Jonathan Bailey To Star In Age-Gap Gay Romance ‘Insomniac City’ Opposite Bill Nighy

Jonathan Bailey and Bill Nighy are set to star in a film adaptation of Bill Hayes’ 2017 memoir Insomniac City, documenting the real-life romance between the photographer and writer and his unlikely lover, British neurologist Oliver Sacks.

Bailey (38) is slated to play Hayes, while Nighy (76) will bring life to Sacks, the film exploring their blossoming romance and shared love of music, mineralogy, botanics (weed included), and discussion as they share the final years of Sacks’ largely celibate life together in New York City.

According to Pink News, Dominic Cooke’s film adaptation of the memoir was announced as Altitude prepares to introduce the film to buyers at the American Film Market (AFM), with the company handling worldwide sales. The screenplay was co-written and adapted by Hayes and Cooke.

Bill Hayes 2017 Memoir, ‘Insomniac City’

In Hayes’ memoir, the author and photographer documents the treasured time he spent with Sacks over the last seven years of the neurologist’s life. After losing his partner of many years and suffering crippling insomnia, Hayaes decided to relocate from San Francisco to New York, where he reconnected with Sacks, 30 years his senior.

Sacks, an influential naturalist and doctor of neurology at the time, was also an insomniac, and the pair quickly began spending more and more time together. Despite Sacks being largely celibate (we would only officially come out in his own 2015 memoir, which was published the same year he died), the relationship between the pair soon became romantic.

Hayes’ memoir lovingly documents the pair’s marijuana-induced trips, existential conversations, and trips to the Museum of Natural History’s mineralogy collection, as well as many of Sacks’ own idiosyncrasies, including not knowing who Michael Jackson was, and his insistence on wearing goggles to open champaign.

Oliver Sacks’ Death

Sacks was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer in early 2015, reading his own CT scan and determining the diagnosis himself. Sacks chose to use the remainder of his time to commit to several writings, including a February essay in the New York Times in which he made his diagnosis public.

Later that year, Sacks’ autobiography On the Move: A Life was published. In it, Sacks came out as homosexual and described his relationship with Hayes, to whom he dedicated the book. Sacks died on August 30, 2015, aged 82, at his New York home, with Hayes by his side.