Film crews shoot KGB spy thriller Red Joan starring Sophie Cookson in Cambridge
Trevor Nunn movie will star Dame Judi Dench
Kingsman star Sophie Cookson and Victoria actor Tom Hughes have been in the city filming scenes for Red Joan, a new film based on the life of Melita Norwood, the KGB’s longest-serving British spy
Hollywood came to Central Cambridge earlier this week as film crews and actors were spotted in the city shooting the upcoming movie.
Red Joan is a period spy thriller – mainly set between 1938 and 1947 – starring Oscar-winner Dame Judi and Sophie Cookson, 27, best known as Roxy Morton in Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) and its 2017 follow-up, Kingsman: The Golden Circle.
Resplendent in a long lilac coat, flowing grey skirt, knitted striped scarp, green gingham blouse and a burgundy beret, Cookson was seen in St John’s Street on Monday, December 4 filming a mocked up political rally, along with actor Tom Hughes, 31.
It is believed the actor, familiar no doubt to millions of television viewers as Prince Albert in ITV’s Victoria, plays Cookson’s character’s love interest in the film.
Co-star, 34-year-old Czech actress Tereza Srbova, was wearing a green coat and a dark grey beanie, while clutching a hot water bottle in an attempt to fight off the cold.
In between takes, Cookson and Hughes were also spotted in conversation and sitting on a bench looking at a script.
The film is being directed by Ipswich-born Trevor Nunn and the script has been penned by Lindsay Shapiro. It is an adaptation of Jennie Rooney’s eponymous 2014 novel about the life of Joan Stanley, which in turn was, according to publishers Penguin Random House, “inspired by the true story of Melita Norwood, a woman unmasked in 1999 – at age 87 – as the KGB’s longest-serving British spy.”
Red Joan centres on the deeply conflicted life of a brilliant young physicist during the Second World War, with the story then catching up with Stanley (Dench), a retiree whose peaceful existence is interrupted by a visit from MI5.
Cookson will portray Joan in her younger days as a student at Cambridge University who falls in love with a committed communist and, later, finds her loyalty to her country tested while employed in the UK’s secret nuclear programme.
