James Nesbitt
Encyclopedia
James Nesbitt is a Northern Irish actor. Born in Ballymena
, County Antrim
, Nesbitt grew up in the nearby village of Broughshane
, before moving to Coleraine
, County Londonderry
. He wanted to become a teacher like his father, so he began a degree in French at the University of Ulster
. He dropped out after a year when he decided to become an actor, and transferred to the Central School of Speech and Drama
in London. After graduating in 1987, he spent seven years performing in plays that varied from the musical Up on the Roof (1987, 1989) to the political drama Paddywack (1994). He made his feature film debut playing talent agent
Fintan O'Donnell in Hear My Song
(1991).
Nesbitt got his breakthrough television role playing Adam Williams in the romantic comedy-drama Cold Feet
(1998–2003), which won him a British Comedy Award
, a Television and Radio Industries Club Award
, and a National Television Award
. His first significant film role came when he appeared as pig farmer "Pig" Finn in Waking Ned
(1998). With the rest of the starring cast, Nesbitt was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award
. In Lucky Break
(2001), he made his debut as a film lead playing prisoner Jimmy Hands. The next year, he played Ivan Cooper
in the television film Bloody Sunday, about the 1972 shootings in Derry
. A departure from his previous "cheeky chappie" roles, the film was a turning point in his career. He won a British Independent Film Award
and was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor
.
Nesbitt has also starred in Murphy's Law
(2001–2007) as undercover detective Tommy Murphy—a role that was created for him by writer Colin Bateman
. The role twice gained Nesbitt Best Actor nominations at the Irish Film & Television Awards
(IFTA). In 2007, he starred in the dual role of Tom Jackman and Mr Hyde in Steven Moffat
's Jekyll, which earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination in 2008. Nesbitt has since appeared in several more dramatic roles; he starred alongside Liam Neeson
in Five Minutes of Heaven
(2009), and was one of three lead actors in the television miniseries Occupation
(2009) and The Deep
(2010). He also starred in the movies Outcast (2010) and Emilio Estevez
's The Way
(2011), and has been cast in Peter Jackson
's The Hobbit (2012/13).
Nesbitt is married to former actress Sonia Forbes-Adam, with whom he has two daughters. He is a patron of numerous charities and in 2010 accepted the ceremonial position of Chancellor
of the University of Ulster
.
, County Antrim
, Northern Ireland
. His father, James "Jim" Nesbitt, was the headmaster of the primary school in Lisnamurrican, a hamlet near Broughshane
, while his mother, May Nesbitt, was a civil servant. Jim and May already had three daughters—Margaret, Kathryn and Andrea. The family lived in the house adjoining the one-room school where Nesbitt was one of 32 pupils taught by Jim; the other pupils were all farmers' children. Nesbitt grew up "completely" around women, and spent a lot of time alone, "kicking a ball against a wall". He had ambitions to play football for Manchester United
, or to become a teacher like his father. The family was Ulster Presbyterian
, and Lisnamurrican was in "Paisley
country". The Nesbitts spent Sunday evenings singing hymns around the piano. Jim marched in the Ballymena Young Conquerors flute band and Nesbitt joined him playing the flute. After the Drumcree conflict
s, they stopped marching with the band. The family's residence in the countryside left them largely unaffected by The Troubles
, although Nesbitt, his father, and one of his sisters narrowly escaped a car bomb explosion outside of Ballymena County Hall in the early 1970s.
When Nesbitt was 11 years old, the family moved to Coleraine
, County Londonderry
, where May worked for the Housing Executive
. He completed his primary education at Blagh primary school, then moved on to Coleraine Academical Institution
(CAI). In 1978, when he was 13, his parents took him to audition for the Riverside Theatre
's Christmas production of Oliver!
. Nesbitt sang "Bohemian Rhapsody
" at the audition and won the part of the Artful Dodger, who he played in his acting debut. He continued to act and sing with the Riverside until he was 16, and appeared at festivals and as an extra in Play For Today: The Cry (Christopher Menaul
, 1984). He got his Equity card when the professional actor playing Jiminy Cricket
in Pinocchio
broke his ankle two days before the performance, and Nesbitt stepped in to take his place. Acting had not initially appealed to him, but he "felt a light go on" after he saw The Winslow Boy
(Anthony Asquith
, 1948). When he was 15, he got his first paid job as a bingo caller at Barry's Amusements
in Portrush
. He was paid £1 per hour for the summer job and would also, on occasions, work as the brake man on the big dipper.
He left CAI at the age of 18 and began a degree in French at Ulster Polytechnic
in Jordanstown
. He stayed at university for a year before dropping out. In a 1999 interview, Nesbitt said, "I had the necessary in my head, but I just couldn't be bothered. Being 18 is the worst age to expect people to learn things. There are other things to be bothered with, like girls and football." He made the decision to quit when he was trying to write an overdue essay on existentialism in Les Mains Sales
at 4 a.m. one day. His father suggested that he should move to England
if he wanted to continue acting, so Nesbitt enrolled at the Central School of Speech and Drama
(CSSD) in London
. Nesbitt felt lost and misrepresented when he first arrived in London, on account of his Northern Irish background; "When I first came to drama school I was a Paddy the minute I walked in. And I remember going to drama school and them all saying to me, 'Aww, yeah, Brits out', and I was like 'It's a wee bit more complicated than that, you know.'" He graduated in 1987, at the age of 22.
Screen Two television play about the life of John Ogdon
. He worked for two days on the play, earning £250 per day. His first professional stage appearance came in the same year, when he played Keith in Up on the Roof. The musical ran at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth
, before transferring to the London West End. Nesbitt reprised the role when the production returned to Plymouth in early 1989. Roger Malone in The Stage and Television Today
wrote that Nesbitt "steals the show with the best lines and best delivery as he laconically squares up to life with an easy contentment". Nesbitt appeared in two other plays in 1989; in June, he played Dukes Frederick and Senior in Paul Jepson's As You Like It
at the Rose Theatre Club, and then appeared in Yuri Lyubimov
's version of Hamlet
. Hamlet had been translated back to English from Boris Pasternak
's Russian translation. It ran at the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester
for a month before a transfer to the Old Vic
and then a nine-month world tour. Nesbitt played Guildenstern, Barnardo and the second gravedigger. He recalled that the play received "shocking" reviews, but was exciting.
In the early 1990s, he lived with fellow actor Jerome Flynn
and earned money by signing fan mail for the successful star of Soldier Soldier
. In his debut feature film, Hear My Song
(Peter Chelsom
, 1991), Nesbitt played Fintan O'Donnell, a struggling theatrical agent and friend of Mickey O'Neill (Adrian Dunbar
). A New York Times
critic wrote, "the jaunty, bemused Mr. Nesbitt, manages to combine soulfulness with sly humor". The praise he received made him self-assured and complacent; in 2001, he recalled, "When I did Hear My Song, I disappeared so far up my own arse afterwards. I thought, 'Oh, that's it, I've cracked it.' And I'm glad that happened, because you then find out how expendable actors are." His attitude left him out of work for six months after the film was released. Until 1994, he mixed his stage roles with supporting roles on television in episodes of Boon
, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
, Covington Cross
, Lovejoy
, and Between the Lines. In 1993, he appeared in Love Lies Bleeding, an instalment of the BBC anthology series Screenplay and his first appearance in a production directed by Michael Winterbottom
; he later appeared in Go Now
(1995), Jude
(1996) and Welcome to Sarajevo
(1997). A Guardian
journalist wrote that "he showed himself to be a generous supporting actor" in Jude and Sarajevo.
Back on stage, he appeared as Doalty in Translations
(Gwenda Hughes, Birmingham Repertory Theatre
, 1991), Aidan in Una Pooka (Mark Lambert and Nicholas Kent, Tricycle Theatre
, 1992), Damien in Paddywack (Michael Latimer, Cockpit Theatre
, 1994), and Jesus in Darwin's Flood (Simon Stokes, Bush Theatre
, 1994). Paddywack, in which Nesbitt's character is suspected by others of being an IRA
member, transferred to the United States for a run at the Long Wharf Theatre
in New Haven, Connecticut
in October 1994. A Variety
critic called Damien "the play's only fully developed character" and commended Nesbitt for giving "the one strong, telling performance [of the cast]". In 1996, Nesbitt appeared in an episode of the BBC Northern Ireland
television drama Ballykissangel
, playing Leo McGarvey, the ex-boyfriend of Assumpta Fitzgerald (Dervla Kirwan
) and love rival of Peter Clifford (Stephen Tompkinson
). He reprised the role for four episodes in 1998.
, an ITV Comedy Premiere
about three couples in different stages of their romantic relationships. The audition came about through a mutual friend of Nesbitt's and the director, Declan Lowney
. The producer, Christine Langan
, had also recalled his performances in Hear My Song and Go Now. Adam had not been written with an Irishman in mind to play him—English writer Mike Bullen
had written the character as a thinly-veiled portrayal of himself in his youth—but Nesbitt wanted to take the opportunity to appear in a contemporary drama as an ordinary man from Northern Ireland with no connection to the Troubles, especially after the Troubles-based plot of Love Lies Bleeding. Cold Feet was a critical success; it won the 1997 Golden Rose of Montreux and the 1997 British Comedy Award
for Best ITV Comedy and was thus commissioned for a full series. Cold Feet
s first series aired at the end of 1998 and was followed by the second series in 1999. A storyline in that series featured Adam being diagnosed with testicular cancer
, which inspired Nesbitt to become a patron of the charity Action Cancer. By the time of the third series, Nesbitt and the other cast members were able to influence the show's production; an episode featuring Adam's stag weekend was due to be filmed on location in Dublin but Nesbitt suggested it be filmed in Belfast
and Portrush instead. Several scenes were filmed at his old workplace Barry's Amusements, although they were cut from the broadcast episode. At the end of the fourth series in 2001, Nesbitt decided to quit to move on to other projects. Executive producer Andy Harries
persuaded him to stay for one more series by suggesting that Adam be killed off, so Nesbitt signed on for the fifth series. During pre-production of the fifth series, Mike Bullen decided to kill off Adam's wife Rachel (played by Helen Baxendale
) instead.
Cold Feet ran for five years from 1998 to 2003, and Nesbitt won the British Comedy Award for Best TV Comedy Actor in 2000, the Television and Radio Industries Club Award
for Drama TV Performer of the Year in 2002, the National Television Award
for Most Popular Comedy Performance in 2003, and the TV Quick Award
for Best Actor in 2003. Nesbitt credits the role with raising his profile with the public. Further television roles during these five years included women's football team coach John Dolan in the first two series of Kay Mellor
's Playing the Field
(appearing alongside his Cold Feet co-star John Thomson), investigative journalists Ryan and David Laney in Resurrection Man (Marc Evans
, 1998) and Touching Evil II
respectively, and womaniser Stanley in Women Talking Dirty
(Coky Giedroyc
, 1999).
Nesbitt's performance in Hear My Song had also impressed first-time screenwriter and film director Kirk Jones, who cast him in his 1998 feature film Waking Ned
. Playing amiable pig farmer "Pig" Finn brought Nesbitt to international attention, particularly in the United States (where the film was released as Waking Ned Devine); the cast was nominated for the 1999 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Theatrical Motion Picture. In 1999, he appeared as the paramilitary "Mad Dog" Billy Wilson in The Most Fertile Man in Ireland (Dudi Appleton
). The following year, he appeared in Declan Lowney's feature debut, Wild About Harry. Lowney had personally asked him to appear in the supporting role of cross-dressing Unionist
politician Walter Adair. In 2001, he made his debut as a lead actor in a feature film in Peter Cattaneo
's Lucky Break
. He played Jimmy Hands, an incompetent bank robber who masterminds an escape from a prison by staging a musical as a distraction. On preparing for the role, Nesbitt said, "Short of robbing a bank there wasn't much research I could have done but we did spend a day in Wandsworth Prison and that showed the nightmare monotony of prisoners' lives. I didn't interview any of the inmates because I thought it would be a little patronising as it was research for a comedy and also because we were going home every night in our fancy cars to sleep in our fancy hotels." The film was a commercial failure, despite receiving good feedback from test audiences in the United States.
, who wanted him to star in a television drama he was making about the 1972 "Bloody Sunday" shootings
in Derry. Nesbitt was only seven years old when the shootings happened and was ignorant of its cause; he believed that there was "no smoke without fire" and that the Catholic marchers must have done something to provoke the British Army. He was filming Cold Feet in Manchester when he received the script. He read it and found that had "an extraordinary effect" on him. Nesbitt played Ivan Cooper
in Bloody Sunday, the man who pressed for the march to go ahead. To prepare for the role, Nesbitt met with Cooper and spent many hours talking to him about his motives on that day. He met with relatives of the victims and watched the televised Bloody Sunday Inquiry
with them, and also read Don Mullan
's Eyewitness Bloody Sunday and Peter Pringle and Philip Jacobson's Those Are Real Bullets, Aren't They?. Greengrass compared Nesbitt's preparation to an athlete preparing for a race, and told The Observer, "For an Irish actor, doing the Troubles is like doing Lear." Nesbitt had questioned whether he was a good enough actor to effectively portray Cooper and was worried what Derry Catholics would think of a Protestant playing the lead.
Shortly before Bloody Sunday was broadcast, Nesbitt described it as "difficult but extraordinary" and "emotionally draining". The broadcast on ITV in January 2002 and its promotion did not pass without incident; he was criticised by Unionists for saying that Protestants in Northern Ireland felt "a collective guilt" over the killings. His parents' home was also vandalised and he received death threats. During the awards season, Nesbitt won the British Independent Film Award
for Best Performance by an Actor in a British Independent Film and was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor
. The film was also screened at film festivals such as the Stockholm International Film Festival
, where Nesbitt was presented with the Best Actor award.
In an analysis of the film in the History & Memory journal, Aileen Blaney opined that it is Nesbitt's real-life household name status that made his portrayal of Cooper such a success. She reasoned that Nesbitt's celebrity status mirrors that of Cooper's in the 1970s: "A household name across Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, Nesbitt's widespread popular appeal is emphatically not contingent upon his Protestant Ulster identity, and consequently the double-voicing of the character he plays does not alienate viewers of an alternative, or no, sectarian persuasion." Guardian journalist Susie Steiner suggested that his appearance in Bloody Sunday was an attempt to resolve the expression of his "Irishness" on screen: "Where he has taken part in a sectarian theme, his intelligence as an actor has often been masked by an excessive, cartoon-style comedy. Yet in his more successful, high-profile roles, (notably in Cold Feet, and as Pig Finn in the gently pastoral film Waking Ned), Nesbitt's Irishness has been exploited for its romantic charm. It has been sugared and, in the process, de-politicised." A critic identified Bloody Sunday as Nesbitt's "coming of age" film, and Nesbitt called it a turning point in his career. He refers to his career since the film was released as "post-Bloody Sunday".
, after starring in a successful pilot episode in 2001. The series was conceived when Nesbitt was working on Playing the Field; he and producer Greg Brenman approached author Colin Bateman
about creating a television series for Nesbitt in a similar vein to Bateman's Dan Starkey novels. Bateman and Nesbitt were already well acquainted; Nesbitt had been considered for a main role in Divorcing Jack
(David Caffrey
, 1998), based on Bateman's original novel. A 90-minute pilot of Murphy's Law was commissioned by the BBC, initially as a "comedy action adventure". Bateman created a complex backstory for Murphy, which was cut at the request of the producers. After the broadcast of the pilot, Guardian critic Gareth McLean wrote, "the likeable James Nesbitt turned in a strong, extremely watchable central performance, though rarely did he look taxed by his efforts, and his chemistry with [Claudia] Harrison was promising and occasionally electric." In 2003, Nesbitt won the Irish Film & Television Award
(IFTA) for Best Actor in a TV Drama for the role. The second series was broadcast in 2004.
By 2005, Nesbitt had become tired of the formula and threatened to quit unless the structure of the series was changed. He was made a creative consultant and suggested that Murphy keep one undercover role for a full series, instead of changing into a new guise every episode. This new dramatic element to the series was intended to make it a closer representation of real-life undercover work. Alongside his research with former undercover officer Peter Bleksley, Nesbitt hired a personal trainer and grew a handlebar moustache
to change Murphy's physical characteristics and tone down the "cheeky chappie" persona that the audience had become accustomed to from his roles. With his trainer, he worked out three times a week, boxing and doing circuits and weights. After the first new episode was broadcast, Sarah Vine wrote in The Times, "In the past, when attempting a nasty stare or a hard face, Nesbitt has never managed much more than a faintly quizzical look, hilarity forever threatening to break out behind those twinkly Irish eyes. But here, it's different. He genuinely has the air of a man who means business." The refreshed series marked another milestone in Nesbitt's career; he describes it as "a big moment" in his life. Murphy's Law was not recommissioned for a sixth series, which Nesbitt attributed to the damage done to the fifth series ratings when it was scheduled opposite the popular ITV drama Doc Martin
.
In March 2004, he appeared in Tony Marchant's Passer By
, playing Joe Keyes, a man who witnesses a woman being accosted by some men on a train and chooses not to help. Keyes later discovers that the woman was raped but cannot bring himself to admit in court that he did nothing to help her. Nesbitt described Keyes as "like a better man than me: a good father and husband. But, once he has made a wrong decision, he can't control everything in his life, as he thinks he is weak. He loses the respect of his wife, his son and at work, and has to reach the lowest possible point before finding redemption." As a result of these serious roles, he was named the sixth most powerful figure in TV drama in a listing compiled by industry experts for the Radio Times
. In September 2004, he starred as Jack Parlabane in the ITV adaptation of Christopher Brookmyre
's Quite Ugly One Morning
. The producers originally wanted Scottish actor Douglas Henshall
to play Glaswegian Parlabane but ITV executives overruled them and cast Nesbitt. He was given coaching to perfect the accent but it was soon discarded on the advice of both the director and his co-star Daniela Nardini
. Also in 2004, he filmed the roles of Ronnie Cunningham in Millions
(Danny Boyle
, 2004), and Detective Banner in Match Point
(Woody Allen
, 2005). He was considering taking time off from acting and did not really want the role in Match Point. He sent in an audition tape and was accepted for the part. Nesbitt's character appears at the end of the film and he read only that part of the script, so did not know the full circumstances of the crime Banner investigates. Despite his initial reluctance, Nesbitt enjoyed working with Allen, and complimented him on his directing style.
Nesbitt returned to theatre acting in June 2005 when he appeared in David Nicholls
' After Sun, a ten-minute-play performed as part of the Old Vic
's 24-Hour Play season. Nesbitt and Catherine Tate
starred as a married couple who meet a pair of newlyweds returning from their honeymoon. Later that year, he appeared in his first full-length play in 11 years, in Owen McCafferty
's Shoot the Crow. He enjoyed the stimulation of learning his lines and rehearsing with the cast and director. The play opened at the Trafalgar Studios in September 2005 and his role as Socrates gained mixed reviews. In The Independent, Michael Coveney suggested the role did not fit the actor: "Nesbitt is cool. But I never felt that he was inside his role of a chap called Socrates [...] He grinned and shrugged through the evening which steadily became less about grouting on tiles and more about grating on nerves." In The Daily Telegraph, Charles Spencer
described Nesbitt's acting as "outstanding".
to discuss a new series of Murphy's Law. At the meeting's conclusion, Tranter offered Nesbitt the first episode script of Jekyll, a television series by Steven Moffat
that updated Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Nesbitt spent three hours reading the script before accepting the role of Tom Jackman—and his alter-ego Mr Hyde. After signing on for the role, he met with Moffat and Hartswood Films
executive producer Beryl Vertue
to discuss the character, and had several make-up tests. His anticipation for the part was heightened because filming was not scheduled to begin until September 2006. Nesbitt spent an hour each day being made up as Hyde; a wig altered his hairline and prosthetics were added to his chin, nose and ear lobes. He also wore black contact lenses to make Hyde "soulless", though CGI was used to show the transformation from Jackman in close-ups. The series was broadcast on BBC One in June and July 2007. The role secured him a nomination from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association
for the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television, and a nomination for the Rose d'Or for Best Entertainer.
In 2008, he portrayed Pontius Pilate
in The Passion
, a BBC/HBO adaptation of the last week in the life of Jesus
. He had originally rejected the script due to other filming commitments, but accepted the role after his agent told him to re-read it before making a final decision. He was pleased to learn that the serial was being produced by Nigel Stafford-Clark
, whose Bleak House adaptation he had enjoyed, and that he would be appearing with his Jekyll co-star Denis Lawson
. Contrary to previous portrayals of Pilate, Nesbitt played the biblical figure as "nice", and—as when playing Jack Parlabane—used his own accent. The serial was broadcast in the UK during Easter week 2008. Shortly after filming The Passion, he filmed the part of journalist Max Raban in the Carnival Films
thriller Midnight Man
, which was shown on ITV in May 2008. It won him a joint nomination (along with the 2007 series of Murphy's Law) for the ITV3 Crime Thriller Award for Best Actor
. At the end of the year, he had a starring role in the low-budget independent film Blessed
. The writer and director Mark Aldridge scripted the character of Peter with Nesbitt in mind to play him. The film had a limited release throughout 2008 and 2009 before the BBC screened it on television in 2010. Nesbitt said, "The role of Peter is what I have dreamed about playing, you wait your whole life for an opportunity like this and when it comes you have to grab it."
The following year, Nesbitt co-starred with Liam Neeson
in the fact-based television film Five Minutes of Heaven
(Oliver Hirschbiegel
, 2009). The first part of the film dramatises the real-life murder of Jim Griffin by Alistair Little in 1970s Lurgan
; the second part features a fictional meeting between Little (Neeson) and Jim's brother Joe (Nesbitt) 33 years later. Nesbitt met with Griffin before filming began to learn about how his brother's murder affected him. The film was broadcast on BBC Two in April 2009. He also starred as Colour Sgt. Mike Swift in Peter Bowker
's three-part BBC/Kudos television serial Occupation
. In Occupation, set over six years, Nesbitt's character is one of three British soldiers who return to Basra
, Iraq
after their tours have concluded. He researched the role by speaking to Territorial Army soldiers in Belfast, and RAF
officers in Morocco, where the serial was filmed. Both performances were commended by Independent journalist Hugh Montgomery; in a review of 2009's television, Montgomery named Nesbitt "Face of the Year", writing, "Just as you had James Nesbitt written off as the gurning embodiment of everything mediocre about British TV drama, he produced two stonking performances, as the transfixingly harrowed sergeant in Occupation, and a nervily vengeful victim's relative in Irish-troubles piece Five Minutes of Heaven. Give the man a Bafta." Nesbitt was not nominated for a BAFTA award, though did receive a nomination for Best Actor from the Broadcasting Press Guild
for both performances.
was restricting roles in British television. He continued to be represented in the United Kingdom by Artists Rights Group. The next year Nesbitt played the hunter Cathal in the low-budget British horror film Outcast, which was a departure from his previous character types. After screening at major international film festivals in early 2010, the film had a general release in the latter part of the year. Nesbitt had previously worked with the film's director and co-writer Colm McCarthy on Murphy's Law, which was one reason he took the role. He researched the mythical aspects of the character by reading about Irish folklore and beliefs. He also starred alongside Minnie Driver
and his Welcome to Sarajevo co-star Goran Višnjić
in the Tiger Aspect television serial The Deep
. In the five-part drama, Nesbitt played submarine engineer Clem Donnelly. The serial was filmed over 12 weeks at BBC Scotland
's studios in Dumbarton. August 2010 saw the release of Nadia Tass
's film Matching Jack
, in which Nesbitt plays the leading role of Connor. He became involved in the film after reading an early script draft in 2006. In 2008, the global financial crisis severely reduced the budget of the film, and Nesbitt volunteered a reduction in his salary so the film could still be made. The film was shot over eight weeks in Melbourne
in 2009 and released in 2010.
Next, Nesbitt reunited with Occupation screenwriter Peter Bowker to star in the ITV medical drama series Monroe
, playing Gabriel Monroe. Nesbitt was Bowker's first choice for the part. Nesbitt researched the role of the neurosurgeon
character by watching brain surgery being performed by Henry Marsh
, and by consulting Philip Van Hille at Leeds General Infirmary
. The series was filmed over 12 weeks in Leeds at the end of 2010 and broadcast on ITV during March and April 2011. Nesbitt will reprise the role in a second series, which is due to begin production in 2012. In film, Nesbitt co-stars as Irish writer Jack in Emilio Estevez
's drama The Way
, alongside Martin Sheen
, Deborah Kara Unger
, and Yorick van Wageningen
, and has a role as Sicinius in Ralph Fiennes
' contemporary Shakespeare adaptation Coriolanus
.
Alongside many other British and Irish actors, Nesbitt was cast in Peter Jackson
's two-part film The Hobbit, as the dwarf Bofur. Nesbitt had not read J.R.R. Tolkien's novel
but accepted the role immediately. As the film is scheduled to take over 12 months to make in New Zealand
, Nesbitt's wife and daughters moved with him, and his daughters were enrolled in a New Zealand school. Filming commenced in March 2011. The two films are scheduled for release in late 2012 and 2013 respectively.
that saw him spend two weeks in Las Vegas
at the National Finals Rodeo
and the Miss Rodeo America pageant. In 2007, he was the guest host of an episode of the late-night Channel 4
comedy The Friday Night Project
. As a film awards presenter, he hosted the IFTA Awards ceremony for three consecutive years between 2005 and 2007, the British Independent Film Awards
from 2005 to 2010, and the National Movie Awards
in 2008 and 2010. In 2009, he hosted the Laurence Olivier Awards.
An amateur golfer since his teenage years, Nesbitt joined the European team for Sky One's All*Star Cup in 2005 and 2006. He signed up to a series of high-profile television advertisements for the Yell Group
in 2003, playing a hapless character called James for the company's Yellow Pages
campaign until 2006. Times writer Andrew Billen noted that the adverts "cost him some credibility" but Nesbitt was pleased with the money he made from them. In 2004, he joined the supergroup
Twisted X to produce "Born in England", an unofficial anthem for the England national football team
's entry in the UEFA Euro 2004 tournament. His vocals have also appeared in Lucky Break and an episode of Cold Feet. The song he performed in the latter—"(Love Is) The Tender Trap
"—was released on one of the series' soundtrack albums. He also contributed vocals to the Waking Ned soundtrack. A fan of Northern Irish band Ash
, he made a cameo in their unreleased film Slashed
. In 2009, he starred in the music video for "The Day I Died
", a single by English dance-pop artist Just Jack
. Nesbitt was recommended to Just Jack by Elton John
.
, and Amanda Brunker
, a former Miss Ireland
. Commenting on the publication of details about his personal life, Nesbitt has said he feared that he would lose his marriage, though the exposing of his "dual life" allowed him to "take a long and considered look" at himself.
Nesbitt is a patron of Wave, a charity set up to support those traumatised by the Troubles
. The charity faced closure due to funding problems before Nesbitt encouraged celebrities and artists to become involved. Since 2005, he has been a UNICEF UK
ambassador, working with HIV and AIDS sufferers, and former child soldiers in Africa. He describes the role as "a privilege". Writing in The Independent about his visit to Zambia
in 2006, Nesbitt concluded that the children he met were owed a social and moral responsibility. The article was described in the Evening Standard
as "moving and notably well-crafted". Since 1999, he has been a patron of Action Cancer, a result of both his father's affliction with prostate cancer and a storyline in the second series of Cold Feet, where his character suffered testicular cancer. He has been an honorary patron of Youth Lyric, one of Ireland's largest theatre schools, since 2007.
He is a fan of football teams Coleraine
and Manchester United
. In 2003, Nesbitt made a donation of "thousands of pounds" to Coleraine, after the team came close to bankruptcy. He has called the team "a heartbeat" of Coleraine and encouraged more people to watch Irish League
football. Nesbitt was a vocal opponent of Malcolm Glazer
's 2005 takeover of Manchester United, though after he did television advertisements promoting executive boxes at Old Trafford
to which he was criticised by fans. To counter the criticism, he pledged one half of his £10,000 fee to the Manchester United Supporters' Trust
and the other half to UNICEF.
In March 2010, Nesbitt accepted the ceremonial position of Chancellor
of the University of Ulster, succeeding former Lord Mayor of London
Sir Richard Nichols. Gerry Mallon, the chair of the university ruling council, expected Nesbitt to "bring considerable energy, dynamism and commitment" to the post. Following his official installation on 8 June 2010, Nesbitt said, "Rather than being just an informal role officiating at ceremonies, I think I can act as an ambassador. I have access to an awful lot of people and places because of my work. I hope to be a voice that can be heard, not just at the university, but also outside promoting the importance of the funding of education. If that involves me being at Stormont, then I'd be very happy to do that. Clearly these public spending cuts are going to have an impact and it's important to fight for funding because it's about investing in students and investing in the future of Northern Ireland. I believe I can bring something to that, otherwise I wouldn't have taken this on."
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, County Antrim
County Antrim
County Antrim is one of six counties that form Northern Ireland, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of 2,844 km², with a population of approximately 616,000...
, Nesbitt grew up in the nearby village of Broughshane
Broughshane
Broughshane is a village within the Borough of Ballymena in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is northeast of Ballymena and north of Antrim, on the A42 road. It had a population of 2,364 at the 2001 Census....
, before moving to Coleraine
Coleraine
Coleraine is a large town near the mouth of the River Bann in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It is northwest of Belfast and east of Derry, both of which are linked by major roads and railway connections...
, County Londonderry
County Londonderry
The place name Derry is an anglicisation of the old Irish Daire meaning oak-grove or oak-wood. As with the city, its name is subject to the Derry/Londonderry name dispute, with the form Derry preferred by nationalists and Londonderry preferred by unionists...
. He wanted to become a teacher like his father, so he began a degree in French at the University of Ulster
University of Ulster
The University of Ulster is a multi-campus, co-educational university located in Northern Ireland. It is the largest single university in Ireland, discounting the federal National University of Ireland...
. He dropped out after a year when he decided to become an actor, and transferred to the Central School of Speech and Drama
Central School of Speech and Drama
The Central School of Speech and Drama was founded in London in 1906 by Elsie Fogerty to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students...
in London. After graduating in 1987, he spent seven years performing in plays that varied from the musical Up on the Roof (1987, 1989) to the political drama Paddywack (1994). He made his feature film debut playing talent agent
Talent agent
A talent agent, or booking agent, is a person who finds jobs for actors, authors, film directors, musicians, models, producers, professional athletes, writers and other people in various entertainment businesses. Having an agent is not required, but does help the artist in getting jobs...
Fintan O'Donnell in Hear My Song
Hear My Song
Hear My Song is a 1991 film, written by the actors Peter Chelsom and Adrian Dunbar , based on the story of Irish tenor Josef Locke...
(1991).
Nesbitt got his breakthrough television role playing Adam Williams in the romantic comedy-drama Cold Feet
Cold Feet
Cold Feet is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV network. The series was created and principally written by Mike Bullen as a follow-up to his award-winning 1997 Comedy Premiere of the same name. The storyline follows three couples experiencing the...
(1998–2003), which won him a British Comedy Award
British Comedy Awards
The British Comedy Awards is an annual awards ceremony in the United Kingdom celebrating notable comedians and entertainment performances of the previous year.-History:...
, a Television and Radio Industries Club Award
Television and Radio Industries Club
The Television and Radio Industries Club is a British institution chartered in 1931 to "promote goodwill in the television and radio industries"...
, and a National Television Award
National Television Awards
The National Television Awards is a British television awards ceremony, broadcast by the ITV network and initiated in 1995. The National Television Awards are the most prominent ceremony for which the results are voted on by the general public. Because of the way the awards are decided, winners are...
. His first significant film role came when he appeared as pig farmer "Pig" Finn in Waking Ned
Waking Ned
Waking Ned is a 1998 comedy film by English writer and director Kirk Jones. It stars Ian Bannen, David Kelly and Fionnula Flanagan. Kelly was nominated for a Screen Actors' Guild award for his role as Michael O'Sullivan. The film is set in Ireland but was filmed on location in the Isle of Man...
(1998). With the rest of the starring cast, Nesbitt was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award
Screen Actors Guild Awards
A Screen Actors Guild Award is an accolade given by the Screen Actors Guild to recognize outstanding performances by its members. The statuette given, a nude male figure holding both a mask of comedy and a mask of tragedy, is called "The Actor"...
. In Lucky Break
Lucky Break
Lucky Break is a 2001 British comedy film starring James Nesbitt and directed by Peter Cattaneo.-Synopsis:Feelgood prison-escape movie that sees a group of prison inmates , put on a theatrical show of Nelson: The Musical to cover their daring break-out attempt...
(2001), he made his debut as a film lead playing prisoner Jimmy Hands. The next year, he played Ivan Cooper
Ivan Cooper
Ivan Averill Cooper is a former politician from Northern Ireland who was a Member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, and founding member of the SDLP...
in the television film Bloody Sunday, about the 1972 shootings in Derry
Bloody Sunday (1972)
Bloody Sunday —sometimes called the Bogside Massacre—was an incident on 30 January 1972 in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland, in which twenty-six unarmed civil rights protesters and bystanders were shot by soldiers of the British Army...
. A departure from his previous "cheeky chappie" roles, the film was a turning point in his career. He won a British Independent Film Award
British Independent Film Awards
The Moët British Independent Film Awards is an annual award ceremony celebrating achievement in independently funded British film and cinema. Nominations and jury are announced at the beginning of November with the award ceremony taking place in late November or early December.-History:The British...
and was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor
British Academy Television Award for Best Actor
- 1950s :*1955 Paul Rogers — *1956 Peter Cushing — *1957 Michael Gough — *1958 Michael Hordern — *1959 Donald Pleasence — - 1960s :*1960 Patrick McGoohan — *1961 Lee Montague —...
.
Nesbitt has also starred in Murphy's Law
Murphy's Law (TV series)
Murphy's Law is a BBC television drama, produced by Tiger Aspect Productions for BBC Northern Ireland, starring James Nesbitt as an undercover police officer, Tommy Murphy. There were five series of the drama, shown on BBC One. The first two were composed of individual stories. Series three, four...
(2001–2007) as undercover detective Tommy Murphy—a role that was created for him by writer Colin Bateman
Colin Bateman
Colin Bateman is a novelist, screenwriter and former journalist from Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland.Born in 1962, Bateman attended Bangor Grammar School leaving at 16 to join the County Down Spectator as a "cub" reporter, then columnist and deputy editor...
. The role twice gained Nesbitt Best Actor nominations at the Irish Film & Television Awards
Irish Film and Television Awards
The Irish Film and Television Awards were first awarded in 2003. Its sole aim is to celebrate Ireland's notably talented film and television community...
(IFTA). In 2007, he starred in the dual role of Tom Jackman and Mr Hyde in Steven Moffat
Steven Moffat
Steven Moffat is a Scottish television writer and producer.Moffat's first television work was the teen drama series Press Gang. His first sitcom, Joking Apart, was inspired by the breakdown of his first marriage; conversely, his later sitcom Coupling was based upon the development of his...
's Jekyll, which earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination in 2008. Nesbitt has since appeared in several more dramatic roles; he starred alongside Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson
Liam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...
in Five Minutes of Heaven
Five Minutes of Heaven
Five Minutes of Heaven is a British/Irish film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel from a script by Guy Hibbert. The film was premiered on January 19, 2009 at the 25th Sundance Film Festival...
(2009), and was one of three lead actors in the television miniseries Occupation
Occupation (TV serial)
Occupation is a BAFTA Award–winning three part drama serial broadcast by BBC One in June 2009. It was written by Peter Bowker and has been produced by Kudos for BBC Northern Ireland.It took four years to bring the serial to screen...
(2009) and The Deep
The Deep (TV serial)
The Deep is a British television serial drama produced by Tiger Aspect Productions for BBC Wales. Written by Simon Donald, The Deep stars Minnie Driver, James Nesbitt, and Goran Visnjic as the crew of a research submarine, who encounter disaster thousands of feet underwater in the Arctic Circle.The...
(2010). He also starred in the movies Outcast (2010) and Emilio Estevez
Emilio Estevez
Emilio Estevez is an American actor, film director, and writer. He started his career as an actor and is well-known for being a member of the acting Brat Pack of the 1980s, starring in The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire...
's The Way
The Way (film)
The Way is a 2010 American drama film. It is a collaboration between Martin Sheen and his real life son Emilio Estevez, to honour the Camino de Santiago and promote pilgrimage...
(2011), and has been cast in Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson
Sir Peter Robert Jackson, KNZM is a New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter, known for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , adapted from the novel by J. R. R...
's The Hobbit (2012/13).
Nesbitt is married to former actress Sonia Forbes-Adam, with whom he has two daughters. He is a patron of numerous charities and in 2010 accepted the ceremonial position of Chancellor
Chancellor (education)
A chancellor or vice-chancellor is the chief executive of a university. Other titles are sometimes used, such as president or rector....
of the University of Ulster
University of Ulster
The University of Ulster is a multi-campus, co-educational university located in Northern Ireland. It is the largest single university in Ireland, discounting the federal National University of Ireland...
.
Early life and education
James Nesbitt was born on 15 January 1965 in BallymenaBallymena
Ballymena is a large town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland and the seat of Ballymena Borough Council. Ballymena had a population of 28,717 people in the 2001 Census....
, County Antrim
County Antrim
County Antrim is one of six counties that form Northern Ireland, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the county covers an area of 2,844 km², with a population of approximately 616,000...
, Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
. His father, James "Jim" Nesbitt, was the headmaster of the primary school in Lisnamurrican, a hamlet near Broughshane
Broughshane
Broughshane is a village within the Borough of Ballymena in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is northeast of Ballymena and north of Antrim, on the A42 road. It had a population of 2,364 at the 2001 Census....
, while his mother, May Nesbitt, was a civil servant. Jim and May already had three daughters—Margaret, Kathryn and Andrea. The family lived in the house adjoining the one-room school where Nesbitt was one of 32 pupils taught by Jim; the other pupils were all farmers' children. Nesbitt grew up "completely" around women, and spent a lot of time alone, "kicking a ball against a wall". He had ambitions to play football for Manchester United
Manchester United F.C.
Manchester United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.The 1958...
, or to become a teacher like his father. The family was Ulster Presbyterian
Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster
The Free Presbyterian Church is a Presbyterian denomination founded by the Rev. Ian Paisley in 1951. Most of its members live in Northern Ireland...
, and Lisnamurrican was in "Paisley
Ian Paisley
Ian Richard Kyle Paisley, Baron Bannside, PC is a politician and church minister in Northern Ireland. As the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party , he and Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness were elected First Minister and deputy First Minister respectively on 8 May 2007.In addition to co-founding...
country". The Nesbitts spent Sunday evenings singing hymns around the piano. Jim marched in the Ballymena Young Conquerors flute band and Nesbitt joined him playing the flute. After the Drumcree conflict
Drumcree conflict
The Drumcree conflict or Drumcree standoff is an ongoing dispute over a yearly parade in the town of Portadown, Northern Ireland. The dispute is between the Orange Order and local residents. The residents are currently represented by the Garvaghy Road Residents Coalition ; before 1995 they were...
s, they stopped marching with the band. The family's residence in the countryside left them largely unaffected by The Troubles
The Troubles
The Troubles was a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland which spilled over at various times into England, the Republic of Ireland, and mainland Europe. The duration of the Troubles is conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered by many to have ended with the Belfast...
, although Nesbitt, his father, and one of his sisters narrowly escaped a car bomb explosion outside of Ballymena County Hall in the early 1970s.
When Nesbitt was 11 years old, the family moved to Coleraine
Coleraine
Coleraine is a large town near the mouth of the River Bann in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. It is northwest of Belfast and east of Derry, both of which are linked by major roads and railway connections...
, County Londonderry
County Londonderry
The place name Derry is an anglicisation of the old Irish Daire meaning oak-grove or oak-wood. As with the city, its name is subject to the Derry/Londonderry name dispute, with the form Derry preferred by nationalists and Londonderry preferred by unionists...
, where May worked for the Housing Executive
Northern Ireland Housing Executive
The Northern Ireland Housing Executive is the public housing authority for Northern Ireland. It is the enforcing authority for those parts of housing orders that involve houses with multiple occupants, houses that are unfit, and housing conditions.- Origins :...
. He completed his primary education at Blagh primary school, then moved on to Coleraine Academical Institution
Coleraine Academical Institution
Coleraine Academical Institution , styled locally as Coleraine Inst, is a voluntary grammar school for boys, situated in Coleraine, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland....
(CAI). In 1978, when he was 13, his parents took him to audition for the Riverside Theatre
Riverside Theatre, Coleraine
The Riverside Theatre is located at the University of Ulster at Coleraine, Northern Ireland. It was opened in 1976 and is the fifth-largest professional theatre in Northern Ireland. It is architecturally unique in Ireland for its flexible staging facilities...
's Christmas production of Oliver!
Oliver!
Oliver! is a British musical, with script, music and lyrics by Lionel Bart. The musical is based upon the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens....
. Nesbitt sang "Bohemian Rhapsody
Bohemian Rhapsody
"Bohemian Rhapsody" is a song by the British rock band Queen. It was written by Freddie Mercury for the band's 1975 album A Night at the Opera...
" at the audition and won the part of the Artful Dodger, who he played in his acting debut. He continued to act and sing with the Riverside until he was 16, and appeared at festivals and as an extra in Play For Today: The Cry (Christopher Menaul
Christopher Menaul
Christopher Menaul is a British film, television director and television writer.Christopher Menaul left Cambridge with a First in History and quickly established anillustrious career as a multi award-winning TV and Feature film director...
, 1984). He got his Equity card when the professional actor playing Jiminy Cricket
Jiminy Cricket
Jiminy Cricket is the Walt Disney version of "The Talking Cricket" , a fictional character created by Carlo Collodi for his children's book Pinocchio, which was adapted into an animated film by Disney in 1940...
in Pinocchio
Pinocchio
The Adventures of Pinocchio is a novel for children by Italian author Carlo Collodi, written in Florence. The first half was originally a serial between 1881 and 1883, and then later completed as a book for children in February 1883. It is about the mischievous adventures of Pinocchio , an...
broke his ankle two days before the performance, and Nesbitt stepped in to take his place. Acting had not initially appealed to him, but he "felt a light go on" after he saw The Winslow Boy
The Winslow Boy (1948 film)
The Winslow Boy is a 1948 film adaptation of Terence Rattigan's play The Winslow Boy. It was made by De Grunwald Productions and distributed by the British Lion Film Corporation. It was directed by Anthony Asquith and produced by Anatole de Grunwald with Teddy Baird as associate producer. The...
(Anthony Asquith
Anthony Asquith
Anthony Asquith was a leading English film director. He collaborated successfully with playwright Terence Rattigan on The Winslow Boy and The Browning Version , among other adaptations...
, 1948). When he was 15, he got his first paid job as a bingo caller at Barry's Amusements
Barry's Amusements
Barry's Amusements is the largest theme park in Northern Ireland and also the largest on the island of Ireland.It is situated in the centre of Portrush on the north coast...
in Portrush
Portrush
Portrush is a small seaside resort town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, on the County Londonderry border. The main part of the old town, including the railway station as well as most hotels, restaurants and bars, is built on a mile–long peninsula, Ramore Head, pointing north-northwest....
. He was paid £1 per hour for the summer job and would also, on occasions, work as the brake man on the big dipper.
He left CAI at the age of 18 and began a degree in French at Ulster Polytechnic
University of Ulster
The University of Ulster is a multi-campus, co-educational university located in Northern Ireland. It is the largest single university in Ireland, discounting the federal National University of Ireland...
in Jordanstown
Jordanstown
Jordanstown is the name of a townland and electoral ward in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is within the urban area called Newtownabbey and the wider Newtownabbey Borough....
. He stayed at university for a year before dropping out. In a 1999 interview, Nesbitt said, "I had the necessary in my head, but I just couldn't be bothered. Being 18 is the worst age to expect people to learn things. There are other things to be bothered with, like girls and football." He made the decision to quit when he was trying to write an overdue essay on existentialism in Les Mains Sales
Les Mains Sales
Dirty Hands is a play by Jean-Paul Sartre. It was first performed on 2 April 1948 at the Theatre Antoine in Paris, starring François Périer, Marie Olivier and André Luguet...
at 4 a.m. one day. His father suggested that he should move to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
if he wanted to continue acting, so Nesbitt enrolled at the Central School of Speech and Drama
Central School of Speech and Drama
The Central School of Speech and Drama was founded in London in 1906 by Elsie Fogerty to offer a new form of training in speech and drama for young actors and other students...
(CSSD) in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. Nesbitt felt lost and misrepresented when he first arrived in London, on account of his Northern Irish background; "When I first came to drama school I was a Paddy the minute I walked in. And I remember going to drama school and them all saying to me, 'Aww, yeah, Brits out', and I was like 'It's a wee bit more complicated than that, you know.'" He graduated in 1987, at the age of 22.
Theatre and Hear My Song
The day after leaving CSSD in 1987, Nesbitt got a bit part in Virtuoso, a BBC TwoBBC Two
BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...
Screen Two television play about the life of John Ogdon
John Ogdon
John Andrew Howard Ogdon was an English pianist and composer.-Biography:Ogdon was born in Mansfield Woodhouse, Nottinghamshire, and attended Manchester Grammar School, before studying at the Royal Northern College of Music between 1953 and 1957, where his fellow students under Richard Hall...
. He worked for two days on the play, earning £250 per day. His first professional stage appearance came in the same year, when he played Keith in Up on the Roof. The musical ran at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth
Theatre Royal, Plymouth
The Theatre Royal in Plymouth, Devon, England is "the largest and best attended regional producing theatre in the UK and the leading promoter of theatre in the south west", according to Arts Council England...
, before transferring to the London West End. Nesbitt reprised the role when the production returned to Plymouth in early 1989. Roger Malone in The Stage and Television Today
The Stage
The Stage is a weekly British newspaper founded in 1880, available nationally and published on Thursdays. Covering all areas of the entertainment industry but focused primarily on theatre, it contains news, reviews, opinion, features and other items of interest, mainly to those who work within the...
wrote that Nesbitt "steals the show with the best lines and best delivery as he laconically squares up to life with an easy contentment". Nesbitt appeared in two other plays in 1989; in June, he played Dukes Frederick and Senior in Paul Jepson's As You Like It
As You Like It
As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility...
at the Rose Theatre Club, and then appeared in Yuri Lyubimov
Yuri Lyubimov
Yuri Petrovich Lyubimov is a Soviet and Russian stage actor and director associated with the internationally-renowned Taganka Theatre which he founded ,...
's version of Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
. Hamlet had been translated back to English from Boris Pasternak
Boris Pasternak
Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was a Russian language poet, novelist, and literary translator. In his native Russia, Pasternak's anthology My Sister Life, is one of the most influential collections ever published in the Russian language...
's Russian translation. It ran at the Haymarket Theatre, Leicester
Haymarket Theatre (Leicester)
The Haymarket Theatre was a theatre in Leicester, England, based in the Haymarket Shopping Centre on Belgrave Gate in Leicester city centre. The theatre closed at the end of 2006 and has been replaced by the Curve Theatre...
for a month before a transfer to the Old Vic
Old Vic
The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
and then a nine-month world tour. Nesbitt played Guildenstern, Barnardo and the second gravedigger. He recalled that the play received "shocking" reviews, but was exciting.
In the early 1990s, he lived with fellow actor Jerome Flynn
Jerome Flynn
Jerome Flynn is an English actor best known for his role as Corporal Paddy Garvey of the King's Fusiliers in the ITV series Soldier Soldier....
and earned money by signing fan mail for the successful star of Soldier Soldier
Soldier Soldier
Soldier Soldier is a British television drama series. The title comes from a traditional song of the same name.Produced by Central Television and broadcast on the ITV network, it ran for a total of seven series and 82 episodes from 1991 to 1997...
. In his debut feature film, Hear My Song
Hear My Song
Hear My Song is a 1991 film, written by the actors Peter Chelsom and Adrian Dunbar , based on the story of Irish tenor Josef Locke...
(Peter Chelsom
Peter Chelsom
Peter Chelsom is a British actor and film director. He has directed among others such films as Shall We Dance? and Hannah Montana: The Movie...
, 1991), Nesbitt played Fintan O'Donnell, a struggling theatrical agent and friend of Mickey O'Neill (Adrian Dunbar
Adrian Dunbar
Adrian Dunbar is an actor from Northern Ireland, best known for his television and theatre work. Dunbar co-wrote and starred in the 1991 film, Hear My Song, nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the BAFTA awards.-Personal life:...
). A New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
critic wrote, "the jaunty, bemused Mr. Nesbitt, manages to combine soulfulness with sly humor". The praise he received made him self-assured and complacent; in 2001, he recalled, "When I did Hear My Song, I disappeared so far up my own arse afterwards. I thought, 'Oh, that's it, I've cracked it.' And I'm glad that happened, because you then find out how expendable actors are." His attitude left him out of work for six months after the film was released. Until 1994, he mixed his stage roles with supporting roles on television in episodes of Boon
Boon (TV series)
Boon is a British television drama and modern-day western series starring Michael Elphick, David Daker, and later Neil Morrissey. It was created by Jim Hill and Bill Stair and filmed by Central Television for ITV...
, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles is an American television series that aired on ABC from March 4, 1992, to July 24, 1993. The series explores the childhood and youth of the fictional character Indiana Jones and primarily stars Sean Patrick Flanery and Corey Carrier as the title character, with...
, Covington Cross
Covington Cross
Covington Cross is a British/American television series that was broadcast on ABC in the United States from August 25 to October 31, 1992. It also aired in the UK, and was dubbed for broadcast in France....
, Lovejoy
Lovejoy
Lovejoy is a TV series about the adventures of Lovejoy, a British antiques dealer and faker based in East Anglia, a less than scrupulous yet likeable rogue. The episodes were based on a series of picaresque novels by John Grant...
, and Between the Lines. In 1993, he appeared in Love Lies Bleeding, an instalment of the BBC anthology series Screenplay and his first appearance in a production directed by Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom is a prolific English filmmaker who has directed seventeen feature films in the past fifteen years. He began his career working in British television before moving into features...
; he later appeared in Go Now
Go Now
Go Now is a 1995 television film directed by Michael Winterbottom and starring Robert Carlyle as an MS-afflicted soccer player/construction worker struggling with the onset of multiple sclerosis....
(1995), Jude
Jude (film)
Jude is a 1996 English film, based on the novel Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy and directed by Michael Winterbottom. The screenplay is written by Hossein Amini...
(1996) and Welcome to Sarajevo
Welcome To Sarajevo
Welcome to Sarajevo is a British war film from 1997. It is directed by Michael Winterbottom. The screenplay is by Frank Cottrell Boyce and is based on the book Natasha's Story by Michael Nicholson.- Synopsis :...
(1997). A Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
journalist wrote that "he showed himself to be a generous supporting actor" in Jude and Sarajevo.
Back on stage, he appeared as Doalty in Translations
Translations
Translations is a three-act play by Irish playwright Brian Friel written in 1980. It is set in Baile Beag , a small village at the heart of 19th century agricultural Ireland...
(Gwenda Hughes, Birmingham Repertory Theatre
Birmingham Repertory Theatre
Birmingham Repertory Theatre is a theatre and theatre company based on Centenary Square in Birmingham, England...
, 1991), Aidan in Una Pooka (Mark Lambert and Nicholas Kent, Tricycle Theatre
Tricycle Theatre
The Tricycle Theatre is located on Kilburn High Road in Kilburn in the London Borough of Brent, England. During the last 30 years, the Tricycle has been presenting plays reflecting the cultural diversity of its community; in particular Black, Irish, Jewish, Asian and South African works, as well as...
, 1992), Damien in Paddywack (Michael Latimer, Cockpit Theatre
Cockpit Theatre (Marylebone)
The Cockpit Theatre is a Fringe Theatre in Marylebone, London. The Cockpit Theatre was designed by Edward Mendelsohn built in 1969-70 by the Inner London Education Authority as a community theatre and is notable as London's first purpose built Theatre In The Round, since the Great Fire of London...
, 1994), and Jesus in Darwin's Flood (Simon Stokes, Bush Theatre
Bush Theatre
The Bush Theatre is based in Shepherd's Bush, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. It was established in 1972 above The Bush public house by Brian McDermott, and has since become one of the most celebrated new writing theatres in the world. An intimate venue renowned for its close-up...
, 1994). Paddywack, in which Nesbitt's character is suspected by others of being an IRA
Provisional Irish Republican Army
The Provisional Irish Republican Army is an Irish republican paramilitary organisation whose aim was to remove Northern Ireland from the United Kingdom and bring about a socialist republic within a united Ireland by force of arms and political persuasion...
member, transferred to the United States for a run at the Long Wharf Theatre
Long Wharf Theatre
Long Wharf Theatre is a nonprofit institution in New Haven, Connecticut, a pioneer in the not-for-profit regional theatre movement, the originator of several prominent plays, and a venue where many internationally known actors have appeared....
in New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is the second-largest city in Connecticut and the sixth-largest in New England. According to the 2010 Census, New Haven's population increased by 5.0% between 2000 and 2010, a rate higher than that of the State of Connecticut, and higher than that of the state's five largest cities, and...
in October 1994. A Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
critic called Damien "the play's only fully developed character" and commended Nesbitt for giving "the one strong, telling performance [of the cast]". In 1996, Nesbitt appeared in an episode of the BBC Northern Ireland
BBC Northern Ireland
BBC Northern Ireland is the main public service broadcaster in Northern Ireland.The organisation is one of the three national regions of the BBC, together with BBC Scotland and BBC Wales. Based at Broadcasting House, Belfast, it provides television, radio, online and interactive television content...
television drama Ballykissangel
Ballykissangel
Ballykissangel is a BBC television drama set in Ireland, produced in-house by BBC Northern Ireland. The original story revolved around a young English Roman Catholic priest as he became part of a rural community. It ran for six series, which were first broadcast on BBC One in the UK from 1996 to 2001...
, playing Leo McGarvey, the ex-boyfriend of Assumpta Fitzgerald (Dervla Kirwan
Dervla Kirwan
Dervla Kirwan is an Irish actress famous for roles in British television shows such as Ballykissangel and Goodnight Sweetheart...
) and love rival of Peter Clifford (Stephen Tompkinson
Stephen Tompkinson
Stephen Tompkinson is a British actor. He is best known for his work in comedy and drama productions such as Drop the Dead Donkey, Ballykissangel, Grafters, In Deep, Wild at Heart and DCI Banks....
). He reprised the role for four episodes in 1998.
Cold Feet and early films
In 1996, Nesbitt auditioned to play Adam Williams, the male lead in Cold FeetPilot (Cold Feet)
Cold Feet is a British television pilot directed by Declan Lowney. It stars James Nesbitt and Helen Baxendale as Adam and Rachel, a couple who meet and fall in love, only for the relationship to break down when he gets cold feet. John Thomson, Fay Ripley, Hermione Norris and Robert Bathurst appear...
, an ITV Comedy Premiere
Comedy Premieres
Comedy Premieres was a programming strand of four one-off television comedies, produced by Granada Television for the ITV network and broadcast throughout 1997.- Premieres :- Production :...
about three couples in different stages of their romantic relationships. The audition came about through a mutual friend of Nesbitt's and the director, Declan Lowney
Declan Lowney
Declan Lowney is an Irish television and film director. After directing a short film in 1980, Lowney worked for Radio Telefís Éireann, and directed musical events such as the 1988 Eurovision Song Contest, and The Velvet Underground's Live MCMXCIII...
. The producer, Christine Langan
Christine Langan
Christine Langan is an English film producer who has been Creative Director of BBC Films since April 2009.After graduating from Cambridge University in 1987 and working in advertising for three years, Langan joined Granada Television's drama serials department where she script edited daytime soap...
, had also recalled his performances in Hear My Song and Go Now. Adam had not been written with an Irishman in mind to play him—English writer Mike Bullen
Mike Bullen
Mike Bullen is an English-born screenwriter. Bullen grew up in the West Midlands of England, attending the Solihull School and later Magdalene College, Cambridge. He left with a degree in history of art and became a radio producer for the BBC World Service...
had written the character as a thinly-veiled portrayal of himself in his youth—but Nesbitt wanted to take the opportunity to appear in a contemporary drama as an ordinary man from Northern Ireland with no connection to the Troubles, especially after the Troubles-based plot of Love Lies Bleeding. Cold Feet was a critical success; it won the 1997 Golden Rose of Montreux and the 1997 British Comedy Award
British Comedy Awards
The British Comedy Awards is an annual awards ceremony in the United Kingdom celebrating notable comedians and entertainment performances of the previous year.-History:...
for Best ITV Comedy and was thus commissioned for a full series. Cold Feet
Cold Feet
Cold Feet is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV network. The series was created and principally written by Mike Bullen as a follow-up to his award-winning 1997 Comedy Premiere of the same name. The storyline follows three couples experiencing the...
s first series aired at the end of 1998 and was followed by the second series in 1999. A storyline in that series featured Adam being diagnosed with testicular cancer
Testicular cancer
Testicular cancer is cancer that develops in the testicles, a part of the male reproductive system.In the United States, between 7,500 and 8,000 diagnoses of testicular cancer are made each year. In the UK, approximately 2,000 men are diagnosed each year. Over his lifetime, a man's risk of...
, which inspired Nesbitt to become a patron of the charity Action Cancer. By the time of the third series, Nesbitt and the other cast members were able to influence the show's production; an episode featuring Adam's stag weekend was due to be filmed on location in Dublin but Nesbitt suggested it be filmed in Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
and Portrush instead. Several scenes were filmed at his old workplace Barry's Amusements, although they were cut from the broadcast episode. At the end of the fourth series in 2001, Nesbitt decided to quit to move on to other projects. Executive producer Andy Harries
Andy Harries
Andrew D. M. Harries is a British television and film producer. After graduating from Hull University in the 1970s, Harries began his television career on the Granada Television current affairs series World in Action, before moving on to freelance work...
persuaded him to stay for one more series by suggesting that Adam be killed off, so Nesbitt signed on for the fifth series. During pre-production of the fifth series, Mike Bullen decided to kill off Adam's wife Rachel (played by Helen Baxendale
Helen Baxendale
Helen Victoria Baxendale is an English actress of stage and television, possibly best-known for her roles in Cold Feet, Friends and Cardiac Arrest.-Early life:...
) instead.
Cold Feet ran for five years from 1998 to 2003, and Nesbitt won the British Comedy Award for Best TV Comedy Actor in 2000, the Television and Radio Industries Club Award
Television and Radio Industries Club
The Television and Radio Industries Club is a British institution chartered in 1931 to "promote goodwill in the television and radio industries"...
for Drama TV Performer of the Year in 2002, the National Television Award
National Television Awards
The National Television Awards is a British television awards ceremony, broadcast by the ITV network and initiated in 1995. The National Television Awards are the most prominent ceremony for which the results are voted on by the general public. Because of the way the awards are decided, winners are...
for Most Popular Comedy Performance in 2003, and the TV Quick Award
TV Quick
TV Choice, is a British weekly TV listings magazine published by H. Bauer Publishing, the UK subsidiary of family-run German company Bauer Media Group...
for Best Actor in 2003. Nesbitt credits the role with raising his profile with the public. Further television roles during these five years included women's football team coach John Dolan in the first two series of Kay Mellor
Kay Mellor
Kay Mellor, OBE is an English actress, scriptwriter, and director best known for her work on several successful television drama series.-Early life:...
's Playing the Field
Playing the Field
Playing the Field is a BBC television drama series following the lives of the Castlefield Blues, a fictitious female football team from South Yorkshire.-Outline:...
(appearing alongside his Cold Feet co-star John Thomson), investigative journalists Ryan and David Laney in Resurrection Man (Marc Evans
Marc Evans
Marc Evans is a Welsh-born film director, whose credits include the films House of America, Resurrection Man and My Little Eye.-Biography:Evans was born in 1963 in Carmarthen, Wales...
, 1998) and Touching Evil II
Touching Evil
Touching Evil is a British television drama serial, which began airing in 1997. It was produced by United Productions for Anglia Television, and screened on the ITV network. The first series consisted of six fifty-minute episodes. It was created by Paul Abbott, and written by Abbott with Russell T...
respectively, and womaniser Stanley in Women Talking Dirty
Women Talking Dirty
Women Talking Dirty is a 1999 Scottish comedy film starring Helena Bonham Carter and Gina McKee. It is an adaptation of the novel, Women Talking Dirty, written by Isla Dewar who wrote the screenplay as well.- Premise :...
(Coky Giedroyc
Coky Giedroyc
-Personal life:The elder sister of actress, presenter and writer Mel Giedroyc, she grew up in Leatherhead, Surrey. Her father is Michal Giedroyc, a historian of Polish-Lithuanian descent who came to England in 1947. She attended Bristol University, where she first began making films...
, 1999).
Nesbitt's performance in Hear My Song had also impressed first-time screenwriter and film director Kirk Jones, who cast him in his 1998 feature film Waking Ned
Waking Ned
Waking Ned is a 1998 comedy film by English writer and director Kirk Jones. It stars Ian Bannen, David Kelly and Fionnula Flanagan. Kelly was nominated for a Screen Actors' Guild award for his role as Michael O'Sullivan. The film is set in Ireland but was filmed on location in the Isle of Man...
. Playing amiable pig farmer "Pig" Finn brought Nesbitt to international attention, particularly in the United States (where the film was released as Waking Ned Devine); the cast was nominated for the 1999 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Theatrical Motion Picture. In 1999, he appeared as the paramilitary "Mad Dog" Billy Wilson in The Most Fertile Man in Ireland (Dudi Appleton
Dudi Appleton
David Jeremy Nicholas Appleton is a journalist and film director. His mother is of Israeli origin and his father was to become Chief Crown Prosecutor of Northern Ireland....
). The following year, he appeared in Declan Lowney's feature debut, Wild About Harry. Lowney had personally asked him to appear in the supporting role of cross-dressing Unionist
Unionism in Ireland
Unionism in Ireland is an ideology that favours the continuation of some form of political union between the islands of Ireland and Great Britain...
politician Walter Adair. In 2001, he made his debut as a lead actor in a feature film in Peter Cattaneo
Peter Cattaneo
Peter Cattaneo was born in 1964 in Twickenham, London. He is a two-time Academy Award-nominated English filmmaker most famous for directing the hit British film The Full Monty. He also directed 2005's Opal Dream.-Filmography:-External links:...
's Lucky Break
Lucky Break
Lucky Break is a 2001 British comedy film starring James Nesbitt and directed by Peter Cattaneo.-Synopsis:Feelgood prison-escape movie that sees a group of prison inmates , put on a theatrical show of Nelson: The Musical to cover their daring break-out attempt...
. He played Jimmy Hands, an incompetent bank robber who masterminds an escape from a prison by staging a musical as a distraction. On preparing for the role, Nesbitt said, "Short of robbing a bank there wasn't much research I could have done but we did spend a day in Wandsworth Prison and that showed the nightmare monotony of prisoners' lives. I didn't interview any of the inmates because I thought it would be a little patronising as it was research for a comedy and also because we were going home every night in our fancy cars to sleep in our fancy hotels." The film was a commercial failure, despite receiving good feedback from test audiences in the United States.
Bloody Sunday
Nesbitt had been approached at a British Academy Television Awards ceremony by director Paul GreengrassPaul Greengrass
Paul Greengrass is an English film director, screenwriter and former journalist. He specialises in dramatisations of real-life events and is known for his signature use of hand-held cameras.-Life and career:...
, who wanted him to star in a television drama he was making about the 1972 "Bloody Sunday" shootings
Bloody Sunday (1972)
Bloody Sunday —sometimes called the Bogside Massacre—was an incident on 30 January 1972 in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland, in which twenty-six unarmed civil rights protesters and bystanders were shot by soldiers of the British Army...
in Derry. Nesbitt was only seven years old when the shootings happened and was ignorant of its cause; he believed that there was "no smoke without fire" and that the Catholic marchers must have done something to provoke the British Army. He was filming Cold Feet in Manchester when he received the script. He read it and found that had "an extraordinary effect" on him. Nesbitt played Ivan Cooper
Ivan Cooper
Ivan Averill Cooper is a former politician from Northern Ireland who was a Member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland, and founding member of the SDLP...
in Bloody Sunday, the man who pressed for the march to go ahead. To prepare for the role, Nesbitt met with Cooper and spent many hours talking to him about his motives on that day. He met with relatives of the victims and watched the televised Bloody Sunday Inquiry
Bloody Sunday Inquiry
The Bloody Sunday Inquiry, also known as the Saville Inquiry or the Saville Report after its chairman, Lord Saville of Newdigate, was established in 1998 by British Prime Minister Tony Blair after campaigns for a second inquiry by families of those killed and injured in Derry on Bloody Sunday...
with them, and also read Don Mullan
Don Mullan
Don Mullan is an Irish bestselling author/humanitarian and media producer. His book Eyewitness Bloody Sunday is officially recognised as a primary catalyst for a new Bloody Sunday Inquiry which became the longest running and most expensive in British Legal History...
's Eyewitness Bloody Sunday and Peter Pringle and Philip Jacobson's Those Are Real Bullets, Aren't They?. Greengrass compared Nesbitt's preparation to an athlete preparing for a race, and told The Observer, "For an Irish actor, doing the Troubles is like doing Lear." Nesbitt had questioned whether he was a good enough actor to effectively portray Cooper and was worried what Derry Catholics would think of a Protestant playing the lead.
Shortly before Bloody Sunday was broadcast, Nesbitt described it as "difficult but extraordinary" and "emotionally draining". The broadcast on ITV in January 2002 and its promotion did not pass without incident; he was criticised by Unionists for saying that Protestants in Northern Ireland felt "a collective guilt" over the killings. His parents' home was also vandalised and he received death threats. During the awards season, Nesbitt won the British Independent Film Award
British Independent Film Awards
The Moët British Independent Film Awards is an annual award ceremony celebrating achievement in independently funded British film and cinema. Nominations and jury are announced at the beginning of November with the award ceremony taking place in late November or early December.-History:The British...
for Best Performance by an Actor in a British Independent Film and was nominated for the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor
British Academy Television Award for Best Actor
- 1950s :*1955 Paul Rogers — *1956 Peter Cushing — *1957 Michael Gough — *1958 Michael Hordern — *1959 Donald Pleasence — - 1960s :*1960 Patrick McGoohan — *1961 Lee Montague —...
. The film was also screened at film festivals such as the Stockholm International Film Festival
Stockholm International Film Festival
The Stockholm International Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Stockholm, Sweden. It was launched in 1990 and has been held every year in the second half of November...
, where Nesbitt was presented with the Best Actor award.
In an analysis of the film in the History & Memory journal, Aileen Blaney opined that it is Nesbitt's real-life household name status that made his portrayal of Cooper such a success. She reasoned that Nesbitt's celebrity status mirrors that of Cooper's in the 1970s: "A household name across Great Britain, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, Nesbitt's widespread popular appeal is emphatically not contingent upon his Protestant Ulster identity, and consequently the double-voicing of the character he plays does not alienate viewers of an alternative, or no, sectarian persuasion." Guardian journalist Susie Steiner suggested that his appearance in Bloody Sunday was an attempt to resolve the expression of his "Irishness" on screen: "Where he has taken part in a sectarian theme, his intelligence as an actor has often been masked by an excessive, cartoon-style comedy. Yet in his more successful, high-profile roles, (notably in Cold Feet, and as Pig Finn in the gently pastoral film Waking Ned), Nesbitt's Irishness has been exploited for its romantic charm. It has been sugared and, in the process, de-politicised." A critic identified Bloody Sunday as Nesbitt's "coming of age" film, and Nesbitt called it a turning point in his career. He refers to his career since the film was released as "post-Bloody Sunday".
Murphy's Law
In 2003, Nesbitt played undercover police detective Tommy Murphy in the first series of Murphy's LawMurphy's Law (TV series)
Murphy's Law is a BBC television drama, produced by Tiger Aspect Productions for BBC Northern Ireland, starring James Nesbitt as an undercover police officer, Tommy Murphy. There were five series of the drama, shown on BBC One. The first two were composed of individual stories. Series three, four...
, after starring in a successful pilot episode in 2001. The series was conceived when Nesbitt was working on Playing the Field; he and producer Greg Brenman approached author Colin Bateman
Colin Bateman
Colin Bateman is a novelist, screenwriter and former journalist from Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland.Born in 1962, Bateman attended Bangor Grammar School leaving at 16 to join the County Down Spectator as a "cub" reporter, then columnist and deputy editor...
about creating a television series for Nesbitt in a similar vein to Bateman's Dan Starkey novels. Bateman and Nesbitt were already well acquainted; Nesbitt had been considered for a main role in Divorcing Jack
Divorcing Jack (film)
Divorcing Jack is a 1998 satirical black comedy. The plot is set around the Northern Irish reporter Dan Starkey who gets entangled into a web of political intrigue and Irish sectarian violence, at the same time as Northern Ireland is set to elect a new Prime Minister...
(David Caffrey
David Caffrey
David Caffrey is an Irish-born film director. His most recent film is Grand Theft Parsons starring Johnny Knoxville and Christina Applegate. The film is an account of an urban myth about the death of folk rock legend, Gram Parsons.-Filmography:...
, 1998), based on Bateman's original novel. A 90-minute pilot of Murphy's Law was commissioned by the BBC, initially as a "comedy action adventure". Bateman created a complex backstory for Murphy, which was cut at the request of the producers. After the broadcast of the pilot, Guardian critic Gareth McLean wrote, "the likeable James Nesbitt turned in a strong, extremely watchable central performance, though rarely did he look taxed by his efforts, and his chemistry with [Claudia] Harrison was promising and occasionally electric." In 2003, Nesbitt won the Irish Film & Television Award
Irish Film and Television Awards
The Irish Film and Television Awards were first awarded in 2003. Its sole aim is to celebrate Ireland's notably talented film and television community...
(IFTA) for Best Actor in a TV Drama for the role. The second series was broadcast in 2004.
By 2005, Nesbitt had become tired of the formula and threatened to quit unless the structure of the series was changed. He was made a creative consultant and suggested that Murphy keep one undercover role for a full series, instead of changing into a new guise every episode. This new dramatic element to the series was intended to make it a closer representation of real-life undercover work. Alongside his research with former undercover officer Peter Bleksley, Nesbitt hired a personal trainer and grew a handlebar moustache
Handlebar moustache
A handlebar moustache is a moustache with particularly lengthy, upward curved, extremities. It is named for its resemblance to the handlebars of a bicycle. It is also known as a "spaghetti moustache", because of its stereotypical association with Italian men...
to change Murphy's physical characteristics and tone down the "cheeky chappie" persona that the audience had become accustomed to from his roles. With his trainer, he worked out three times a week, boxing and doing circuits and weights. After the first new episode was broadcast, Sarah Vine wrote in The Times, "In the past, when attempting a nasty stare or a hard face, Nesbitt has never managed much more than a faintly quizzical look, hilarity forever threatening to break out behind those twinkly Irish eyes. But here, it's different. He genuinely has the air of a man who means business." The refreshed series marked another milestone in Nesbitt's career; he describes it as "a big moment" in his life. Murphy's Law was not recommissioned for a sixth series, which Nesbitt attributed to the damage done to the fifth series ratings when it was scheduled opposite the popular ITV drama Doc Martin
Doc Martin
Doc Martin is a British television comedy drama series starring Martin Clunes in the title role. It was created by Mark Crowdy, Craig Ferguson and Dominic Minghella. The show is filmed on location in the fishing village of Port Isaac, Cornwall, United Kingdom, with filming of most interior scenes...
.
Dramatic roles in 2004–2005
In 2004, Nesbitt appeared in Wall of Silence, a fact-based drama about the aftermath of the murder of schoolboy Jamie Robe. Nesbitt played Stuart Robe, the boy's father, who tries to break down the wall of silence in the local community to discover exactly what happened to his son. He had only just completed Bloody Sunday when he was offered the part and was unsure whether he wanted to take on such a demanding role so soon after playing Ivan Cooper. He decided to accept the part because he found it interesting. To prepare for the role, Nesbitt met with Robe and spent weeks talking to him in his South London flat, learning about Jamie, and of Robe's fight for his justice. Nesbitt spoke with his natural accent instead of affecting Robe's South London speech, as he did not want the audience to be distracted from the drama. The single-drama was filmed over four weeks and broadcast in January 2004. The role gained Nesbitt an IFTA nomination for Best Actor in a TV Drama later that year.In March 2004, he appeared in Tony Marchant's Passer By
Passer By (TV film)
Passer By is a British television film broadcast on BBC One in two parts on 28 and 29 March 2004. It was directed by David Morrissey from a script by Tony Marchant and stars James Nesbitt as Joe Keyes, a man who sees Alice, a young woman played by Emily Bruni, accosted by some men on a train one...
, playing Joe Keyes, a man who witnesses a woman being accosted by some men on a train and chooses not to help. Keyes later discovers that the woman was raped but cannot bring himself to admit in court that he did nothing to help her. Nesbitt described Keyes as "like a better man than me: a good father and husband. But, once he has made a wrong decision, he can't control everything in his life, as he thinks he is weak. He loses the respect of his wife, his son and at work, and has to reach the lowest possible point before finding redemption." As a result of these serious roles, he was named the sixth most powerful figure in TV drama in a listing compiled by industry experts for the Radio Times
Radio Times
Radio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...
. In September 2004, he starred as Jack Parlabane in the ITV adaptation of Christopher Brookmyre
Christopher Brookmyre
Christopher Brookmyre is a Scottish novelist whose novels mix comedy, politics, social comment and action with a strong narrative. He has been referred to as a Tartan Noir author...
's Quite Ugly One Morning
Quite Ugly One Morning
Quite Ugly One Morning is Christopher Brookmyre's first novel which introduces Jack Parlabane, the writer's most used character.It was published to popular and critical acclaim, winning the inaugural First Blood Award for the best first crime novel of the year.Jack Parlabane is a Glaswegian...
. The producers originally wanted Scottish actor Douglas Henshall
Douglas Henshall
Douglas James Henshall is a Scottish actor probably best known for his role as Professor Nick Cutter in the British science fiction series Primeval.-Early life:...
to play Glaswegian Parlabane but ITV executives overruled them and cast Nesbitt. He was given coaching to perfect the accent but it was soon discarded on the advice of both the director and his co-star Daniela Nardini
Daniela Nardini
Daniela Nardini is a Scottish actress of Italian ancestry, best known for playing Anna Forbes in the BBC Two television series This Life. The role earned her a BAFTA Best Actress award in 1998 and also earned her a Scottish BAFTA...
. Also in 2004, he filmed the roles of Ronnie Cunningham in Millions
Millions
Millions is a 2004 British comedy-drama film, directed by Academy Award–winning director Danny Boyle, and starring Alex Etel, Lewis McGibbon, and James Nesbitt. The screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce adapted his novel while the film was in the process of being made...
(Danny Boyle
Danny Boyle
Daniel "Danny" Boyle is an English filmmaker and producer. He is best known for his work on films such as Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Trainspotting. For Slumdog Millionaire, Boyle won numerous awards in 2008, including the Academy Award for Best Director...
, 2004), and Detective Banner in Match Point
Match Point
Match Point is a 2005 dramatic thriller film written and directed by Woody Allen, and starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Scarlett Johansson, Emily Mortimer, Matthew Goode, Brian Cox and Penelope Wilton....
(Woody Allen
Woody Allen
Woody Allen is an American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, jazz musician, author, and playwright. Allen's films draw heavily on literature, sexuality, philosophy, psychology, Jewish identity, and the history of cinema...
, 2005). He was considering taking time off from acting and did not really want the role in Match Point. He sent in an audition tape and was accepted for the part. Nesbitt's character appears at the end of the film and he read only that part of the script, so did not know the full circumstances of the crime Banner investigates. Despite his initial reluctance, Nesbitt enjoyed working with Allen, and complimented him on his directing style.
Nesbitt returned to theatre acting in June 2005 when he appeared in David Nicholls
David Nicholls (writer)
-Background:Nicholls is the middle of three siblings. He attended Barton Peveril sixth-form college at Eastleigh, Hampshire, from 1983 to 1985 , and playing a wide range of roles in college drama productions...
' After Sun, a ten-minute-play performed as part of the Old Vic
Old Vic
The Old Vic is a theatre located just south-east of Waterloo Station in London on the corner of The Cut and Waterloo Road. Established in 1818 as the Royal Coburg Theatre, it was taken over by Emma Cons in 1880 when it was known formally as the Royal Victoria Hall. In 1898, a niece of Cons, Lilian...
's 24-Hour Play season. Nesbitt and Catherine Tate
Catherine Tate
Catherine Tate is an English actress, writer, and comedian. She has won numerous awards for her work on the sketch comedy series The Catherine Tate Show as well as being nominated for an International Emmy Award and four BAFTA Awards...
starred as a married couple who meet a pair of newlyweds returning from their honeymoon. Later that year, he appeared in his first full-length play in 11 years, in Owen McCafferty
Owen McCafferty
Owen McCafferty is a playwright from Northern Ireland.Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, McCafferty held several jobs, including tiling and working in an abattoir, before becoming a full-time writer...
's Shoot the Crow. He enjoyed the stimulation of learning his lines and rehearsing with the cast and director. The play opened at the Trafalgar Studios in September 2005 and his role as Socrates gained mixed reviews. In The Independent, Michael Coveney suggested the role did not fit the actor: "Nesbitt is cool. But I never felt that he was inside his role of a chap called Socrates [...] He grinned and shrugged through the evening which steadily became less about grouting on tiles and more about grating on nerves." In The Daily Telegraph, Charles Spencer
Charles Spencer (journalist)
Charles Spencer is a British journalist. He has been the drama critic of The Daily Telegraph since 1991. In 2006, Compton Miller of The Independent wrote in a profile: "This convivial ex-alcoholic is best remembered for his description of Nicole Kidman's nude scene in The Blue Room as 'pure...
described Nesbitt's acting as "outstanding".
Jekyll, Five Minutes, Occupation
At the end of 2005, Nesbitt and his agent met with BBC Controller of Fiction Jane TranterJane Tranter
Jane Tranter is an English television executive who has been the executive vice-president of programming and production at BBC Worldwide's Los Angeles base since January 2009...
to discuss a new series of Murphy's Law. At the meeting's conclusion, Tranter offered Nesbitt the first episode script of Jekyll, a television series by Steven Moffat
Steven Moffat
Steven Moffat is a Scottish television writer and producer.Moffat's first television work was the teen drama series Press Gang. His first sitcom, Joking Apart, was inspired by the breakdown of his first marriage; conversely, his later sitcom Coupling was based upon the development of his...
that updated Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Nesbitt spent three hours reading the script before accepting the role of Tom Jackman—and his alter-ego Mr Hyde. After signing on for the role, he met with Moffat and Hartswood Films
Hartswood Films
Hartswood Films is a British television production company, founded and run by producer Beryl Vertue. The company is noted for its sitcom output, which includes Men Behaving Badly, Is It Legal? and Coupling...
executive producer Beryl Vertue
Beryl Vertue
Beryl Vertue is an English television producer and media executive. She is founder and chairman of the independent television production company Hartswood Films....
to discuss the character, and had several make-up tests. His anticipation for the part was heightened because filming was not scheduled to begin until September 2006. Nesbitt spent an hour each day being made up as Hyde; a wig altered his hairline and prosthetics were added to his chin, nose and ear lobes. He also wore black contact lenses to make Hyde "soulless", though CGI was used to show the transformation from Jackman in close-ups. The series was broadcast on BBC One in June and July 2007. The role secured him a nomination from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association
Hollywood Foreign Press Association
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is an organization composed of working journalists who cover the United States film industry for a variety of outlets, including newspapers and magazines in Europe, Asia, Australia and Latin America. Today, the 90 members of the HFPA represent at least 55...
for the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television, and a nomination for the Rose d'Or for Best Entertainer.
In 2008, he portrayed Pontius Pilate
Pontius Pilate
Pontius Pilatus , known in the English-speaking world as Pontius Pilate , was the fifth Prefect of the Roman province of Judaea, from AD 26–36. He is best known as the judge at Jesus' trial and the man who authorized the crucifixion of Jesus...
in The Passion
The Passion (TV serial)
The Passion is a television drama serial produced by the BBC and HBO Films in association with Deep Indigo Productions. It tells the story of the last week in the life of Jesus. The serial was first proposed by Peter Fincham in 2006, on the success of the contemporary-set Manchester Passion...
, a BBC/HBO adaptation of the last week in the life of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
. He had originally rejected the script due to other filming commitments, but accepted the role after his agent told him to re-read it before making a final decision. He was pleased to learn that the serial was being produced by Nigel Stafford-Clark
Nigel Stafford-Clark
Nigel Stafford-Clark is a British film and television producer, and the brother of the theatre director Max Stafford-Clark. He was educated at Felsted and Trinity College, Cambridge, and worked in advertising and in sponsored documentaries before becoming a commercials producer at Moving Picture...
, whose Bleak House adaptation he had enjoyed, and that he would be appearing with his Jekyll co-star Denis Lawson
Denis Lawson
Denis Stamper Lawson is a Scottish actor and director. He is known for his roles as John Jarndyce in the BBC's adaptation of Bleak House and as Gordon Urquhart in the film Local Hero, but is best known for playing the part of Wedge Antilles in the original Star Wars trilogy.-Early life:Lawson was...
. Contrary to previous portrayals of Pilate, Nesbitt played the biblical figure as "nice", and—as when playing Jack Parlabane—used his own accent. The serial was broadcast in the UK during Easter week 2008. Shortly after filming The Passion, he filmed the part of journalist Max Raban in the Carnival Films
Carnival Films
Carnival Films is a British television production company, founded by Brian Eastman in 1978 as Picture Partnership Productions Limited and run by Gareth Neame since 2005. The company swiftly built up a strong reputation as an independent production company of theatre, film and television drama...
thriller Midnight Man
Midnight Man (TV serial)
Midnight Man is a 2008 British television serial produced by Carnival Films for the ITV network. The three-part serial stars James Nesbitt as Max Raban, a former investigative journalist who discovers an international conspiracy involving government policy groups and death squads...
, which was shown on ITV in May 2008. It won him a joint nomination (along with the 2007 series of Murphy's Law) for the ITV3 Crime Thriller Award for Best Actor
ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards
The Crime Thriller Awards is a British awards ceremony dedicated to crime thriller fiction. The inaugural event was held on 3 October 2008 at the Grosvenor Hotel, hosted by comedian and Jonathan Creek actor Alan Davies. It was televised on ITV3 on 6 October...
. At the end of the year, he had a starring role in the low-budget independent film Blessed
Blessed (2008 film)
Blessed is a British drama film released on 24 October 2008 that was written and directed by Mark Aldridge. It's cast included well-known actors James Nesbitt, Natascha McElhone and Gary Lewis, as well as young Lillian Woods. It is 83 minutes long and was filmed mainly on the Scottish island of...
. The writer and director Mark Aldridge scripted the character of Peter with Nesbitt in mind to play him. The film had a limited release throughout 2008 and 2009 before the BBC screened it on television in 2010. Nesbitt said, "The role of Peter is what I have dreamed about playing, you wait your whole life for an opportunity like this and when it comes you have to grab it."
The following year, Nesbitt co-starred with Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson
Liam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...
in the fact-based television film Five Minutes of Heaven
Five Minutes of Heaven
Five Minutes of Heaven is a British/Irish film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel from a script by Guy Hibbert. The film was premiered on January 19, 2009 at the 25th Sundance Film Festival...
(Oliver Hirschbiegel
Oliver Hirschbiegel
Oliver Hirschbiegel is a German film director. His works include Das Experiment and the Oscar nominated Der Untergang.- Career :...
, 2009). The first part of the film dramatises the real-life murder of Jim Griffin by Alistair Little in 1970s Lurgan
Lurgan
Lurgan is a town in County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The town is near the southern shore of Lough Neagh and in the north-eastern corner of the county. Part of the Craigavon Borough Council area, Lurgan is about 18 miles south-west of Belfast and is linked to the city by both the M1 motorway...
; the second part features a fictional meeting between Little (Neeson) and Jim's brother Joe (Nesbitt) 33 years later. Nesbitt met with Griffin before filming began to learn about how his brother's murder affected him. The film was broadcast on BBC Two in April 2009. He also starred as Colour Sgt. Mike Swift in Peter Bowker
Peter Bowker
Peter Bowker is a British playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for the television serials Blackpool , a musical drama about a shady casino owner; Occupation , which follows three military servicemen adjusting to civilian life after a tour of duty in Iraq; and Desperate Romantics , a...
's three-part BBC/Kudos television serial Occupation
Occupation (TV serial)
Occupation is a BAFTA Award–winning three part drama serial broadcast by BBC One in June 2009. It was written by Peter Bowker and has been produced by Kudos for BBC Northern Ireland.It took four years to bring the serial to screen...
. In Occupation, set over six years, Nesbitt's character is one of three British soldiers who return to Basra
Basra
Basra is the capital of Basra Governorate, in southern Iraq near Kuwait and Iran. It had an estimated population of two million as of 2009...
, Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
after their tours have concluded. He researched the role by speaking to Territorial Army soldiers in Belfast, and RAF
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
officers in Morocco, where the serial was filmed. Both performances were commended by Independent journalist Hugh Montgomery; in a review of 2009's television, Montgomery named Nesbitt "Face of the Year", writing, "Just as you had James Nesbitt written off as the gurning embodiment of everything mediocre about British TV drama, he produced two stonking performances, as the transfixingly harrowed sergeant in Occupation, and a nervily vengeful victim's relative in Irish-troubles piece Five Minutes of Heaven. Give the man a Bafta." Nesbitt was not nominated for a BAFTA award, though did receive a nomination for Best Actor from the Broadcasting Press Guild
Broadcasting Press Guild
The Broadcasting Press Guild is a British association of journalists who specialise in writing and broadcasting about television, radio and the media generally....
for both performances.
International work
In March 2009, Nesbitt signed a contract with the American talent agency United Talent Agency, as the global financial crisisLate-2000s financial crisis
The late-2000s financial crisis is considered by many economists to be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s...
was restricting roles in British television. He continued to be represented in the United Kingdom by Artists Rights Group. The next year Nesbitt played the hunter Cathal in the low-budget British horror film Outcast, which was a departure from his previous character types. After screening at major international film festivals in early 2010, the film had a general release in the latter part of the year. Nesbitt had previously worked with the film's director and co-writer Colm McCarthy on Murphy's Law, which was one reason he took the role. He researched the mythical aspects of the character by reading about Irish folklore and beliefs. He also starred alongside Minnie Driver
Minnie Driver
Minnie Driver is an English actress and singer-songwriter. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting, as well as for an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe for her work in the television series The Riches.- Early life...
and his Welcome to Sarajevo co-star Goran Višnjić
Goran Višnjic
Goran Višnjić is a Croatian actor who has appeared in American and British films and television productions. He is best known for his role as Dr. Luka Kovač in the hit television series ER...
in the Tiger Aspect television serial The Deep
The Deep (TV serial)
The Deep is a British television serial drama produced by Tiger Aspect Productions for BBC Wales. Written by Simon Donald, The Deep stars Minnie Driver, James Nesbitt, and Goran Visnjic as the crew of a research submarine, who encounter disaster thousands of feet underwater in the Arctic Circle.The...
. In the five-part drama, Nesbitt played submarine engineer Clem Donnelly. The serial was filmed over 12 weeks at BBC Scotland
BBC Scotland
BBC Scotland is a constituent part of the British Broadcasting Corporation, the publicly-funded broadcaster of the United Kingdom. It is, in effect, the national broadcaster for Scotland, having a considerable amount of autonomy from the BBC's London headquarters, and is run by the BBC Trust, who...
's studios in Dumbarton. August 2010 saw the release of Nadia Tass
Nadia Tass
Nadia Tass is a film director, producer and actress, originally from Macedonia, northern Greece, who moved to Australia in the 1960s. She began her career as an actress appearing in the television series Prisoner. Ms...
's film Matching Jack
Matching Jack
Matching Jack is a 2010 Australian drama film directed by Nadia Tass from a screenplay by Lynne Renew and David Parker, based on an unfilmed script by Renew entitled Love and Mortar. The film stars Jacinda Barrett as a mother who begins a lengthy search for a bone marrow donor to help her son , who...
, in which Nesbitt plays the leading role of Connor. He became involved in the film after reading an early script draft in 2006. In 2008, the global financial crisis severely reduced the budget of the film, and Nesbitt volunteered a reduction in his salary so the film could still be made. The film was shot over eight weeks in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
in 2009 and released in 2010.
Next, Nesbitt reunited with Occupation screenwriter Peter Bowker to star in the ITV medical drama series Monroe
Monroe (TV series)
Monroe is a British medical drama television series created and written by Peter Bowker and produced by Mammoth Screen for the ITV network. The series follows a neurosurgeon named Gabriel Monroe, played by James Nesbitt. The six-part series was commissioned by ITV as one of a number of replacements...
, playing Gabriel Monroe. Nesbitt was Bowker's first choice for the part. Nesbitt researched the role of the neurosurgeon
Neurosurgery
Neurosurgery is the medical specialty concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and rehabilitation of disorders which affect any portion of the nervous system including the brain, spine, spinal cord, peripheral nerves, and extra-cranial cerebrovascular system.-In the United States:In...
character by watching brain surgery being performed by Henry Marsh
Henry Marsh (neurosurgeon)
Henry Thomas Marsh, CBE, FRCS is a leading British neurosurgeon, and a pioneer of neurosurgical advances in Ukraine.Marsh attended the Dragon School in Oxford....
, and by consulting Philip Van Hille at Leeds General Infirmary
Leeds General Infirmary
Leeds General Infirmary, also known as the LGI or, more correctly, The General Infirmary at Leeds, is a large teaching hospital based in the centre of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England and is part of the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust....
. The series was filmed over 12 weeks in Leeds at the end of 2010 and broadcast on ITV during March and April 2011. Nesbitt will reprise the role in a second series, which is due to begin production in 2012. In film, Nesbitt co-stars as Irish writer Jack in Emilio Estevez
Emilio Estevez
Emilio Estevez is an American actor, film director, and writer. He started his career as an actor and is well-known for being a member of the acting Brat Pack of the 1980s, starring in The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire...
's drama The Way
The Way (film)
The Way is a 2010 American drama film. It is a collaboration between Martin Sheen and his real life son Emilio Estevez, to honour the Camino de Santiago and promote pilgrimage...
, alongside Martin Sheen
Martin Sheen
Ramón Gerardo Antonio Estévez , better known by his stage name Martin Sheen, is an American film actor best known for his performances in the films Badlands and Apocalypse Now , and in the television series The West Wing from 1999 to 2006.He is considered one of the best actors never to be...
, Deborah Kara Unger
Deborah Kara Unger
Deborah Kara Unger is a Canadian actress. She is known for her roles in the films Crash , The Game , The Hurricane , White Noise , Silent Hill and 88 Minutes...
, and Yorick van Wageningen
Yorick van Wageningen
Yorick van Wageningen is a Dutch actor.After acting in several Dutch plays, movies, and television series, van Wageningen was asked to come to Hollywood to appear in Steven Spielberg's Minority Report. Due to problems with his visa, he was unable to work on that movie in the United States....
, and has a role as Sicinius in Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Fiennes
Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes is an English actor and film director. He has appeared in such films as The English Patient, In Bruges, The Constant Gardener, Strange Days, The Duchess and Schindler's List....
' contemporary Shakespeare adaptation Coriolanus
Coriolanus (2011 film)
Coriolanus is a 2011 film adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy Coriolanus directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes and Gerard Butler. It marks Fiennes's directorial debut...
.
Alongside many other British and Irish actors, Nesbitt was cast in Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson
Sir Peter Robert Jackson, KNZM is a New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter, known for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , adapted from the novel by J. R. R...
's two-part film The Hobbit, as the dwarf Bofur. Nesbitt had not read J.R.R. Tolkien's novel
The Hobbit
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again, better known by its abbreviated title The Hobbit, is a fantasy novel and children's book by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald...
but accepted the role immediately. As the film is scheduled to take over 12 months to make in New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, Nesbitt's wife and daughters moved with him, and his daughters were enrolled in a New Zealand school. Filming commenced in March 2011. The two films are scheduled for release in late 2012 and 2013 respectively.
Other projects
In 2002, Nesbitt made his documentary debut as the presenter of James Nesbitt's Blazing Saddles, a production for BBC ChoiceBBC Choice
BBC Choice was a BBC TV station which launched on 23 September 1998 and closed on 9 February 2003. It was the first British TV channel to broadcast exclusively in digital format, and was the first new channel from the BBC since BBC Two launched in 1964...
that saw him spend two weeks in Las Vegas
Las Vegas metropolitan area
The Las Vegas Valley is the heart of the Las Vegas-Paradise, NV MSA also known as the Las Vegas–Paradise–Henderson MSA which includes all of Clark County, Nevada, and is a metropolitan area in the southern part of the U.S. state of Nevada. The Valley is defined by the Las Vegas Valley landform, a ...
at the National Finals Rodeo
National Finals Rodeo
The National Finals Rodeo, organized by the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association, is the premier championship rodeo event in the United States. Wrangler Jeans is the title sponsor for the 10-day event, commonly just called the National Finals or NFR, which is also sometimes referred to as the...
and the Miss Rodeo America pageant. In 2007, he was the guest host of an episode of the late-night Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
comedy The Friday Night Project
The Sunday Night Project
The Sunday Night Project was a British comedy-variety show by Princess Productions that first aired on Channel 4 in February 2005 under the title The Friday Night Project...
. As a film awards presenter, he hosted the IFTA Awards ceremony for three consecutive years between 2005 and 2007, the British Independent Film Awards
British Independent Film Awards
The Moët British Independent Film Awards is an annual award ceremony celebrating achievement in independently funded British film and cinema. Nominations and jury are announced at the beginning of November with the award ceremony taking place in late November or early December.-History:The British...
from 2005 to 2010, and the National Movie Awards
National Movie Awards
The National Movie Awards is a British movie awards ceremony broadcast by ITV in which the winners of the awards are chosen via popular vote. The awards were initiated in 2007 following the success of the National Television Awards, the highest-rating awards ceremony for television...
in 2008 and 2010. In 2009, he hosted the Laurence Olivier Awards.
An amateur golfer since his teenage years, Nesbitt joined the European team for Sky One's All*Star Cup in 2005 and 2006. He signed up to a series of high-profile television advertisements for the Yell Group
Yell Group
Yell Group plc is a multinational directories company headquartered in Reading, United Kingdom. As well as the United Kingdom, it has operations in the United States, Spain and some countries in Latin America...
in 2003, playing a hapless character called James for the company's Yellow Pages
Yellow Pages
Yellow Pages refers to a telephone directory of businesses, organized by category, rather than alphabetically by business name and in which advertising is sold. As the name suggests, such directories were originally printed on yellow paper, as opposed to white pages for non-commercial listings...
campaign until 2006. Times writer Andrew Billen noted that the adverts "cost him some credibility" but Nesbitt was pleased with the money he made from them. In 2004, he joined the supergroup
Supergroup (music)
In the late 1960s, the term supergroup was coined to describe "a rock music group whose performers are already famous from having performed individually or in other groups"....
Twisted X to produce "Born in England", an unofficial anthem for the England national football team
England national football team
The England national football team represents England in association football and is controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England. England is the joint oldest national football team in the world, alongside Scotland, whom they played in the world's first...
's entry in the UEFA Euro 2004 tournament. His vocals have also appeared in Lucky Break and an episode of Cold Feet. The song he performed in the latter—"(Love Is) The Tender Trap
(Love Is) The Tender Trap
" The Tender Trap" is a popular song composed by Jimmy Van Heusen, with lyrics by Sammy Cahn.It was written for the 1955 film The Tender Trap, where it was introduced by Debbie Reynolds and Frank Sinatra, who each sing the song separately. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original...
"—was released on one of the series' soundtrack albums. He also contributed vocals to the Waking Ned soundtrack. A fan of Northern Irish band Ash
Ash (band)
Ash are an alternative rock band that formed in Downpatrick, Northern Ireland in 1992. The band has sold 8 million albums worldwide.-Band beginning, Trailer and 1977 :...
, he made a cameo in their unreleased film Slashed
Slashed
Slashed is a low budget independent horror film, financed and directed by Ash and written by Jed Shepherd. The film was shot in 2002, purely on a video camcorder when Ash were on tour in the United States supporting Coldplay - who subsequently appeared in the movie as detectives, along with various...
. In 2009, he starred in the music video for "The Day I Died
The Day I Died
"The Day I Died" is the second single from electronic music artist Just Jack taken from his third studio album All Night Cinema. It was released on 17 August 2009. The song has already made the Radio 1 A-list, and XFM B-list, before the single was officially released...
", a single by English dance-pop artist Just Jack
Just Jack
Jack Christopher Allsopp , known by the stage name Just Jack, is an English musician from Camden Town, London. He first came to prominence with the release of his 2007 single "Starz in Their Eyes", which reached number two on the UK Singles Chart...
. Nesbitt was recommended to Just Jack by Elton John
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE, Hon DMus is an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor...
.
Personal life
Nesbitt is married to Sonia Forbes-Adam. The two met when Nesbitt went to the final call-back for Hamlet at Loughborough Hall in 1989, and they soon began dating. They split up for a year after the release of Hear My Song but reunited and married in 1994. They have since had two daughters, Peggy and Mary. Nesbitt's three sisters all became teachers and his sister-in-law is Victoria Forbes-Adam, the director of the Coalition Against Child Soldiers. In 2002, a Sunday tabloid published an interview with a legal secretary who claimed to have had a two-month affair with Nesbitt. Shortly afterwards, another tabloid story revealed an affair with a prostitute, who claimed Nesbitt had boasted of liaisons with his Cold Feet co-star Kimberley JosephKimberley Joseph
Kimberley Joseph is a Canadian-Australian actress who is based in the United States. Joseph was born in Canada, raised on the Gold Coast in Australia, and educated in Switzerland. After returning to Australia, she began a degree at Bond University but dropped out at the age of 19 when she was cast...
, and Amanda Brunker
Amanda Brunker
Amanda Brunker is a novelist, journalist/columnist with the Irish Sunday World newspaper, and former Miss Ireland....
, a former Miss Ireland
Miss Ireland
Miss Ireland is a national beauty pageant held in the Republic of Ireland each year, to celebrate the country's most beautiful women. Winners of the contest represent Ireland at the Miss World pageant. Other winners, including Roberta Brown and Siobhan McClaffey have also been delegates at rival...
. Commenting on the publication of details about his personal life, Nesbitt has said he feared that he would lose his marriage, though the exposing of his "dual life" allowed him to "take a long and considered look" at himself.
Nesbitt is a patron of Wave, a charity set up to support those traumatised by the Troubles
The Troubles
The Troubles was a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland which spilled over at various times into England, the Republic of Ireland, and mainland Europe. The duration of the Troubles is conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered by many to have ended with the Belfast...
. The charity faced closure due to funding problems before Nesbitt encouraged celebrities and artists to become involved. Since 2005, he has been a UNICEF UK
UNICEF UK
UNICEF UK, also known as the United Kingdom Committee for UNICEF, is one of 36 UNICEF National Committees based in industrialised countries. The National Committees raise funds for the organisation's worldwide emergency and development work. In 2007, UNICEF UK raised £41.3 million for UNICEF’s work...
ambassador, working with HIV and AIDS sufferers, and former child soldiers in Africa. He describes the role as "a privilege". Writing in The Independent about his visit to Zambia
Zambia
Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....
in 2006, Nesbitt concluded that the children he met were owed a social and moral responsibility. The article was described in the Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
as "moving and notably well-crafted". Since 1999, he has been a patron of Action Cancer, a result of both his father's affliction with prostate cancer and a storyline in the second series of Cold Feet, where his character suffered testicular cancer. He has been an honorary patron of Youth Lyric, one of Ireland's largest theatre schools, since 2007.
He is a fan of football teams Coleraine
Coleraine F.C.
Coleraine F.C. is a semi-professional, Northern Irish football club, playing in the IFA Premiership. The club, founded in 1927, hails from Coleraine, County Londonderry and plays its home matches at the Showgrounds. Club colours are blue and white...
and Manchester United
Manchester United F.C.
Manchester United Football Club is an English professional football club, based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, that plays in the Premier League. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.The 1958...
. In 2003, Nesbitt made a donation of "thousands of pounds" to Coleraine, after the team came close to bankruptcy. He has called the team "a heartbeat" of Coleraine and encouraged more people to watch Irish League
IFA Premiership
The IFA Premiership – formerly the Irish Premier League, and before that the Irish Football League–and still known in popular parlance simply as the Irish League, is the national football league in Northern Ireland, and was historically the league for the whole of Ireland. Clubs in the league are...
football. Nesbitt was a vocal opponent of Malcolm Glazer
Malcolm Glazer
Malcolm Irving Glazer is an American businessman and sports team owner. He is the president and chief executive officer of First Allied Corporation, a holding company for his varied business interests, most notably in the food processing industry...
's 2005 takeover of Manchester United, though after he did television advertisements promoting executive boxes at Old Trafford
Old Trafford
Old Trafford commonly refers to two sporting arenas:* Old Trafford, home of Manchester United F.C.* Old Trafford Cricket Ground, home of Lancashire County Cricket ClubOld Trafford can also refer to:...
to which he was criticised by fans. To counter the criticism, he pledged one half of his £10,000 fee to the Manchester United Supporters' Trust
Manchester United Supporters' Trust
Manchester United Supporters' Trust is the official supporters' trust of Manchester United F.C., as recognised by Supporters Direct. The group, like other supporters' trusts, seeks to strengthen the influence of supporters over the destiny of their clubs through democratic supporter ownership...
and the other half to UNICEF.
In March 2010, Nesbitt accepted the ceremonial position of Chancellor
Chancellor (education)
A chancellor or vice-chancellor is the chief executive of a university. Other titles are sometimes used, such as president or rector....
of the University of Ulster, succeeding former Lord Mayor of London
Lord Mayor of London
The Right Honourable Lord Mayor of London is the legal title for the Mayor of the City of London Corporation. The Lord Mayor of London is to be distinguished from the Mayor of London; the former is an officer only of the City of London, while the Mayor of London is the Mayor of Greater London and...
Sir Richard Nichols. Gerry Mallon, the chair of the university ruling council, expected Nesbitt to "bring considerable energy, dynamism and commitment" to the post. Following his official installation on 8 June 2010, Nesbitt said, "Rather than being just an informal role officiating at ceremonies, I think I can act as an ambassador. I have access to an awful lot of people and places because of my work. I hope to be a voice that can be heard, not just at the university, but also outside promoting the importance of the funding of education. If that involves me being at Stormont, then I'd be very happy to do that. Clearly these public spending cuts are going to have an impact and it's important to fight for funding because it's about investing in students and investing in the future of Northern Ireland. I believe I can bring something to that, otherwise I wouldn't have taken this on."
Filmography and awards
| Year | Award | Category | Nominated work(s) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Screen Actors Guild Award Screen Actors Guild Awards A Screen Actors Guild Award is an accolade given by the Screen Actors Guild to recognize outstanding performances by its members. The statuette given, a nude male figure holding both a mask of comedy and a mask of tragedy, is called "The Actor"... |
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture | Waking Ned Devine Waking Ned Waking Ned is a 1998 comedy film by English writer and director Kirk Jones. It stars Ian Bannen, David Kelly and Fionnula Flanagan. Kelly was nominated for a Screen Actors' Guild award for his role as Michael O'Sullivan. The film is set in Ireland but was filmed on location in the Isle of Man... |
Nominated |
| 1999 | British Comedy Award British Comedy Awards The British Comedy Awards is an annual awards ceremony in the United Kingdom celebrating notable comedians and entertainment performances of the previous year.-History:... |
Best TV Comedy Actor | Cold Feet Cold Feet Cold Feet is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV network. The series was created and principally written by Mike Bullen as a follow-up to his award-winning 1997 Comedy Premiere of the same name. The storyline follows three couples experiencing the... |
Nominated |
| 2000 | British Comedy Award British Comedy Awards The British Comedy Awards is an annual awards ceremony in the United Kingdom celebrating notable comedians and entertainment performances of the previous year.-History:... |
Best TV Comedy Actor | Cold Feet Cold Feet Cold Feet is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV network. The series was created and principally written by Mike Bullen as a follow-up to his award-winning 1997 Comedy Premiere of the same name. The storyline follows three couples experiencing the... |
Won |
| 2001 | British Comedy Award British Comedy Awards The British Comedy Awards is an annual awards ceremony in the United Kingdom celebrating notable comedians and entertainment performances of the previous year.-History:... |
Best TV Comedy Actor | Cold Feet Cold Feet Cold Feet is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV network. The series was created and principally written by Mike Bullen as a follow-up to his award-winning 1997 Comedy Premiere of the same name. The storyline follows three couples experiencing the... |
Nominated |
| 2002 | Television and Radio Industries Club Award Television and Radio Industries Club The Television and Radio Industries Club is a British institution chartered in 1931 to "promote goodwill in the television and radio industries"... |
Drama TV Performer of the Year | Cold Feet Cold Feet Cold Feet is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV network. The series was created and principally written by Mike Bullen as a follow-up to his award-winning 1997 Comedy Premiere of the same name. The storyline follows three couples experiencing the... |
Won |
| 2002 | British Independent Film Award British Independent Film Awards The Moët British Independent Film Awards is an annual award ceremony celebrating achievement in independently funded British film and cinema. Nominations and jury are announced at the beginning of November with the award ceremony taking place in late November or early December.-History:The British... |
Best Performance by an Actor in a British Independent Film BIFA Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a British Independent Film The British Independent Film Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a British Independent Film is an annual award given to the Best Actor who starred in a British independent film... |
Bloody Sunday | Won |
| 2002 | Stockholm International Film Festival Award Stockholm International Film Festival The Stockholm International Film Festival is an annual film festival held in Stockholm, Sweden. It was launched in 1990 and has been held every year in the second half of November... |
Best Actor | Bloody Sunday | Won |
| 2002 | British Academy Television Award British Academy Television Awards The British Academy Television Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . They have been awarded annually since 1954, and are analogous to the Emmy Awards in the United States.-Background:... |
Best Actor British Academy Television Award for Best Actor - 1950s :*1955 Paul Rogers — *1956 Peter Cushing — *1957 Michael Gough — *1958 Michael Hordern — *1959 Donald Pleasence — - 1960s :*1960 Patrick McGoohan — *1961 Lee Montague —... |
Bloody Sunday | Nominated |
| 2003 | Irish Film & Television Award Irish Film and Television Awards The Irish Film and Television Awards were first awarded in 2003. Its sole aim is to celebrate Ireland's notably talented film and television community... |
Best Actor in a TV Drama | Murphy's Law Murphy's Law (TV series) Murphy's Law is a BBC television drama, produced by Tiger Aspect Productions for BBC Northern Ireland, starring James Nesbitt as an undercover police officer, Tommy Murphy. There were five series of the drama, shown on BBC One. The first two were composed of individual stories. Series three, four... |
Won |
| 2003 | TV Quick Awards TV Quick TV Choice, is a British weekly TV listings magazine published by H. Bauer Publishing, the UK subsidiary of family-run German company Bauer Media Group... |
Best Actor | Cold Feet Cold Feet Cold Feet is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV network. The series was created and principally written by Mike Bullen as a follow-up to his award-winning 1997 Comedy Premiere of the same name. The storyline follows three couples experiencing the... |
Won |
| 2003 | National Television Award National Television Awards The National Television Awards is a British television awards ceremony, broadcast by the ITV network and initiated in 1995. The National Television Awards are the most prominent ceremony for which the results are voted on by the general public. Because of the way the awards are decided, winners are... |
Most Popular Comedy Performance | Cold Feet Cold Feet Cold Feet is a British comedy-drama television series produced by Granada Television for the ITV network. The series was created and principally written by Mike Bullen as a follow-up to his award-winning 1997 Comedy Premiere of the same name. The storyline follows three couples experiencing the... |
Won |
| 2004 | National Television Award National Television Awards The National Television Awards is a British television awards ceremony, broadcast by the ITV network and initiated in 1995. The National Television Awards are the most prominent ceremony for which the results are voted on by the general public. Because of the way the awards are decided, winners are... |
Most Popular Actor | The Canterbury Tales The Canterbury Tales (TV Series) The Canterbury Tales is a series of six single dramas that originally aired on BBC One in 2003. Each story is an adaptation of one of Geoffrey Chaucer's 14th century Canterbury Tales which are transferred to a modern, 21st century setting, but still set along the traditional Pilgrims' route to... |
Nominated |
| 2004 | Irish Film & Television Award Irish Film and Television Awards The Irish Film and Television Awards were first awarded in 2003. Its sole aim is to celebrate Ireland's notably talented film and television community... |
Best Actor in a TV Drama | Wall of Silence | Nominated |
| 2005 | Irish Film & Television Award Irish Film and Television Awards The Irish Film and Television Awards were first awarded in 2003. Its sole aim is to celebrate Ireland's notably talented film and television community... |
Best Actor in Television | Murphy's Law Murphy's Law (TV series) Murphy's Law is a BBC television drama, produced by Tiger Aspect Productions for BBC Northern Ireland, starring James Nesbitt as an undercover police officer, Tommy Murphy. There were five series of the drama, shown on BBC One. The first two were composed of individual stories. Series three, four... |
Nominated |
| 2007 | Irish Film & Television Award Irish Film and Television Awards The Irish Film and Television Awards were first awarded in 2003. Its sole aim is to celebrate Ireland's notably talented film and television community... |
Best Actor in a Lead Role in Television | Murphy's Law Murphy's Law (TV series) Murphy's Law is a BBC television drama, produced by Tiger Aspect Productions for BBC Northern Ireland, starring James Nesbitt as an undercover police officer, Tommy Murphy. There were five series of the drama, shown on BBC One. The first two were composed of individual stories. Series three, four... |
Nominated |
| 2007 | Golden Globe Award Golden Globe Award The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign... |
Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television | Jekyll | Nominated |
| 2008 | Rose d'Or Rose d'Or The Rose d’Or is one of the most important international festivals in entertainment television. It was founded in Montreux in 1961 and has taken place in Lucerne since 2004. Producers, executives from independent and public service broadcasters and heads of production companies from over 40... |
Best Entertainer | Jekyll | Nominated |
| 2008 | ITV3 Crime Thriller Award | Best Actor | Murphy's Law Murphy's Law (TV series) Murphy's Law is a BBC television drama, produced by Tiger Aspect Productions for BBC Northern Ireland, starring James Nesbitt as an undercover police officer, Tommy Murphy. There were five series of the drama, shown on BBC One. The first two were composed of individual stories. Series three, four... and Midnight Man Midnight Man (TV serial) Midnight Man is a 2008 British television serial produced by Carnival Films for the ITV network. The three-part serial stars James Nesbitt as Max Raban, a former investigative journalist who discovers an international conspiracy involving government policy groups and death squads... |
Nominated |
| 2010 | Broadcasting Press Guild Award Broadcasting Press Guild The Broadcasting Press Guild is a British association of journalists who specialise in writing and broadcasting about television, radio and the media generally.... |
Best Actor | Occupation Occupation (TV serial) Occupation is a BAFTA Award–winning three part drama serial broadcast by BBC One in June 2009. It was written by Peter Bowker and has been produced by Kudos for BBC Northern Ireland.It took four years to bring the serial to screen... and Five Minutes of Heaven Five Minutes of Heaven Five Minutes of Heaven is a British/Irish film directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel from a script by Guy Hibbert. The film was premiered on January 19, 2009 at the 25th Sundance Film Festival... |
Nominated |
| 2010 | New York City Horror Film Festival Award New York City Horror Film Festival The New York City Horror Film Festival was established by Michael J. Hein in 2001. It takes place each year in New York City for a week in October or November and specializes in the horror film genre.... |
Best Actor | Outcast | Won |
Academic honours
- Honorary Doctor of Letters (D.Litt) for services to drama from University of UlsterUniversity of UlsterThe University of Ulster is a multi-campus, co-educational university located in Northern Ireland. It is the largest single university in Ireland, discounting the federal National University of Ireland...
, Magee campus (9 July 2003). - Award of Distinction for contribution to drama from Belfast Metropolitan College (13 November 2008).
- Chancellor of the University of Ulster (2010—) (ceremonial)
External links
- James Nesbitt at the British Film InstituteBritish Film InstituteThe British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
- James Nesbitt—UNICEF UK Ambassador
Articles
- Nesbitt, James (30 May 2010). "Guinea without a net". The Sunday Telegraph (Telegraph Media Group): p. 16 (Seven supplement).
- Nesbitt, James (16 June 2010). "Growing up, I knew what Bloody Sunday meant". The Independent (Independent Print): pp. 8.