Pierce Brosnan to star as Irish boxing legend in new fifilm
Pierce Brosnan is set to play Irish box‐ ing trainer Brendan Ingle in "Giant," the new biopic about former world feather‐ weight champion "Prince" Naseem “Naz” Hamed.
"Giant" is due to begin filming in Leeds in the UK later this month, with Sylvester Stallone on board as an executive pro‐ ducer through his company Balboa Pro‐ ductions, Deadline reports.
Amir El-Masry, who has previously star‐ red in "A Haunting in Venice" and "SAS: Rogue Heroes," will star opposite Bros‐ nan as Hamed in the film.
According to Deadline, the synopsis for the upcoming film says: "'Giant' is the true story of Hamed’s humble begin‐ nings on the tough working-class streets of She eld and his discovery by Ingle, himself a steel industry worker turned boxing trainer.
"Their unlikely partnership along with Naz’ unorthodox style, cocky persona, and sheer dominance in the ring, pro‐ pelled them to the top of boxing’s elite and unprecedented levels of global su‐ perstardom, all in the face of the ram‐ pant Islamophobia and racism of 80’s and 90’s Britain."
Ingle, who died in 2018 aged 77, trained numerous world and European champi‐ ons, including former WBC Light Wel‐ terweight champion Junior Witter and former WBO Cruiserweight champion Johnny Nelson.
Speaking after Ingle's death, Hamed said that he would "not have achieved all I did in the sport of boxing" had it not been for Ingle.
Meanwhile, Brosnan has a sentimental connection to boxing. Asked during a 2014 interview with GQ about any pos‐ sessions that remind him of his child‐ hood, Brosnan said: "There are boxing gloves. My mother gave me boxing gloves; I wanted boxing gloves. I liked to box. So I still have them. They're still in my bookcase, very old, tattered, and they were cherished. "When I got them that Christmas, my grandmother was dying; I was living in Kells. My mother couldn't come home that Christmas because she had to work as a nurse. But the boxing gloves were a brilliant distraction from the pain in the heart."