie’s Room in Mary’s King’s Close to the South Bridge Vaults, Edinburgh is known for being one of the world’s spookiest cities.

So when Will Ferrell pranked his co-star Rachel McAdams that a ghost was stalking her when they were in the city filming Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga, you can understand why she fell for it.

The 41-year-old Canadian actress, whose credits include Mean Girls, The Notebook, and Spotlight, admitted she was left “terrified” and Hollywood comedy star Will was so worried about her state of mind that he fessed up that it was a joke.

The pair shot a lot of the new Netflix movie – currently, the streaming site’s most-watched film in the UK – in Edinburgh with Glasgow’s SSE Hydro used as the arena where the contest is staged in Will’s comedy.

And while the movie is an uplifting camp romp of cheesy songs, comedy mishaps, and amazing costumes, shooting it began to feel like a horror movie to Rachel.

Speaking from her home in Los Angeles, she said: “We were shooting a street scene in Edinburgh and there was a woman in a window, wearing sunglasses for some reason, just staring down at us. Will pointed her out saying she was a ghost and the street we were filming on was haunted. I was totally freaked out.

“Then I saw her again a couple of nights later when we are filming again somewhere else in Scotland.

“I was terrified, thinking this ghost woman was somehow haunting us.

“I was losing my mind. I was asking: ‘Is anyone else seeing this?’