How I Live Now starts filming

After a number of years in development, principal photography has begun on Kevin Macdonald’s adaptation of Meg Rosoff’s multi-award-winning novel How I Live Now, which will shoot for eight weeks in England and Wales.

As already announced, Saoirse Ronan stars as Daisy, George Mackay as Edmond, and Tom Holland as Isaac. George and Tom are two of this year's Screen International Stars of Tomorrow.

Joining them will be 10 year old Harley Bird (represented by AlphabetKidz) as Piper, Daisy's young cousin with whom she is forced to flee, after world war three breaks out.

Last year, Harley became the youngest person to win a BAFTA, aged nine, as she is the voice behind Peppa Pig, the loveable cartoon piglet that has taken the pre-school world by storm. Harley is from Buckinghamshire and uses the stage surname Bird after her nickname as a baby. She has been voicing the popular role of Peppa Pig for 4 years, and first got the role within weeks of auditioning for Alphabet Kidz Agency in 2008.

Daisy (Ronan), a teenager from New York, is sent to the English countryside for the summer to stay with cousins. She soon immerses herself in a dreamy pastoral idyll as she falls madly in love with Eddie (MacKay), until their perfect summer is blown apart by the sudden outbreak of a 21st century world war. Along with Eddie’s younger siblings, Isaac (Tom Holland) and Piper (Bird), they are left in isolation and forced to fend for themselves. When they are violently separated Daisy must embark on a terrifying journey in order to be reunited with the boy she loves. Eddie is never far from Daisy’s mind but as her journey to find him becomes more desperate, the idea of what she may or may not find consumes her consciousness and haunts her soul.