Emmerich and Orloff put De Vere at the heart of their story as a nobleman forced to keep his identity a secret as he writes the plays that grip an Elizabethan society riven by intrigue and plots over who will succeed Queen Elizabeth 1 to the throne.

In their capable hands, Anonymous becomes a gripping thriller as De Vere uses William Shakespeare as a shield to conceal his secret and ultimately take claim for a remarkable body of work that has endured for centuries.

“Through my research I became one of these people who believes that the Man from Stratford didn’t write that amazing body of work,” says Emmerich. “And there’s a very strong theory that Oxford did and we use that in our film.”