'You're crazy', Pope tells actor

Pope John Paul II met the actor who is going to portray him

Pope John Paul II has told an actor who is portraying him in a television drama about his life that he is "crazy".

Polish actor Piotr Adamczyk had an audience with the 84-year-old Pontiff when he made the admission.

"You're crazy to make a film about me. What did I ever do?" he said.

The actor admitted to being lost for words when he met the pontiff.

The new two-part film is being made especially for Italian television.

Moved

"I felt like a seven-year-old child", said Adamczyk, recalling the time when he first saw the Pope on an early visit to his Polish homeland.

"When I learned that the Pope would receive me I was very moved, but at the same time worried, what would I have to say to him?" said the actor.

The film, Karol Wojtyla: The Story Of A Man Who Became Pope, will be shown in two parts on Italian TV next year.

The 10m Euro (£7m) project has been largely financed Mediaset, a company owned by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The film begins in Poland with the Pope as a 10-year-old boy, and culminates with his election in 1978.