Gillian Anderson & Jason Isaacs Take 'The Salt Path'

Most films on housing insecurity, poverty, and homelessness follow the same playbook. People in bad situations make poor life choices and end up on the street; their inner strength and burning will to live help propel them through hardship until they pull themselves up and find their way back to some semblance of respectability and joy with a family, found or otherwise. Then there’s The Salt Path, which began life as a memoir written by Raynor Winn with the encouragement of her daughter. After initially being optioned for a stage show, the book was turned into a film, hitting theaters in the spring of 2025.

The Salt Path chronicles the six-month journey Raynor and her husband Moth took when their deteriorating health conditions and job loss led to eviction, and the couple decided to walk The South West Coast Path, which locals call “The Salt Path.” The National Trail is England’s longest waymarked long-distance footpath, running 630 miles (1,014 km) from Minehead, Somerset, down the west coast to Poole Harbour, Dorset. Gillian Anderson (The Crown) and Jason Isaacs (Archie) were cast as Raynor and Moth when the project was still a stage production but stayed with it when it changed mediums.

Anderson says the project has changed the way she views homelessness and what’s known in the U.K. as “sleeping rough.” “It changed my perspective,” she said in an interview when the project debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. 

“I was acutely aware of that shifting understanding that was happening for me in filming it, being out in nature to that degree in all versions of itself, immersing in the thought process of someone who has experienced that level of trauma, trying to reckon with it. Societally, we believe that the more money you have, the more freedom you have, and part of what they came to understand was that the biggest freedom was experienced in not having anything, not having a plan, not having a root.” 

Here's the film's synopsis:

The Salt Path is the profound true story of husband and wife Raynor and Moth Winn’s 630-mile trek along the beautiful but rugged Cornish, Devon, and Dorset coastline. After being forcibly removed from their home, they make the desperate decision to keep walking in the hope that, in nature, they will find solace and a sense of acceptance. With depleted resources and only a tent and the bare essentials between them, every step along the path is a testament to their growing strength and determination. The Salt Path is an exhilarating, challenging, and liberating journey in equal measure—a portrayal of home and how it can be lost and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.

Anderson and Isaacs are the film's only main characters, but they interact with a few people as they journey, played by Hermione Norris (Luther) and James Lance (Ted Lasso).

Marianne Elliott conceived and directed the project, which is based on Raynor Winn's best-selling memoir. Elliott initially planned to adapt The Salt Path for the stage in 2019 but converted it to film in the post-pandemic landscape, using a screenplay by Rebecca Lenkiewicz. The film was produced by Elizabeth Karlsen, Stephen Woolley, Lloyd Levin, and Beatriz Levin; the executive producers are Chris Harper, Nick Sidi, Kristin Irving, Norman Merry, Peter Hampden, and Thorsten Schumacher.

The Salt Path will premiere in the U.S. on Friday, April 25, 2025.