Jim Sheridan is gearing up for his most personal project to date – a biopic about his life growing up in inner city Dublin.
The six times Oscar nominee will do a Steven Spielberg on it promising to “tell it all” in his own Fablemans tale about 1940s Ireland.
Jim, 74, has spent two decades working on the story and filming on North Star is due to start in months.
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The acclaimed filmmaker told the Sunday Mirror: “It’s taken me 20 years to write this so it is my most personal project yet.
“It’s hopefully going to start in late summer and we are currently casting it.”
The gritty tale about his childhood introduces his mother Anna, who ran a lodging house, and his dad Peter Sheridan Snr who was a railway clerk with CIE Trains.
It spans seven decades following his journey from his early years growing up in Seville Place and Sheriff Street, to his Oscar nominations in Hollywood in the 1990s.
My Left Foot director Jim revealed: “It’s like the name the North Star hotel in Amien Street.
“My mother used to work there... so it’s about me and my mother in the lodging house and my father, and my brother Frankie who died.
“But this is very, very important to me, so I will tell it all.”
Producers Jessica Martins and Tim Bogart will conduct a nationwide search to cast a young Jim.
Jim added: “I’ve been working on North Star so long now, 20 years is a long, long time.
“There was always some reason to not be able to do it, you know? But I am very happy to be doing it now.”
Jim grew up in a family of social activists and reckons taking the reins as writer, director and producer of his own biopic will come with its own challenges.
He admitted: “I think it’s the most difficult, to do yourself.”
Jim, who got Oscar nods for My Left Foot, The Field, In the Name of the Father, The Boxer, In America and Brothers, has never been one to rest on his laurels.
Next up in 2024 is the historical drama I Am a Man: The True Story of Chief Standing Bear which the Dubliner will co-produce and co-direct with Andrew Troy.
Set in Nabraska in 1879, the film will tell the story of the Ponca chief who became the first Native American granted civil rights under US law.
Rumour has it that Daniel Day-Lewis may be cast in the eagerly awaited film, as he famously took the role of Nathaniel ‘Hawkeye’ Poe in 1992 flick The Last of the Mohicans.
Jim is the only director to have worked with DDL, as he fondly likes to call him, three times and he has not given up on trying to lure him out of retirement.
Daniel, who won an Oscar for My Left Foot and a nomination for In the Name of the Father, quit acting to become a shoe maker after starring in The Boxer.
The 66-year-old came out of retirement to make Martin Scorsese’s epic Gangs of New York with Leonardo DiCaprio. And Jim hopes to entice the three times Oscar winner back to the big screen.
He revealed; “Yeah, I’ll try, I keep trying... I’d love to work with Daniel again if he’d do it.
“I’d say if he came back to acting he might come back on a movie I did, or Spielberg or something like that. I don’t think he could play Standing Bear. I think things have changed and you’ll need a Native American for the role, but maybe there is some other role there.”
Jim is teaming up with Paul Green who worked on The Revenant with DiCaprio, and casting director Rene Haynes and the project is already being tipped for Oscar glory. Few films have tackled the story of Native Americans, most notably Dances with Wolves starring Kevin Costner which won seven Oscars, but Jim feels up to the task.
He said: “It’s written as we all know... that the cowboys won and the Indians lost. It’s always written from the cowboys’ point of view.
“This was the first civil rights case in America where the Indian wants to be declared a man and the President’s prosecutor said he wasn’t.
“They were trying to get him into a court which didn’t apply to a ‘savage’ so he couldn’t be presented in court...
“I’m going to have to cast a lot of Native Americans, so it’s going to be interesting.”
Despite making history by successfully arguing his case in a district court in Omaha the Ponta chief and civil rights leader has been left out of school text books in the US.
Earlier this year Jim won warm plaudits for his Sky documentary on legendary theatrical hellraiser Peter O’Toole giving a warts and all account of the actor’s rebellious life.
He said: “It wasn’t that difficult to do it. Many people wanted to do it and Sky were very up for it. He has a huge history, he was nominated seven times you know, so it wasn’t the most difficult to get going and it was very enjoyable to do it.
“I did it with Kate, his daughter, and Sian, his ex wife, so it was all good.”
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