Ben Kingsley And Lesley Manville Starring In Dali Land

Ben Kingsley has played real people in the past – to Oscar-winning effect in Gandhi. He's back on biopic duty for Dali Land, which will also star Lesley Manville, Tim Roth and Frank Dillane.

American Psycho director Mary Harron is wrangling this one together, with a screenplay she wrote with John C Walsh. The film is set in New York and Spain in 1973, and is told through the eyes of James (Dillane), a young gallery assistant helping famed surrealist Salvador Dali (Kingsley) prepare for a big show. He's excited, and hoping to learn some of the secrets of great art from one of the most famous artists of all time, but is instead entangled in a world of parties, personal battles and an art world filled with money and intrigue.

Manville will play Gala, Dali's domineering wife and muse, while Roth is on as Captain Moore, his right hand man. Harron will have the cameras rolling later this year in Canada and Spain, with old American Psycho colleague and producer Edward R. Pressman helping to shepherd the film to screens. "I’m proud to be working with the visionary Mary Harron again on Dalí Land," he tells Deadline. "I believe Mary’s sense of cosmic irony is a perfect match for a story about the flamboyant, contradictory and larger than life Salvador Dalí. I love the team we’ve assembled and can’t wait to see Sir Ben Kingsley and Lesley Manville embody the iconic partnership of Dalí and Gala."