Emily Watson will lead Dominic Cooke’s upcoming British drama John Daniel.
The two-time Academy and BAFTA Award nominee, best known for roles in Breaking the Waves, Hamnet and Chernobyl, will play Alyce Cunningham in the film.
John Daniel is based on the extraordinary true story of an unlikely friendship between a fiercely independent Englishwoman and a baby gorilla in the aftermath of the First World War. Alexi Kaye Campbell (Woman in Gold), inspired by original home movie footage and photographs recorded by locals in Uley, Gloucestershire from 1918 to 1922, is writing the screenplay.
“In 1918, the Cotswolds village of Uley is still raw from the losses of WWI, and Alyce Cunningham has built a solitary life behind a wall of wit and stoicism. That changes when her reckless nephew impulsively rescues a baby gorilla from the window of a London department store and, ignoring her protests, leaves her no option but to take him in,” reads a plot synopsis. “Mischievous and endlessly curious, John Daniel, as she reluctantly names him, slowly wins her over, and as he becomes part of village life, from the school classroom to the village pub, he brings joy back to the grieving community. When...