Hugh Bonneville to play author Roald Dahl in new biopic
The film will focus on the writer's life in the 1960s with wife Patricia Neal.
Downton Abbey star Hugh Bonneville will play Roald Dahl in a new biopic about the best-selling children's author.
The movie will focus on the Charlie And The Chocolate Factory writer's marriage to Oscar-winning actress Patricia Neal and the period in which he struggled to pen some of his most famous works.
Set in the early 1960s, it will move between New York, England and Los Angeles.
Producer Elliot Jenkins said he could not "imagine anyone better than Hugh Bonneville" to bring on-screen "the ambivalent nature of Roald Dahl's life", Variety reports.
"He was such a man of wounded parts below his polished veneer of self-confidence," he said.
The actress playing Hud star Neal is yet to be announced.
The as-yet-untitled film will track the "personal triumphs and tragedies behind the marriage of two globally known superstars".
James And The Giant Peach and The BFG author Dahl married Breakfast At Tiffany's actress Neal in 1953, but the couple divorced in 1983.