Benedict Cumberbatch has got to be one of the hardest working actors on the scene at the moment as it’s just been announced that he will be starring in the Morgan Matthew directed Gypsy Boy.
Production on the film is due to start in Summer 2018, but the casting is still open to finding a younger version of Mikey to star opposite Cumberbatch.
Cumberbatch stated his reasons for being drawn to the character was because it was such a heartbreaking story “I was immediately drawn to Mikey’s courageous and heartbreaking story. And his father Frank is unlike any character I’ve played before. He’s a complex man torn between tradition and his love for a son struggling to come to terms with an identity that’s completely at odds with Frank and his culture. It’s a tension that threatens to tear everyone in their family and that community apart,”
The story follows the notorious Walsh family was part of the last generation of the Romany Gypsy people, known for their ability to fight. The sport of boxing is embedded in the Gypsy tradition – to fight for one’s family name and honour and reap the glory of its success.
When young Mikey Walsh is born, father Frank (Cumberbatch) places a pair of golden gloves on a chain around his neck in the hope that his son will maintain the family’s reputation. But even as an infant, Frank notices there is something different in Mikey, which leads to frustration and anger building over time.
As he grows into his teens, Mikey is forced to make an agonising decision – to stay and keep fighting, and face the shame head on, or escape, never to come back…
Based on Mikey Walsh’s best-selling memoirs, Morgan Matthews, the two-time BAFTA Award winning director whose first narrative feature was the highly acclaimed X+Y is at the helm with James Graham (THE VOTE, COALITION) having adapted the script working closely with Walsh. Dee Koppang O’Leary (Netflix’s “The Crown”) and Kevin Loader (MY COUSIN RACHEL, THE DEATH OF STALIN) are set to produce.
