The new film, "Pride," is based largely on a true story about an atypical alliance in England three decades ago.

In 1984, British coal miners went on strike over the closure of 75 pits. It impacted everyone in the country in one way or another and almost brought the country to its knees.

The miners, themselves, were vilified and struggling financially. The lesbian and gay community also faced the public's scorn at the time. They sympathized with the miners' fight, and so they banded together with striking miners in one small town in Wales to find common ground.

"This was a group who were suffering from the prejudices of others and managed not to have any prejudices about each other," says actor Dominic West, who stars as gay activist Jonathan Blake, one of the people who teamed up with the miners.

For the role, West traveled to London to meet the real Jonathan Blake, who is living today with HIV.

"He said how he had a sense of despair at the time, and how this cause of the miners gave him something else to think about, something else to fight for that was nothing about him," West said.

"Pride" debuts in select U.S. theaters today.