At the age of 84, Oscar-winning actor Sir Anthony Hopkins is set to star in a movie about refugees with strong parallels with the current crisis in Ukraine.

The Welsh actor will play Sir Nicholas Winton, right, dubbed the “British Schindler”, in upcoming film One Life.

Sir Anthony is believed to be the oldest British actor to take a lead role in a major film.

A source within the production said the star is determined to appear to raise awareness of the plight of refugees fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The source told the Mail on Sunday: “He was first in discussions more than two years ago but when the pandemic arrived most of us thought we had lost the prospect of casting him.

“To put it politely, he is getting on in years. We feared that when, or if, the film ever got made, we would have to respect that, at 84, Anthony might not want the stress and strain of a lead role.”

One Life is due to go into production before the end of the year.

Nicholas Winton GettyImages-90338868

The “British Schindler”: Sir Nicholas Winton (Getty Images)

Winton was born to German-Jewish parents who had emigrated to Britain at the beginning of the 20th century.

He assisted in the rescue of 669 children, most of them Jewish, on trains from Czechoslovakia to Britain on the eve of the Second World War in an operation that became known as Kindertransport. He died in 2015 aged 106.