Taking on The Lost Airman

JAKE GYLLENHAAL ( right) is set to play a WWII hero in The Lost Airman, a film based on the true story of Arthur Meyerowitz, who was shot down over France in 1943.

The American actor will play the US turret gunner who was taken in by the residents of a village in the Aquitaine region of southwest France before being sheltered and helped to escape by the Resistance.

After being evacuated via Toulouse, Meyerowitz crossed Spain to the Strait of Gibraltar before managing to return to the US. On arriving home, he took work delivering milk on Long Island, married and started a family.

Intrigued by the letters in French found among his grandfather’s possessions, his grandson managed to reconstruct the incredible story, which he later published in the book, The Lost Airman: A True Story of Escape From NaziOccupied France.

The movie rights were bought by Amazon Studios, which will fund the big-screen adaptation produced by Gyllenhaal and John Lesher, who also produced Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Birdman.

Gyllenhaal was recently in Life and also in South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho’s Okja, which was picked for this year’s Cannes Film Festival and airing on Netflix on June 28.

He also stars in Stronger, alongside Tatiana Maslany (out on Sept 22 in the US) and joins Carey Mulligan in Paul Dano’s Wildlife.

His next project is The Division, with Jessica Chastain, based on Ubisoft’s video game, as well as director Daniel Espinosa’s The Anarchist vs Isis, Jacques Audiard’s The Sisters Brothers and Rio with Benedict Cumberbatch. – AFPRelaxnews