Jonathan Bailey and Bill Nighy cast as lovers in upcoming Insomniac City film
Insomniac City will be based on Bill Hayes’s memoir about his relationship with late neurologist Oliver Sacks
By Aaron Sugg
Jonathan Bailey and Bill Nighy are set to portray real-life lovers Bill Hayes and Oliver Sacks in Dominic Cooke’s forthcoming film Insomniac City.
Based on Hayes’s moving memoir about their relationship, Bailey will play Hayes, opposite Nighy as Sacks, exploring their 28-year age gap.
Insomniac City will follow writer Hayes as he arrives in New York City from San Francisco in the wake of losing his long-term partner in the late 2000s.
What is Insomniac City about?
As he begins to rebuild his life, he unexpectedly falls in love with both the city and British neurologist and author Sacks.
Sacks was 75 and Hayes was 48 when their relationship began. They were together for approximately six years, until Sacks died from cancer in 2015.
The film’s description reads: “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.”
Dominic Cooke co-writes with Bill Hayes
Cooke, whose directing credits include The Courier and On Chesil Beach, co-wrote the screenplay with Hayes.
His work also extends to the stage. He won the Critics’ Circle Theatre Award for Best Director for his production of Follies at the National Theatre, as well as the Olivier Award for Best Director in 2007 for The Crucible at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
An intimate and epic gay film
Speaking about the upcoming film, Cooke said: “Insomniac City is a rare story that feels both profoundly intimate and epic in scope.
“It is also a love letter to New York City itself, a place of endless possibility, reinvention and connection.”
Hayes and Sacks relationship was also explored in Ric Burns’s 2019 documentary Oliver Sacks: His Own Life, which featured interviews with Sacks and those closest to him.
Insomniac City is yet to receive an official release date.