The Baker is a 2007 British comedy crime thriller film written and directed by Gareth Lewis and starring Damian Lewis, Kate Ashfield and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. An ex-assassin retires to a small Welsh village and opens a bakery but is unable to escape his former associates. It was known in the USA by the alternative title Assassin in Love. The film premiered at the 2007 Tremblant Film Festival, where Lewis was awarded Best Director. Plot Milo (Damian Lewis) is a dissatisfied professional assassin. Cornering his latest target at his home, Milo has a change of heart and offers the man the chance to escape and assume a new identity, only for Bjorn (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), a rival assassin working for the same organization, to arrive and kill the man anyway. Bjorn makes it clear that he plans to use Milo's lapse in protocol to have his bosses order Milo's termination; they do so, assigning the kill to Bjorn. Milo narrowly escapes Bjorn's first attack, and after a conversation with his fellow assassin and friend Leo (Michael Gambon) heads to Leo's country property in Gwynfyd (actually Grosmont, Monmouthshire), Wales to hide out while Leo works on making things safe for Milo. When attempting to bury his gun case, Milo is knocked out by the remains of an exploding sheep, detonated by the unseen Eggs (Dyfan Dwyfor), a young conspiracy theorist who steals Milo's weapons while he is unconscious. The unconscious Milo is found and taken home by Rhiannon (Kate Ashfield), local vet and part-time barmaid, who ensures he's healthy before returning him to his car. In the pub Milo meets landlord Bryn Morgan (Steve Spiers), who mistakes Milo for the village's new baker, as Leo's property is the former bakery. Not wanting to raise suspicion Milo goes along with this, and adopts the alias "Milo Shakespeare", inspired by a bust of William Shakespeare he notices on the bar. Milo stays in hiding while Bjorn attempts to track his location using a photo of the bakery left behind by Milo. With Leo's efforts taking time, Milo commits to learning to bake to fit with his inadvertent cover identity. However, unbeknownst to him, Eggs has correctly (if illogically) concluded that Milo is really an assassin, but erroneously assumes that the bakery is a front for his assassination business. Before long the rumor has spread throughout most of village, save for Rhiannon and a few others.