It's confirmed: Brad Pitt will star as Bobby Sands in film on the Irish Hunger Strike
In October 1995 inside sources promised a Jim Sheridan hunger-strike film with Brad Pitt as Bobby Sands. The film that arrived a year later looked rather different.
As printed in the Celtic Mirror, October 1995
PHILADELPHIA - Hollywood superstar Brad Pitt (named by People Magazine as "the sexiest man alive") will star in the role of Bobby Sands in the upcoming film based on the 1980-1981 Irish republican hunger strikes.
Pitt has been signed to the role, multimillion-dollar financing has been secured, and the movie is scheduled to start production this month, with anticipated release in mid-1996, according to inside sources. Script and direction will be supplied by Jim Sheridan, writer/director of "In the Name of the Father."
The new film will focus on the agonizing stories of the mothers of the 10 hunger strikers who starved to death in Maze/Long Kesh Prison while demanding that the British government grant de facto recognition of their POW/political prisoner status.
The Irish hunger strikes grew out of the years-long H-Block/Armagh prison protests, which drew worldwide support to the demands and plight of hundreds of women and men held for political and military offenses in the British prisons of northeast Ireland.
Pitt's character, Bobby Sands, was the IRA commandant and elected Member of Parliament who went to his death in the face of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's refusal to negotiate, and the Dublin regime's failure to intervene.
INLA prison commandant Patsy O'Hara and eight other men followed Sands to a slow death, while millions protested worldwide and the British embassy in Dublin was burned.
The film is expected to generate interest in this crucial period of recent history among the generation that has grown up since 1981.
Observers noted there have been several previous unsuccessful attempts to gather financing for an Irish hunger strike film, including Mickey Rourke's strong effort a few years ago.
Sheridan said he wrote his hunger strike script before writing "In The Name of the Father," but held onto it until now.
"The time seems right. People need to see this story as it really was," Sheridan said.
The film's soundtrack is expected to feature Black 47's new song "Bobby Sands," as well as performances by Sinead O'Connor, Ray Collins, Mary Black, Christy Moore, The Chieftains, Luka Bloom, Shane MacGowan, Elvis Costello and Bobby Sands' brother, Irish musician Sean Sands, as well as Patsy O'Hara's brother, Tony O'Hara (a musician who is himself a veteran of the H-Block prison protests).
The film that got made
Brad Pitt never played Bobby Sands. We have found no record that the casting described by Bill Nevins's inside sources ever went further than this page, and readers should treat the first paragraph as a 1995 rumour printed with too much confidence.
The rest of the report was closer to the mark. The film Sheridan had been nursing did appear, and it did focus on the mothers. Some Mother's Son was co-written by Sheridan and Terry George, produced by Sheridan, and directed by George. It premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in 1996 and opened in the United States on December 25 that year. Helen Mirren and Fionnula Flanagan play two mothers who must decide whether to let their hunger-striking sons die or have them fed. Bobby Sands appears in it, played by John Lynch, but he is not the lead. The mothers are.
The bigger cinematic reckoning took another twelve years. Steve McQueen's first feature, Hunger, premiered at Cannes on May 15, 2008, with Michael Fassbender as Sands. It won the Caméra d'Or for a first film, and McQueen won a BAFTA for a first feature.
The history the films draw on is well settled. Sands began refusing food on March 1, 1981, five years to the day after special category status was withdrawn. On April 9 he won the Fermanagh and South Tyrone by-election with 30,492 votes to Harry West's 29,046. He died on May 5, on the 66th day of his strike, and about 100,000 people attended his funeral two days later. Patsy O'Hara died on May 21. Ten prisoners in all starved to death before the remaining strikers ended the protest in early October 1981.
Questions readers ask
Did Brad Pitt ever play Bobby Sands?
Brad Pitt never played Bobby Sands. A 1995 report claimed he had signed to star in a Jim Sheridan film about the 1981 hunger strike, but the project that reached cinemas was Some Mother's Son (1996), directed by Terry George, in which John Lynch played Sands. Michael Fassbender later played him in Steve McQueen's Hunger in 2008.
What is Some Mother's Son about?
Some Mother's Son is a 1996 Irish-American drama based on the 1981 hunger strike in the Maze Prison. Helen Mirren and Fionnula Flanagan play two mothers whose sons join the strike and who must decide whether to honour their wishes or have them forcibly fed. Terry George directed it and co-wrote it with producer Jim Sheridan.
How long did Bobby Sands go without food?
Bobby Sands began his hunger strike on March 1, 1981, and died on May 5, 1981, on the 66th day. During the strike, on April 9, he was elected MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone with 30,492 votes. About 100,000 people attended his funeral on May 7, and nine more prisoners died before the strike ended that October.
Which film won the Caméra d'Or for the hunger strike story?
Hunger, Steve McQueen's debut feature, won the Caméra d'Or for best first film at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered on May 15. Michael Fassbender plays Bobby Sands. McQueen also won the BAFTA for Special Achievement by a British Director, Writer or Producer for a First Feature Film.
