Yesterday: Pupils inspired by roles in Danny Boyle film

After the filming, pupils posed for a photograph with director Danny Boyle and actress Lily James in the back row

Pupils at a school used in the Danny Boyle and Richard Curtis film Yesterday have spoken of being inspired to take up acting after appearing in the movie.

Classroom scenes with the Downton Abbey actress Lily James were filmed at Ormiston Denes Academy in Lowestoft.

Boyle auditioned pupils at the school to appear in the film and held a master class and workshop.

Pupil Ethan Smith, 16, from Lowestoft, said: "Danny Boyle is an amazing man. He spent a lot of time helping us."

Richard Curtis said the film was partly drawn on his friend Ed Sheeran's rise to global fame

Ethan successfully auditioned in front of Boyle for a part and said he had been "massively inspired" to study acting at college.

"You hear so much about celebrities and never get to speak to them and they came and talked to us and told us about the different routes to a career in acting," he said.

Another pupil who starred in the Beatles-inspired film, Daisy Parr, 15, also from Lowestoft, said she was also thinking of acting as a career after featuring in the movie.

"Seeing the filming process was really eye-opening, how the same scene is film from many different angles," she said.

More than 6,000 extras gathered on Gorleston beach last year

The movie was also filmed on Gorleston beach in Norfolk, Halesworth in Suffolk and Clacton-on-Sea in Essex.

The school pupils will be attending the East Coast Cinema in Lowestoft on 28 June for a red carpet showing of the film on the day it is officially released.

Downton Abbey actress Lily James spent a number of days at the school earlier in the year, researching her part as a teacher.

The film starts and ends at the Latitude festival in Suffolk, says writer Richard Curtis

Hannah Morris, head of performing arts at the school, said: "Both students and staff have been hugely excited and inspired by the opportunity to see the work of two of the greats of British cinema close at hand."

She said she thought James would make a "wonderful" teacher in real life.

The film will also have a special showing in July at Latitude Festival at Henham Park, near Southwold with writer Curtis and Himesh Patel, the star of the film, taking questions from the audience.

Curtis said: "Yesterday was written in Suffolk, set in Suffolk, and begins and ends at Latitude. I've rarely missed a Latitude since it first began, and so I'm overjoyed to be bringing it home."

The students received a master class session from Danny Boyle, ahead of the filming