James Dean’s face is one of Hollywood’s most familiar images. A new film is approaching his life through someone who knew him before that image became a legend.

Mitchell Robertson has been cast as writer Bill Bast opposite Brandon Flynn as Dean in One Hand Tied, according to The Hollywood Reporter’s November 10 casting exclusive.

Written and directed by Guy Guido, the project was previously known as Willie and Jimmy Dean. It adapts Bast’s 2006 memoir, Surviving James Dean.

The man behind the memoir

Bast described meeting Dean at UCLA when they were both 19. In his account, their lives became intertwined as roommates, friends and eventually lovers, with their intimacy kept private as Dean pursued his career.

The relationship is the subject of the memoir and the film’s interpretation of it. Those recollections should be attributed to Bast, rather than presented as a definitive answer to every question about Dean’s sexuality.

There is another revealing layer to the book’s history. Bast had already published a biography of Dean in 1956, shortly after the actor’s death. As the library record quoting the later memoir’s jacket explains, he returned to their story decades afterwards to address material he had not felt able to explore fully the first time.

A contemporary Publishers Weekly review describes the memoir as an account of Bast’s coming out, their friendship and Dean’s lasting impact on his life.

That makes this more than a question of which label to attach to a famous man. It is also about who gets to tell an intimate story, and how long it can take to feel able to tell it.

Two actors, a different perspective

Robertson’s breakthrough came playing the younger Niall in Half Man, the Richard Gadd series whose official press materials identify him as the younger counterpart to Jamie Bell.

Flynn, familiar to audiences from 13 Reasons Why, was previously announced as Dean. The project follows the men’s connection from their first meeting through Dean’s death in 1955 at 24.

There is a poignant contrast with the present. Flynn celebrated his marriage to playwright Jordan Tannahill in 2024, in a wedding shared publicly in Vogue. The story he is helping bring to the screen concerns an era when two men’s private affection could threaten their public futures.

For audiences who know Dean chiefly through Rebel Without a Cause, the appeal is a shift in perspective: away from the endlessly reproduced photograph and towards Bast’s memories of the person who shared his life.

📷 Hulton Archive / @brandonflynn

Jonathan Bailey and Bill Nighy are set to play a couple whose love story offers a particularly welcome possibility: life can still surprise you, even after grief, loneliness and decades of established routines.

The actors will star in Insomniac City, based on writer and photographer Bill Hayes’s memoir about New York and his relationship with neurologist Oliver Sacks.

A Brouhaha Entertainment announcement confirms Bailey will play Hayes opposite Nighy as Sacks, with Dominic Cooke directing. Hayes and Cooke have co-written the screenplay, and Bailey is also among the producers.

A new city, and an unexpected connection

As Hayes describes the book on his website, he arrived in New York at 48 after years in San Francisco, grieving the death of his partner.

He began exploring the city at night with his camera. Alongside its streets and strangers, he found something he had not expected: another love.

The connection with Sacks had begun before the move. In an essay about their relationship, Hayes recalls receiving a letter from Sacks after the neurologist read his book The Anatomist. Hayes wrote back.

Once Hayes moved to New York in 2009, they spent more time together. By that summer, they were in love.

Sacks was in his seventies. Hayes describes a 28-year age difference, but also a relationship that lasted until Sacks’s death in August 2015.

You may already know his work

If Sacks’s name feels familiar, there is a good reason. He wrote The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Awakenings, the latter adapted into the film starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro.

This story turns towards his personal life: the man capable of immense curiosity about other people, learning to share his own days with a partner.

The tenderness comes through in the smallest moments. In a published excerpt from Hayes’s diary, Sacks tells him how glad he is that they share the planet, and how much lonelier it would be without him. Hayes reaches for his hand.

It is an ordinary gesture, and a lovely glimpse of the companionship behind the casting announcement.

A romance with room for later chapters

For gay audiences accustomed to stories of first crushes and early adulthood, a film that gives an older man’s love life this attention has particular appeal.

The prospect of Bailey and Nighy together certainly adds to the anticipation. But Hayes and Sacks supply the emotional reason to care: two people finding space for a relationship at very different stages of their lives.

The casting reports have not announced a release date. For now, Insomniac City is a project to watch — and its source memoir is a love story worth discovering.

📷 Wikipedia (Carlos Delgado / LukaFazPhoto)

Owain Wyn Evans is known for his drumming, immaculate suits and unmistakable personality. But being comfortable showing that personality on television took time.

Long before his latest charity challenge, the BBC broadcaster was navigating something many gay men will recognise: the pressure to make himself smaller in order to fit in.

Speaking to Out in 2021, Owain described returning to the closet when he landed his first television job. His journey towards being himself on screen was not a simple, one-time coming-out moment.

Someone to talk to

In an August 2026 Radio Times interview, Owain recalled being told to be less camp, and even advised against coming out.

As he began presenting the weather in 2012, he had conversations with Arran Rees about those pressures. He came to realise that concealing his personality was not a way forward.

The couple married in 2017. Today, their shared life includes a home in Penarth, Wales, and a considerable enthusiasm for renovation.

A marriage built around more than matching paint samples

In a September interview with Your Home Style, Owain described their fifth renovation together. The couple work well as a team, but that does not mean every design decision starts with instant agreement.

An orange bathroom and cork kitchen flooring both required some discussion. Their approach, he explained, involves research, compromise and trusting each other’s ideas.

There is also a wonderfully appropriate birthday present. Arran bought Owain a giant disco ball for his 40th, which now brings sparkle to their home. Some husbands buy flowers. This one clearly understood the brief.

Those details give the relationship its warmth: a home made together over time, with space for both men’s personalities.

From drumsticks to a different challenge

Owain has also spoken about how drumming helps him express himself and manage social anxiety. His musical talent became nationally familiar through a viral performance of the BBC News theme.

BBC Children in Need confirms that his 2021 drumathon raised more than £3.8 million after he played for 24 hours.

On November 9, 2026, he began another substantial undertaking: a five-day cycle challenge covering nearly 400 miles through Scotland, Northern Ireland, England and Wales, with a planned finish in Cardiff on November 13.

Readers can follow the challenge through the charity’s official page.

The ride is the latest public chapter. Behind it is a lasting personal story about finding ways to be yourself, having difficult conversations, and building a life with someone who makes room for your sparkle.

📷 @owainwynevans