Cast announced for War Horse film

Young theatre actor Jeremy Irvine will play the lead role of Albert in Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of War Horse.

The box-office hit play (pictured) has been converted for film by Richard Curtis and Lee Hall and is set to be filmed in the UK in August.

Other actors to feature on the cast list include Oscar-nominee Emily Watson (who will play Albert’s mother), fellow Brits David Thewlis, Peter Mullan and Benedict Cumberbatch, and German actor David Kross who starred alongside Oscar-winner Kate Winslet in The Reader.

Stunt rider Daniel Naprous has been signed to help train the horses for the film.

War Horse — originally a children’s book about a horse caught in fighting in the First World War — first appeared in the West End in 2007 and has returned for a second run, showing at the New London Theatre until October 2011.

The film is set for release in 2011.

Stay in touch with all the news in the run-up to and throughout the major shows and events during 2026 and beyond with a Horse & Hound subscription. Subscribe today for all you need to know ahead of these major events, plus online reports on the action as it happens from our expert team of reporters and in-depth analysis in our special commemorative magazines. Have a subscription already? Set up your unlimited website access now