Children saved from the Nazis by a British humanitarian have been invited to recreate an emotional piece of TV history for a film.
Sir Anthony Hopkins will play Sir Nicholas Winton in One Life, the story of how Sir Nicholas rescued 669 children from Czechoslovakia and brought them to Britain in 1938-39.
The tear-jerking scenes when he came face to face with some of the refugees in a 1988 episode of That’s Life have gone down in television folklore.
Film-makers have approached surviving children or their direct descendants to appear in the movie when the sequence from the Esther Rantzen BBC TV show is re-enacted.
A source said: “They want to make the scene as authentic and emotional as possible.
“It’s such an incredible story and this was an incredible moment.”
Unbeknown to Sir Nicholas, some of the children he saved were seated with him in the That’s Life audience.
The rest of the audience was made up of their children or grandchildren.
He wiped away tears as their real identities were revealed and they thanked him for saving their lives. One of them was Vera Diamant, aged 10 as the Second World War loomed, whose parents had arranged for her and an older sister to start a new life in Britain.
Vera later said: “He is the father of the biggest family in the world.
“The 669 children Nicky Winton saved have had children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. That means there are well over 5,000 of us alive today.”
Sir Anthony, 84, who became the oldest actor to win an Oscar when he won last year for The Father, was reportedly keen to play the part of Sir Nicholas.
Get all the biggest showbiz news straight to your inbox. Sign up for the free Mirror Showbiz newsletter.
Sources said at the time he signed up to play the role as a means of highlighting the Ukrainian refugee crisis.
One Life, produced by the BBC, will show how Winton, then 29, arrived in Prague in December 1938 intending to go skiing. But he changed his plans after hearing about the refugee crisis in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.
Over the following nine months, Winton organised eight trains to carry 669 children to safety in Britain.
Actor Johnny Flynn is playing the younger Winton. Sir Nicholas died in 2015 at the age of 106.
Do you have a story to sell? Get in touch with us at webcelebs@mirror.co.uk or call us direct at 0207 29 33033.
