Breakeven video shoot - Daily Star

SINGER Danny O’Donoghue’s ex-girlfriend was almost cast to play his love interest in the video for The Script’s next single Breakeven. The brunette featured in a selection of photos of Irish babes the director was sent by a casting agency.

After filming in New York and LA for their first releases We Cry and current smash The Man Who Can’t Be Moved, Danny, 25, guitarist Mark Sheehan, 28, and drummer Glen Power, 29, were deter-mined to do something close to their roots.

Mark told me: “People keep asking if we were American so we realised we needed to do something about it.”

But frontman Danny was flabbergasted when his old flame was presented as an extra. He admitted: “It brought back a lot of feelings and emotions. “I said all week: ‘I hope it’s not someone from Dublin we know.’ I was watching some demo tapes of the girls who had auditioned and was like, ‘I know her, I know her sister.’”

But he added: “The lead girl, Irma Mali, is amazing and tall like me.”

Female attention is something these lads have to get used to after topping the charts. Their heart-felt songs are connecting with all who hear them. In between takes The Script joked with extras playing a crowd at a gig.

As a speeded-up version of Break Even is drummed out for the 10th time they mime brilliantly. We are in a pub called Whelans, where not so long ago The Script did a gig for real. “Do we sound better now, miming?” laughs Danny. You would never know the singer arrived on set at 4.30am to do cosy shots at the docks with his on-screen lady friend.

Still buzzing from their self-titled album going in at No 1 in the charts – and continuing to sell by the bucketload – the group are on a high. Mark shows me pictures of his new baby Avery, his second son. Clearly fatherhood and selling records are a perfect combination. “Everything is just brilliant,” he admits.