Martin Sheen has landed a whale of a project…

The 73-year-old half-Spanish actor will star in The Whale, a two-hour film project from BBC Factual Productions and Animal Planet.

In the film, which is set to premiere in December on BBC 1 and in the summer of 2014 on Animal Planet, is based on true events.

In The Whale, Sheen portrays Old Thomas Nickerson, who served as cabin boy on the ill-fated voyage of the whaling ship the Essex.

The drama is inspired by real-life accounts of the ship’s sinking; those accounts are said to have inspired Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick.

Filming on The Whale, which was written by Terry Cafolla, took place on location in Malta this past spring and wrapped up outside of London last summer.

Sheen leads the cast as the elder Nickerson with Jonas Armstrong  as First Mate Owen Chase; Adam Rayner as Captain Pollard; Paul Kaye as Joy; David Gyasi as Peterson; and Jolyon Coy as Lawrence.

It also stars Jassa Ahluwalisa, John Boyega and Ferdinand Kingsley, as well as Charles Furness as the young Nickerson.