Sean Bean, Sally Hawkins to star in Maud Lewis film

Sean Bean is set to star with Oscar-nominated actor Sally Hawkins in a film about the life of legendary Nova Scotia folk artist Maud Lewis.

Shooting on Maudie is set to start in July in Newfoundland, the entertainment newspaper Variety reports.

Hawkins, who was nominated this year for an Academy Award for best supporting actress in Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine, will play Lewis, who lived with her husband in a tiny home for decades, often selling her artwork for little money.

She came to prominence in the years before her death in 1970, and her work is now exhibited worldwide. The tiny home she shared with her husband, Everett Lewis, is installed at the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.

Maudie, a Canadian-Irish production, will be directed by Aisling Walsh, whose credits include A Poet in New York, about doomed Welsh writer Dylan Thomas, and the miniseries Fingersmith, which starred Hawkins.

Newfoundland writer Sherry White wrote the screenplay.