Dominic Cooper cuts a dashing figure as James Bond creator Ian Fleming in the first official pictures from the new TV series. Fleming.
The Mamma Mia! star is joined by Sherlock beauty Lara Pulver, who will play Fleming's lover Ann O'Neill in the Sky Atlantic show, set in World War II, when the writer worked for British Naval intelligence against the Nazis.
It was Fleming's experiences during the war that inspired the creation of secret agent James Bond and influenced the series of books.
Ann and Ian first fell in love in 1939, when she was married to Baron O'Neill. When Ann was left widowed by the death of O'Neill in the war, it was expected Ian would marry her, but the writer decided to remain a bachelor, just like his spy hero 007.
Ann remarried in 1945, but continued her affair with Fleming and they eventually married in Jamaica in 1952.
Lara said: "I am thrilled to be playing Ann, a real-life high society siren worthy of Fleming's finest fictional femme fatales. In extraordinary times, Ann had the ear of politicians as powerful as Churchill and counted artists like Lucian Freud among her friends, yet was consumed by a torrid romance with the great Ian Fleming; a twisted and passionate love that would last the rest of their lives."
The four-part drama is due to screen on Sky Atlantic in the autumn and will also star Annabelle Wallis, Lesley Manville, Anna Chancellor, Samuel West and Rupert Evans.
Fleming lived a lifestyle as lavish and thrilling as his creation James Bond, working in espionage, travelling the world, enjoying wild parties and a colourful love life.
Dominic said: "Stepping into the shoes of the spy who not only created the enigmatic character of 007, but who fantasised about being him, has to be every actor's dream."
