AFTER a trial run earlier this year with an hour-long video of a sleeping David Beckham, the artist Sam Taylor-Wood is to make her first full-length film: a life of the poet and painter William Blake.

The part of Blake, the writer and artist who died in 1827, will be played by Ray Winstone, best known for hard-man roles in films such as Scum and Sexy Beast.

Taylor-Wood, Winstone and the Hollywood singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson, who will play the part of God (probably as a voice-over), have been brought together by their admiration for Blake.

Kristofferson even called one of his sons Blake, while it was Winstone who persuaded Taylor-Wood of the poet’s worth.

“I can’t say I was that knowledgable about Blake when Ray told me he was keen on the film,” said Taylor-Wood, whose photographic exhibition of 28 crying actors including Winstone and Kristofferson, as well as Paul Newman, Dustin Hoffman and Jude Law, has just opened at London’s White Cube gallery, owned by her husband Jay Jopling. “In fact, I assumed Blake would be rather thin and gaunt, not the bigger figure which he was.”

Taylor-Wood, who has already directed a pop video for Sir Elton John’s song I Want Love, in addition to the Beckham video, believes she has the experience to make a film. “I’ve dealt with more actors over the past year with this photo project than were in the cast of Ben-Hur,” she said.

She is the latest of a number of Britart stars to turn to the movie camera. Tracey Emin, like Taylor-Wood a former Turner prize nominee, recently had Top Spot, her semi-autobiographical first film, shown at the London Film Festival. Censors gave it an 18 certificate because of a suicide scene.

Jake and Dinos Chapman, the brothers famous for their often horrific art, are also making their first film — a horror movie for FilmFour.

Taylor-Wood’s film will not be a straight biography of Blake, best known for writing Jerusalem and Tyger! Tyger! Burning Bright, as well as for his mystical engravings. She is intrigued by the similarities between Blake and veteran country singer Johnny Cash, nicknamed the Man in Black, who died last year.

Both men were profoundly influenced by religion. In addition, Cash never denied the role of narcotics in his life, and it is suspected — although never proved — that Blake’s visions were drug-induced.

Taylor-Wood, who was on the Turner shortlist in 1998, wants to bring Cash into her film either through his songs or possibly as a part. “I’m trying to convince Ray that he should use Cash as the blueprint for Blake,” she said. She admits she has recently become “possessed” by Cash’s spirit and plays his music.

But it will be Blake who is the driving force of the movie. “I grew up with Jerusalem,” said Winstone, who last winter played Henry VIII in ITV’s drama about the controversial king and his six wives. “Blake was always someone I wanted to find out more about.” The London-born actor is also keen to shed his tough-guy image by playing Blake.

Blake, also London-born, claimed he first met God aged four, in 1761. He married Catherine Boucher when he was 25 and taught her to read and write. “It was a very happy marriage,” said Taylor-Wood.

Kristofferson, 68, who starred with Barbra Streisand in A Star Is born, studied Blake while doing his masters degree at Oxford in the 1950s. “Blake thought if you were called by the Divine to be creative, you were obligated,” said Kristofferson. “For a young guy like me, who wanted to be creative against everybody’s advice, that was powerful stuff.”

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