Jonathan Bailey and Bill Nighy cast as lovers in Insomniac City adaptation
Jonathan Bailey (Getty Images)
Jonathan Bailey and Bill Nighy are set to star in Dominic Cooke’s love story film Insomniac City, playing real-life couple Bill Hayes and Oliver Sacks.
The project has been announced as Altitude prepares to introduce the film to buyers at the American Film Market (AFM), with the company handling worldwide sales.
Adapted from Hayes’s 2017 memoir of the same name, Insomniac City has a screenplay co-written and adapted by Hayes and Cooke. Bailey will play writer and photographer Hayes, opposite Nighy as celebrated neurologist Sacks.
Deadline’s synopsis says the story follows Hayes arriving in New York City from San Francisco “in the wake of a devastating loss”. As he begins to rebuild his life, he falls “unexpectedly in love with both the city and Oliver Sacks”.
Cooke said: “Insomniac City is a rare story that feels both profoundly intimate and epic in scope.” He added: “It is also a love letter to New York City itself, a place of endless possibility, reinvention and connection.”
What is Insomniac City about?
The filmmakers described the project as: “Set against the restless, vibrant backdrop of New York City, Insomniac City is an intimate and uplifting portrait of grief, hope, community and second chances, and of the remarkable possibility of finding love when it is least expected.”
Sacks was known as the poet laureate of contemporary medicine. He wrote books including The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat and Awakenings.
Who is making the film?
Producers on the project include Troy Lum and Andrew Mason for Brouhaha Entertainment, plus Bailey, Mike Goodridge and Gabrielle Tana.
Bailey is best known for playing Anthony Bridgerton in Netflix’s Bridgerton, and has also been cast as Fiyero in the film adaptation of Wicked. In 2023, Fellow Travelers creator Ron Nyswaner spoke about the immediate chemistry between Matt Bomer and Bailey in the Showtime drama, as covered here.
