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Jonathan Bailey and Bill Nighy are set to star as real-life lovers in Insomniac City, a new gay romance exploring grief, desire and finding love when you least expect it. And while the story sounds genuinely beautiful, we need to address something first: Jonathan Bailey is an outrageously gorgeous man. There, I’ve said it. Now, back to the journalism.
There are actors who make you appreciate a good performance, and then there is Jonathan Bailey, who somehow manages to make simply existing in public look like a personal attack on our collective emotional stability.
I know this because I once spotted him walking through London. Nothing particularly dramatic happened. He was just going about his day, being offensively handsome, while I suddenly found myself with all the emotional composure of a fifteen-year-old experiencing a catastrophic hormonal surge. Completely ridiculous behaviour from a grown adult, I know. But darling, have you seen the man?
Thankfully, Bailey is also a genuinely talented actor, which makes it slightly easier to justify our enthusiasm whenever he announces another project.
And his latest one sounds particularly special.
According to Deadline’s report, subsequently detailed by Radio Times, Bailey will star opposite British acting legend Bill Nighy in Insomniac City, a romantic drama based on the real-life relationship between writer and photographer Bill Hayes and celebrated neurologist Oliver Sacks.
Forget the usual Hollywood formula of impossibly attractive people falling in love after accidentally spilling coffee over one another. This is a love story about grief, intellectual connection, emotional intimacy and finding happiness again when life has already delivered some devastating blows.
And frankly, we need more queer films like this.
What Is Insomniac City About?
Insomniac City is adapted from Bill Hayes’s 2017 memoir, Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me, which recounts his relationship with Oliver Sacks, the acclaimed neurologist and author.
After the sudden death of his long-term partner, Hayes relocated from San Francisco to New York City, carrying the kind of grief that can make even the most familiar world feel completely unrecognisable.
In New York, he gradually began rebuilding his life, discovering a city filled with unexpected encounters, fascinating characters and new possibilities.
And somewhere along the way, he met Oliver Sacks.
Sacks was already internationally recognised for his extraordinary work exploring the human brain, consciousness and neurological conditions. His books, including Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, transformed complex scientific subjects into deeply human stories.
But behind his intellectual achievements was a man whose romantic life had remained largely private for decades.
Their relationship began when Sacks was 75 and Hayes was 48. Despite a significant age difference, the two men developed a deeply affectionate partnership that continued until Sacks’s death in 2015.
The film will explore their relationship against the backdrop of New York, presenting a story about rediscovering intimacy after loss and allowing yourself to fall in love again.
Jonathan Bailey as Bill Hayes and Bill Nighy as Oliver Sacks
Bailey will portray Bill Hayes, while Nighy takes on the role of Oliver Sacks.
It is a fascinating casting decision, not least because the two actors bring remarkably different energies to the screen.
Bailey has become one of Britain’s most recognisable leading men, effortlessly moving between the romantic intensity of Bridgerton, the musical spectacle of Wicked and the emotional complexity of Fellow Travelers.
In the latter, opposite Matt Bomer, he demonstrated his ability to portray queer desire as something passionate, vulnerable, complicated and occasionally devastating.
And yes, the chemistry was rather spectacular. Anyone claiming otherwise may need their television checked.
Nighy, meanwhile, has spent decades perfecting a very particular kind of British charm. His performances often combine understated humour, emotional restraint and that wonderfully awkward elegance that makes even his smallest gestures feel meaningful.
Pairing Bailey’s intensity with Nighy’s subtlety could create something genuinely moving, particularly given the emotional and intellectual connection at the centre of Hayes and Sacks’s relationship.
The film will be directed by Dominic Cooke, whose previous work includes On Chesil Beach and The Courier. Cooke has co-written the screenplay with Hayes himself, bringing the real-life subject directly into the adaptation process.
According to Attitude’s coverage of the casting announcement, the production is being developed as an intimate portrait of grief, hope, community and second chances.
There is no confirmed release date yet, and filming details have not been formally announced.
Why Gay Love Stories Deserve to Grow Older
What makes Insomniac City particularly appealing is the kind of relationship it chooses to explore.
For years, mainstream LGBTQ+ cinema has frequently focused on coming out, first love or the painful experience of growing up queer in an unaccepting environment. Those stories remain important, and many have been beautifully told.
But queer people do not stop having meaningful romantic lives after their twenties. We fall in love in our thirties, forties, fifties and beyond. We experience long relationships, devastating break-ups, unexpected attractions, grief, new beginnings and all the complicated emotions that come with being human.
And sometimes we fall for someone considerably older or younger than ourselves.
The relationship between Hayes and Sacks challenges the idea that a gay romance must revolve around youth, physical perfection or sexual discovery to be worthy of cinematic attention.
What drew these two men together was not simply attraction, but curiosity, affection and a profound connection between two very different lives.
There is something refreshing about a film prepared to explore that complexity without treating age as an obstacle that automatically defines the relationship.
As The Gayly Mirror recently explored in our coverage of Rami Malek’s The Man I Love, queer cinema is at its most compelling when it allows LGBTQ+ characters to experience the full range of human emotions rather than reducing their stories to suffering or sexual identity.
Insomniac City appears to belong to that increasingly interesting tradition.
Jonathan Bailey Is More Than a Gay Heartthrob
It would be very easy to spend an entire article discussing Jonathan Bailey’s smile, his eyes and the frankly unreasonable way he manages to wear a suit.
Believe me, the temptation is considerable.
But Bailey’s importance extends far beyond being one of Britain’s most attractive actors.
As an openly gay performer who has achieved major mainstream success, he represents something that would have seemed much less straightforward for an earlier generation of leading men.
He has played heterosexual romantic heroes, queer characters, musical-theatre roles and major blockbuster parts without allowing his sexuality to dictate the limits of his career.
That should be entirely unremarkable. Unfortunately, Hollywood has not always made it so.
The industry has a long history of treating openly gay actors as less commercially viable romantic leads, particularly when those actors are expected to appeal to heterosexual audiences.
Bailey’s career offers a welcome challenge to that assumption.
And although the circumstances are very different, the change becomes even more striking when compared with Kerr Smith’s experiences of homophobic backlash during Dawson’s Creek, when portraying a gay character in mainstream television still attracted considerable controversy.
That progress deserves celebrating.
And if we can celebrate it while occasionally acknowledging that Bailey is absolutely gorgeous, I see no reason why anyone should object.
We contain multitudes, darling.
When Will Insomniac City Be Released?
At present, Insomniac City does not have an official cinema release date.
The project is being introduced to international buyers through Altitude, with producers and distributors developing the next stage of its journey to the screen.
The involvement of Hayes as co-writer is especially encouraging, as it suggests an opportunity to preserve the personal details and emotional authenticity of the relationship on which the film is based.
Of course, adaptations always involve creative choices, and the eventual result will depend on the performances, direction and screenplay.
But the material is certainly promising.
A remarkable real-life love story. Two exceptional British actors. A director experienced in emotionally complex drama. And New York providing the backdrop for a romance about grief, possibility and the courage to begin again.
A Love Story Worth Waiting For
There is something quietly radical about making a film that treats the love between two men, including an older gay man, as something beautiful, complex and worthy of a mainstream audience.
Not as a scandal. Not as a lesson. Not simply as a coming-out story.
Just love, in all its unexpected and occasionally heartbreaking forms.
Insomniac City has the potential to remind audiences that queer romance does not have an expiry date, and that some of the most meaningful relationships begin long after we think the best parts of life might already be behind us.
And Jonathan Bailey and Bill Nighy seem like an inspired pair to bring that story to the screen.
As for me, I shall be watching for the first trailer with considerable professional interest.
Purely professional, obviously.
Although if Jonathan Bailey happens to walk past me in London again, I cannot promise to behave any more sensibly than I did the first time.
