Jonathan Bailey broke our hearts with the beautiful yet tragic love story in Fellow Travelers and now he’s set to do it again with his new gay romance Insomniac City.
Bailey is taking on the role of photographer and author Bill Hayes in a drama based on his memoir about falling in love with famed neurologist Oliver Sacks, a man 30 years his senior, whom he ultimately lost to cancer.
The gay romance will focus on Hayes’ beautiful age-gap, later-in-life relationship and his love affair with the city of New York.
The film is still in the early stages, but the director has been selected, and the lead roles have been cast, so more information about the film is likely to follow.
Who is starring in 'Insomniac City'?
Bridgerton's Jonathan Bailey is starring as Bill Hayes, opposite Oscar nominee and BAFTA winner Bill Nighy (Love Actually), who will play his lover Oliver Sacks.
Hayes and Dominic Cooke (On Chisel Beach), who is also directing the film, will co-write the adaptation of his memoir.
“Insomniac City is a rare story that feels both profoundly intimate and epic in scope. It is a story that celebrates second chances in life; a portrait of two people finding each other at an unexpected moment in their lives,” Cooke said. “It is also a love letter to New York City itself, a place of endless possibility, reinvention and connection. Bill Hayes’ memoir captures the fragile beauty of love in the face of mortality, and I am honored to bring that story to the screen alongside our extraordinary actors, Jonathan Bailey, Bill Nighy and our producing team.”
What is 'Insomniac City' about?
Insomniac City will bring to screen the life-changing love story between Hayes and Sacks, that transformed their lives in Sacks’ final years.
“At age 75, he opened his heart up and fell in love, started a new romantic and domestic life with another person – with me – and continued to work so productively – all of which made being old seem adventurous and fun,” Hayes said of the beginning of their love story in an interview with The Guardian in 2017.
The film follows Hayes as he leaves San Francisco for New York in an attempt to get away from sad memories and start fresh. “As he begins to rebuild his life, he falls unexpectedly in love with both the city and Oliver Sacks, whose writing and groundbreaking work in neurology made him one of the most distinctive voices in modern medicine,” the official synopsis reads.
According to the filmmakers, the film is “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.”
