Daniel Radcliffe to play Sebastian Coe in film about Olympian's rivalry with Steve Ovett Daniel Radcliffe is to play Sebastian Coe in Gold, a new film about the Olympian's rivalry with fellow athlete Steve Ovett. The former Harry Potter star will once again team up with Woman in Black director James Watkins for the film, which focuses on the years leading up to the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games, according to Screen International. Christine Langan, executive producer and head of BBC Films, said of the project: "Compelling, funny and moving, Gold is a gem of a story and BBC Films is proud to be participating in bringing it to an international audience." Shooting for the film, based on The Perfect Distance by Pat Butcher (who is a consultant on the project), will begin in the UK and Russia next April. The screenplay was penned by Oscar-winning writer Simon Beaufoy, who worked on Slumdog Millionaire, and Will Davies, the writer of children's animation How to Train Your Dragon. As a middle-distance runner, Lord Coe was a double Olympic champion, and in 1979 he set three world records in 41 days. In the early 1990s he became a Conservative politician and he received his peerage in 2000. More recently, he helped secure the 2012 Olympic Games for London as chairman of the London Organising Committee, and was presented with the Lifetime Achievement award at the BBC Sports Personality of the Year show in December. Aside from the blockbuster Harry Potter franchise, Radcliffe has enjoyed success on the West End stage in The Cripple of Inishmaan and Equus. He will soon star with James McAvoy in Paul McGuigan's Frankenstein, set for a 2015 cinema release.