Irish-American Declan Joyce's embrace of his Traveller roots has taken him on a remarkable journey from Ohio to Belfast and now to Hollywood. His film script based on his Northern Ireland experience has been accepted by producer Stephen Baldwin. Conor Lally reports.

The journey to Hollywood stardom is most often a precarious one. But for Declan Joyce, the son of an Irish Traveller, it is all going according to plan so far.

However, the 32-year-old scriptwriter's journey in search of fame in the film industry has been anything but conventional.

He has spent much of his time in recent years working with children in both communities in Northern Ireland and with Travellers in the Republic. Drawing on inspiration from this work he penned a screenplay, The Irish Wonder, which has raised interest in Hollywood.

He got his script on to the desk of actor and producer Stephen Baldwin. Baldwin liked it so much he has agreed to act as executive producer on the film. But, as in all such Hollywood stories, the road to overnight success was many days long.

Joyce was born Marc Lance in the US in 1970. His grandparents were Irish Travellers. Originally from Galway, they emigrated to the US where Joyce's mother, Cailin, was born and lived as a settled Traveller, marrying US citizen and successful car dealer John Lance.

In the 1990s Lance sold his Cleveland, Ohio, car dealership and divided some of his wealth amongst his children. It was around this time Joyce says he began to come to terms with his Traveller background.

"It was always something that I guess I was ashamed of," he says.

"My mother had a real tough life in the States. I don't think there is a lot of emphasis on how the Irish struggled in America. People tend to think the Irish came to America and it was one big pot of gold at the end of the rainbow but of course that's not how it was. My mother's mother died in childbirth. Her father was an alcoholic and gave her up for adoption, and she went through about four orphanages in the US."

Joyce himself struggled with alcoholism in his teens but overcame the problem aged 20 and has been sober since. Having conquered his problem, he began to take pride in his Irish Traveller heritage and decided to change his name to Joyce, that of his mother's family.

The money he got from his father gave him the freedom "to do something worthwhile", he says.

And so he decided to move to Ireland, spending much of his time in recent years working with children in Northern Ireland and with Traveller families in the Republic.

"I went to Northern Ireland in 1999," he says. "I worked mostly with kids on the Falls Road as an ecumenical preacher and found that I was totally accepted within the Protestant and Catholic communities."

He then stunned friends in Ireland and the US when he decided, two years ago, to go to Hollywood in an effort to promote an idea he had had for a film during his time working in Ireland. He moved to Los Angeles where he wrote The Irish Wonder screenplay.

It was a radical change in direction but one which now promises to pay handsome dividends.

The Irish Wonder, he says, is about an American hockey player who, drunk after winning a major game, kills a homeless man in a road traffic accident. He goes to Northern Ireland to fill in for a hockey coach there who has gone missing. He puts together a team of players drawn from the Protestant and Catholic communities along with some Irish-American players.

"The film is about the struggle of the parents, the families, the community and how a youth hockey team all work with each other," says Joyce.

"Basically, children change a whole community in Northern Ireland. It's a story of unity."

Joyce met Stephen Baldwin through mutual friends in Los Angeles in 1998. When the screenplay was finished the actor seemed like the most obvious person to send it to. Baldwin is convinced the movie can be a success.

"For me it is essentially about these hockey players, who, against all odds, end up befriending each other," he told The Irish Times from New York.

"I thought Declan had a lot of positive energy when I met him and when he said he had a screenplay, that interested me very much. I think it's a great story. At the moment I'm working on the script and incorporating some of my own notes into it. So we're hoping to have the final draft ready around about late March."

Baldwin believes the film can be shot for around $5 million. "When it comes to raising the money it will be a question of me approaching some people I know. But I don't anticipate any financial problems with the project. It's a family film and a real feel-good story."

He says at least some parts of the movie need to be shot in Ireland. "My attitude towards movie making is that I'm not going to go to some location that isn't Ireland to shoot this in order to save $500,000 or whatever through more favourable tax breaks. I think the script is so close to home that this thing has got to be shot in Ireland."

He adds that depending on who is interested in becoming involved he may direct or star in the film himself.

"I know a lot of Irish people in the business so it will be a question of approaching them," Baldwin says. "If I feel it's right for the film for me to stand back, then that's what I'll do and I'll simply be the executive producer. I've done 65 movies now so I think I'll know how to best serve the interests of the film. It is definitely worthy of being made and I feel it has a lot of commercial potential."