As Deadline reports, Bafta Award nominee Christopher Eccleston is the new cast addition of Disney+’s Young Woman and the Sea, an upcoming biopic about swimming champion Gertrude “Trudy” Ederle. The film also stars Daisy Ridley as the first woman ever to swim across the English Channel.
Inspired by Glenn Stout's book of the same name, Young Woman and the Sea chronicles the life of Ederle as she becomes an Olympic medalist and tries to push her limits by swimming across some of the world’s most famous canals. After winning a gold medal in the 1924 Olympics, Ederle first swam 22 miles from Battery Park in New York to Sandy Hook, in New Jersey. The feat would give her a record that would remain 81 years unbroken. After that, in 1926, Ederle would also become the first woman to cross the 21 miles of the English Canal by swim, ensuring her name would be forever engraved in history.
Eccleston is known by Doctor Who fans as the ninth incarnation of the time-traveling character, for which he got a Best Actor Bafta nomination. The star also has an International Emmy Award as Best Actor for the British anthology series Accused. Other major roles in Eccleston’s career include Matt Jamison in HBO’s supernatural drama series The Leftovers and Malekith in Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Thor: The Dark World. Other film credits for the star include G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, 28 Days Later…, The Others, Gone in 60 Seconds, eXistenZ, Elizabeth, and Shallow Grave. Finally, Eccleston also has a prolific career in theater, being last seen on stage in the title role of Shakespeare’s Macbeth at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Besides Eccleston and Ridley, Young Woman and the Sea’s cast also includes Tilda Cobham-Hervey (Hotel Mumbai) and Stephen Graham (The Irishman). The film is currently in production, which means it shouldn’t be long before we get more cast reveals.
Young Woman and the Sea script is signed by longtime Disney contributor Jeff Nathanson (The Lion King). The biopic is helmed by Kon-Tiki director Joachim Rønning, with Jerry Bruckheimer and Chad Oman acting as producers. Young Woman and the Sea marks a big Disney reunion for the crew, as Nathanson wrote, Rønning directed, and Bruckheimer produced Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
There’s still no release date for Young Woman and the Sea.