You might expect a film about legendary French actor and mime Marcel Marceau to focus on his performances. But Hands Of Stone director Jonathan Jakubowicz is aiming to dig a little deeper, recruiting Jesse Eisenberg to play the man in new drama Resistance.
The story will instead put the spotlight on Marceau's days in the French resistance during World War II, where he first started to learn the art of mime to survive and help save the lives of Jewish orphans who had lost their parents to the Nazis. Born Marvel Mangel to Jewish parents, he lost his own father in Auschwitz and grew up speaking Yiddish.
And while he performed professionally around the world for more than 60 years, he gave his first major performance in front of thousands of American troops after the liberation of Paris in 1944.
Baptiste Marceau, his eldest son, has been involved in the research for the movie's script, which Jakubowicz wrote and intends to start filming in 2018. Eisenberg has his own links to the story's world – he hails from a European Jewish family that saw people killed during the Holocaust.
Before he works on that, Eisenberg has been busy with TV projects and will be back on the big screen as Lex Luthor in Justice League, due on 17 November.
Pierce Brosnan, Jesse Eisenberg And Vanessa Redgrave On For The Medusa