Golden Globe winning actress Sally Hawkins says she took her latest film role because it "got her juices stirred up".

In We Want Sex, made by Nigel Cole, the director of Calendar Girls, Hawkins plays a factory worker who leads a campaign for fair treatment for women at the Ford plant in Dagenham in the 1960s.

Based on real events, the film tells the story of how the women took on the might of a giant corporation, and helped change the law on equality.

Speaking at the Cannes Film Festival, the 33-year-old said she felt passionately about the message of the film.

"It gets your juices all stirred up, and as a woman it's great," she said.

"Without these women who are protesting in the 60s there would have been no Equal Pay Act in the Seventies, and that is huge.

"It's so important and such a fight that we're still fighting today."

Bob Hoskins, Andrea Riseborough and Jaime Winstone have all signed up to the film, which is due to start shooting next month, while the makers are in talks with Miranda Richardson to play the campaigning MP Barbara Castle.

The film's title comes from an incident during one of the Dagenham demonstrations, when a banner reading "we want sex equality" failed to unfurl properly, obscuring the final word.

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