As actor he moves from England to USA constantly. He kidnapped European hearts from Italy to Spain as Mercutio in Carlei’s Romeo and Juliet and from Thursday, November 19^th, he will be on USA TV screens as Graham Connor in the new series The Art of More, alongside Dennis Quaid and Kate Bosworth.

But Christian Cooke‘s heart is still in Leeds and there he will start his new journey as director.

28 years/old, Cooke is been working now for 18 years, so the time is surely right for this new challenge. In 2014, he worked with author Ray Robinson for Electricity; a movie based on Robinson’s novel and screened at the BFI London Film Festival where it won the favour of the press.

Electricity tells the story of Agyness who embarks on a trip to London to locate her long lost brother Mikey (Cooke); during the journey she will experience hallucinations caused by her epilepsy. A touching story, marvellously directed by Bryn Higgins and adapted for the screen by Joe Fisher.

I met Christian at the screening at the London Film Festival for the second time (the first was the year before, always at the London Film Festival, at the Hello Carter premiere) and what amazed me, again, about him is his passion when he talks about his work, not only during interviews on the red carpet as most of his colleagues; but away from the spotlight, with the people in the audience who stopped him after the screening.

He believed in Electricity and probably is why Robinson entrust him with the script of this new project: [alert type=white ]EDITH[/alert].

Edith is a script based on Robinson’s novel. The story is about an old man, Jake, suspicions about his dead wife, Edith, and consequently about the legitimacy of his son. The film deals with the issues of love and regret in old age.

The movie will be shot in Leeds next late January and stars BAFTA and multi-award- winning Peter Mullan (Trainspotting, War Horse) who Cooke met last year on Stonemouth set and Michelle Fairley (Catelyn Stark in Game of Thrones).

Running alongside the project is a crowdfunding campaign set on [highlight ]Indiegogo[/highlight]. There are few days left to help Christian and Mini Productions to make it real. As I’m writing, they raised over £8,000, but they still need help.

To know more about the project and to help you can follow this link

In the last few years several British actors such as Alex Pettyfer or Ben Barnes moved to L.A. but as recently Cooke said in an interview for the Evening Post “There are a lot of British actors who live here in the UK and have prestigious careers in America. James McAvoy still lives in Crouch End and he is one of the biggest movie star on the planet”. And we hope Christian‘s talent and passion could remain around here for a while, wishing him all the best also for his career oversea.

EDITH CAMPAIGN: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/edith-short-film#/