Any Human Heart

Jim Broadbent, Matthew Macfadyen, Kim Cattrall, Gillian Anderson, Tom Hollander, Natasha Little, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Ed Stoppard, Samuel West and Richard Schiff are amongst the top names starring in Carnival Films' much anticipated adaptation of William Boyd's Any Human Heart for Channel 4.  

Jim Broadbent, Matthew Macfadyen and Sam Claflin all take on the role of writer Logan Gonzago Mountstuart portraying different stages of his ordinary and yet extraordinary life, through every decade of the twentieth century.  Boyd's four part adaptation of his best-selling epic novel covers a life lived to the full and a myriad of historical events seen through the eyes of one man.  Oscar winner Jim Broadbent heads up the all star cast as the older incarnation of Boyd's literary everyman, Mountstuart.  The much admired actor plays the fictional writer through his final years: London in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the abject shame of poverty, unlikely heroism and his not-so-serene old age in ‘90s rural France. 

Matthew Macfadyen takes Logan through middle age from the thrill and heartache of true love and the birth of his first child to scandal in the New York art scene in the ‘50s and ‘60s, via the horrors of war.  Newcomer, Sam Claflin embodies the idealism, vitality and naivety of the young Logan, where his lust for life and women truly begins as a student in Oxford and then Paris in the 1920s.

 Throughout his life it is Logan's personal relationships which define him; through numerous flirtations and affairs to finding true love.  Logan also has encounters with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor (Tom Hollander and Gillian Anderson); Ernest Hemingway (Julian Ovenden) and Ian Fleming (Tobias Menzies).  Boyd's epic tale charts an entire existence and in doing so reveals that all our lives are ultimately random, defined by luck and seemingly inconsequential choices.  As Logan himself says; "I am all of these different people.  All these different people are me." 

The women in Logan's life are many and varied; newcomer Emerald Fennell plays the young writer's first wife, Lottie, Hayley Atwell plays Freya; Logan's mistress and the love of his life, Natasha Little plays third wife Allanah and Kim Cattrall takes on the role of older Logan's glamorous lover Gloria.

Other cast in the ambitious four part serial include: Julian Rhind-Tutt playing revolutionary John Vivian, the older versions of Logan's two best friends are played by Ed Stoppard as Ben and Samuel West as Peter.  The cast also boasts a number of Britain's hottest upcoming talent including; Freddie Fox, Hugh Skinner, Charity Wakefield and Lydia Wilson.