'˜Wartime story of my grandfather is brilliant, moving and harrowing'

Sir Nicholas spoke out after seeing a preview of the new film Darkest Hour about the wartime dilemma facing Winston Churchill - Sir Nicholas’s grandfather - within days of his becoming Prime Minister.

“It’s the most remarkable and brilliant portrayal both of my grandfather, played by Gary Oldman, and my grandmother played by Kristen Scott Thomas.

“Looking at her, it just WAS my grandmother. It was eerie.”

The film tells how Sir Winston has to explore negotiating a peace treaty with Nazi Germany or stand firm to fight for the ideals and freedom of the nation.

“I urge everyone who remembers that story or who wants their children to know about what happened in those days in 1940 to go and see it,” said Sir Nicholas. “It is really in a class of its own and was brilliantly filmed, and so realistic, inside the cabinet war rooms. You feel as though you are there deliberating whether Britain should fight or seek arrangements with the Germans. And all that amid the Dunkirk evacuation.It was very, very moving and in places absolutely harrowing. It’s powerful stuff.”

The film will be on general release in cinemas in the UK in January.