Timothy Spall Set For Reverend Ian Paisley Role

Timothy Spall is in ‘advanced’ talks to play the Unionist firebrand Reverend Ian Paisley in forthcoming movie 'The Journey’.

Belfast-born director Nick Hamm is set to make the film, from a script by Irish novelist and screenwriter Colin Bateman.

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The film will tell a fictional version of the unlikely friendship between Reverend Paisley and Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness.

Though sworn political enemies for decades during the Troubles, they became close when Paisley served as first minister on the Northern Ireland Assembly, with McGuinness as his deputy.

The search is on for an actor to play McGuinness, but the plot will pivot on a journey the pair are forced to make together, one which leads to a change in the course of modern Irish politics.

Such was their later friendship that they were sometimes referred to as the 'chuckle brothers’.

On hearing of Paisley’s death last September, McGuinness said: “Our relationship confounded everybody.

“People were surprised that coming from diametrically opposed backgrounds that someone from the pro-British unionist tradition and somebody from the pro-Irish republican tradition could actually have a decent working relationship.

“But a real friendship grew out of that. So I believe I have lost a friend, and I believe the peace process has lost a friend.”

The film will shoot later this year on location in Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Spall has form when it comes to playing real-life characters.

Last year he won the best actor prize at Cannes for his portrayal of the painter JMW Turner for director Mike Leigh’s 'Mr Turner’.

He was sensationally snubbed at the Oscars for the role, however.

Image credits: Getty/AP/Film Four