EXCLUSIVE: Helena Bonham Carter (The Crown, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows) has joined two-time Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins and Johnny Flynn in See-Saw Films feature drama One Life, we can reveal.
Deadline has also learned that James Hawes, who has worked on top-flight TV productions such as Black Mirror, The Alienist and Undercover, will make his film directorial debut on One Life. He most recently directed Gary Oldman in the first six episodes of Apple TV+ spy drama Slow Horses and is an executive producer on the hit series.
One Life tells the true story of how Nicholas Winton, a London stockbroker, helped spearhead a seemingly impossible plan that saved 669 children as the Nazis advanced on Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War Two. The title is paraphrased from the Jewish Talmud: “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.”
Bonham Carter will play Winton’s mother Babi Winton, who was of German-Jewish ancestry but had settled in North West London with her husband. Bonham Carter’s scenes will be with Flynn, who portrays Winton in his younger years. Hopkins and Flynn’s casting was revealed exclusively by Deadline two years ago.
Cast also includes Jonathan Pryce, Romola Garai and Alex Sharp, who will portray key operatives involved in the relocation of the children, and Lena Olin, who will play Winton’s wife Grete Winton. It was she who, in the 1980s, found a scrapbook with details of the children her husband had helped.
Winton’s story recently went viral when a YouTube clip revealed an episode of the BBC’s This Life from 1988, when Esther Rantzen hosted a special edition featuring Winton. During the broadcast, Rantzen asked, ”Is there anyone in our audience who owed their life to Nicholas Winton? If so, could you stand up please?” Everyone in the studio audience stood and the episode has been viewed on You Tube many millions of times.
One Life is based on If It’s Not Impossible…The Life of Sir Nicholas Winton, which was penned by his daughter Barbara Winton. The screenplay has been co-written by Lucinda Coxon (The Danish Girl) and Nick Drake (Romulus, My Father).
Joanna Laurie (Carole, Made in Dagenham, The Son), Iain Canning and Emile Sherman, who were behind The King’s Speech, Widows, Lion and other pictures at See-Saw Films, are producing with Guy Heeley.
FilmNation is handling international sales for One Life, which will begin filming this year on locations in the UK and the Czech Republic.
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