By Helen Bushby BBC News Online entertainment staff in Cannes

Rush originally turned down the role "through fear"

The Life and Death of Peter Sellers is based on a 1994 book by Roger Lewis about Sellers, as famed for playing unwitting Inspector Clouseau in the Pink Panther films as for his chequered love life and lifestyle.

Stephen Hopkins, who also directed hit TV series 24, said at Cannes Film Festival that he had asked Rush twice to play the role, after being turned down the first time.

Rush, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of tormented pianist David Helfgott in Shine in 1996, said: "It was a brilliant, original screenplay but I turned it down at first through fear", because it was such a complex role.

He added that he was eventually persuaded to take it, despite the fact it involves five hours of make-up each day to transform him into Sellers.

Sellers struggled with depression

However neither the cast nor their director would be drawn on comments that Sellers' son, Michael, had criticised the film, saying in The Times it was "based on a biography that mistook comic genius for insanity".

The movie also steers clear of touching on Sellers' ambiguous relationship with the late Princess Margaret, with whom the actor was very close.

"We didn't go for Princess Margaret in the film - there was a lot of scandal in Sellers' life," said Hopkins, adding that the Royal family "loved" hit radio show The Goons, in which Sellers starred.

The film also stars Stephen Fry as psychic Maurice Woodruff, who advised Sellers on which roles to take, according to Lewis' book.

"Woodruff was not averse to taking money from large studios who wanted Peter Sellers to do something," Fry said.

The film explores Sellers' relationships with the women in his life

Both Fry and Rush said how "passionate" they were about Peter Sellers films, with Fry adding: "He is one of the few British film actors worthy of a biopic."

The movie also features Emily Watson, Charlize Theron and Emilia Fox, and touches on Sellers' struggle with depression and, as Rush described it, "crumbling marriage and crumbling identity".

Sellers' home movies were also a source of information for the film, which is being made by HBO, which is behind hit TV shows The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and Sex and the City.

Fry is also in Cannes to promote his latest film Bright Young Things, which he directed.

Scandal

Fry describes himself as a "passionate" Sellers fan

Based on Evelyn Waugh's satirical book Vile Bodies, it is a comic look at the hedonistic lives at the centre of the Mayfair social scene in 1930s London.

Fry, who adapted the screenplay, told BBC News Online: "It was the generation in the 1930s when the gossip column was invented and Waugh wrote about the effect it had on others.

"It's impossible not to make parallels with modern celebrity - It Girls who love being photographed by the paparazzi, scandal, exposures."

The film's stellar cast includes Dame Judi Dench, Sir John Mills, Peter O'Toole, Jim Broadbent, Dan Ackroyd and Stockard Channing.