Raynor Winn’s The Salt Path is headed to the big screen with Gillian Anderson on board, Deadline reports.
Winn’s memoir, published in 2019 by Penguin, tells the story of the author and her terminally ill husband’s decision to hike the 630-mile South West Coast Path in England after losing their home and farm. The memoir was shortlisted for the Costa Book Award, and a critic for Kirkus wrote of it, “The book is not without humor or healthy portions of irony and self-doubt. Throughout, readers are immersed in a grueling and transformative adventure.”
Anderson, known for her roles on The X-Files and Sex Education, will play Raynor Winn in the movie, while Jason Isaacs, who starred as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, will play Raynor’s husband, Moth.
The film will be directed by Marianne Elliott, who helmed stage productions of War Horse, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, and Death of a Salesman in London’s West End. Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Disobedience, She Said) wrote the screenplay.
Elliott told Deadline that she decided to pivot from theater to film for the project because “theater is such a hungry beast.” She said that she remembered the book while walking in London and mentioned her interest in the project to film producer Elizabeth Karlsen.
“It’s a memory journal of a journey that took a year to accomplish, but more than that it’s about the absolute desperation they’d endured that brought them to this point and this walk gave them time to think,” Elliott said.
The film will start shooting in the coming weeks, according to Deadline.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
