IRISH CLOSE CALL FOR COMIC CARR
Jimmy nearly died of meningitis as a kid
★ PIERCE Brosnan is set to portray Irish boxing trainer Brendan Ingle in a new sports biopic called Giant.
The James Bond actor will star as the Dublin-born trainer alongside Amir El-Masry, who will play the role of British-Yemeni boxer Prince Naseem ‘Naz’ Hamed. ★ The drama will tell the rags-to-riches story of Naz, who was living in a working-class home in Sheffield before being discovered by Ingle and becoming a boxing world champion.
JIMMY Carr has revealed he almost died from meningitis in Ireland while a toddler.
The comedian (51), whose parents are from Limerick, said he was treated in hospital in the city when he was still a toddler and was told he “nearly didn’t make it”.
Speaking on the podcast Where There’s A Will, There’s A Wake with Kathy Burke, he said: “You’ve got to be cruel to be kind ... I think that is the first thing I ever said that my mother thought was funny.
“I had meningitis when I was a child. So my first memory is a lumbar puncture in Limerick in the General (hospital).
“I was three, I think, and ... I was always told it was very close to death.
“The doctor sort of went, ‘it’s going to be very painful’. And somehow I’d heard the phrase, and I went, ‘you’ve got to be cruel to be kind’, in a little child’s voice.”
He added: “And I kind of appreciated that thing of life, because I was always told, ‘oh, you nearly didn’t make it’.”
Filming for the project will reportedly begin later this month in Leeds, England, with Sylvester Stallone on board as an executive producer.
The movie will be financed by AGC Studios and BondIt Media Capital, with AGC taking international rights and True Brit Entertainment taking UK distribution rights.
Announcing the film, AGC Chief Executive Stuart Ford said that Amir and Pierce will be a “powerful lead duo”.
Meningitis is an infection of the protective membranes that surround the brain and spinal cord, and is most common in babies, young children, teenagers and young adults.
It can be very serious if not treated quickly, causing lifethreatening sepsis and permanent damage to the brain or nerves.
Shark
Discussing how he would like to die, he said: “I want my kids and the people that love me to [be able to tell a story like], ‘Oh, Jimmy died... funny story. He flew to South Africa and he went on one of those great shark cage experiences and he forgoed the cage. He said, ‘no cage for me, thanks. I’ll just jump in there with a fish’.
“And I was ravaged by sharks. That would be a way to go.”
He added he has already had a close
“Since commissioning Rowan (Athale) to write the brilliant screenplay for Giant several years ago, we’ve been passionate about bringing this extraordinary story to the big screen,” he told Deadline.
“Amir and Pierce will make a powerful lead duo and it’s exciting that Zygi (Kamasa) and his team at
True Brit, with their outstanding career track record in launching the best of British film to audiences, believe as fervently as we do in Giant’s cinematic potential.” encounter with a reef shark, saying: “I was swimming with a friend in Key West and there were sharks in the water. And one sort of flipped around.
“We’d been swimming with these sharks all day and we slightly misjudged the size of this thing. It was enormous and it flipped around and came at us. “And I remember just thinking of the old joke, ‘I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you’. Just to swim faster than my mate Henry onto the fire coral.
“And then we got back on the boat and the guys went, ‘these are just reef sharks’. I went, ‘yeah, with the black tip on the fin’, and they went ‘oh, mate. Whoa!’
“But I think [being] torn apart by sharks and wanting it and going ‘I’ll do that’. That’s a great story for everyone.” Where There’s A Will, There’s A Wake with Kathy Burke is available wherever you get your podcasts.