Tom Wilkinson, an admired performer on the British stage who, in middle age, became a talented actor and supporting star in a series of films that gained popularity and success in the United States, including «The Full Monty », “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless”. Mind” and “Shakespeare in Love” died on Saturday. He was 75 years old.
According to a statement from his agent, he died suddenly at his home. He did not provide further details.
Mr. Wilkinson may not have been known by name to many American moviegoers, but he used that discretion to his advantage, avoiding pigeonholing and instead filling a wide range of roles convincingly. Some of them remain largely memorable today.
He was nominated for an Academy Award for his work in the legal thriller «Michael Clayton» (2007) and the drama «In the Bedroom» (2001), an unusual turn for him as a film protagonist. He also delighted audiences in comedies, not only “The Full Monty” (1997) but also “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” (2011).
In addition to «Shakespeare in Love» (1998), his other successful films include «Batman Begins» (2005) and «Rush Hour» (1998), two films in which he played greedy villains.
He was so convincing as an American that he landed the roles of many of the country’s best-known historical figures, including Benjamin Franklin in the HBO miniseries «John Adams» (2008), Joseph P. Kennedy in the Reelz miniseries “The Kennedys”. (2011) and President Lyndon B. Johnson in the 2014 film “Selma.”
He has worked alongside some of the most famous movie actors, including George Clooney, Sissy Spacek and Ben Affleck.
“I consider myself a utility actor, one who can do anything,” he told The New York Times in 2002. “I always thought actors should have a certain degree of anonymity about themselves. «
For many Brits, «The Full Monty» remains his best-loved performance, as a gruff, unemployed steelworker from Sheffield, England, who plans to make money and restore his self-esteem by starting a striptease act for the city.
Mr. Wilkinson plays Gerald Cooper, an aging former foreman who joins the frame partly to escape the ornamental gnomes his wife has erected on the lawn. Former New York Times film critic Janet Maslin called his performance “winning.”
His starring performance in «In the Bedroom,» in which he plays Matt Fowler, a successful and astute doctor whose son has an affair and is murdered, earned him particularly admiring reviews. “As Matt, Tom Wilkinson continues to build a career of largely overlooked astonishments,” wrote critic Stanley Kauffmann in The New Republic. «He’s one of those acting treasures who seems quite content to continue to be underappreciated as long as he gets enough good roles.»
The film’s director, Todd Field, said he was attracted to Mr. Wilkinson because of his quality as an everyman.
“You don’t generally think Robert Redford is going to live next door,” Mr. Field told the Times. “But you think Tom Wilkinson might live next door. That’s the difference.
Mr. Wilkinson’s performances were at times more highly regarded than anything in which he had starred. In his review of the 2005 British drama «Separate Lies,» the former Times critic Stephen Holden wrote that Mr. Wilkinson «nails every detail» of a «one-liner.» satisfied snob” in his role as imperious lawyer.
“This powerful performance, equal in stature to Mr. Wilkinson’s grieving father in ‘In the Bedroom,’ pushes ‘Separate Lies’ halfway toward the rarefied class of that 2001 film,” Mr. Holden continued. “But it’s not far enough to begin to elevate this intriguing but cold moral puzzle to anything close to greatness.”
Geoffrey Thomas Wilkinson was born in Yorkshire, England, on February 5, 1948. His parents, Marjorie and Thomas Wilkinson, moved to Canada when he was 4, looking for better work than farming. Their stay lasted only six years, during which time his father worked as an aluminum smelter. The family returned to Britain, where Geoff’s parents ran a pub in Cornwall until his father’s death when he was a teenager, bringing him and his mother back to Yorkshire.
He later adopted his middle name professionally when he realized there was already a professional actor named Geoffrey Wilkinson.
In 1986, he met actress Diana Hardcastle while working with her on a British television show. They were married in 1988. Besides her, his survivors include their daughters, Alice and Molly. He and his wife lived for many years in north London.
Mr Wilkinson told The Times in 2002 that his life took a turning point at the age of 16 at King James’s Grammar School in Knaresborough, where the headmistresses «just decided she would make something of me». .
This, he said, “meant being invited to her house, learning how to eat, which knives and forks to take first.”
“We used to go to the theater together,” he says. “After wandering aimlessly around the school, suddenly someone was interested in me.”
But he wasn’t attracted to acting until he reached Canterbury University in 1967, he said. After university, he attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where he discovered that it was possible for «provincial working class kids» to open art galleries, lead rock bands , to become designers, actors. He spent two years as a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, then began building a career in British theater and television.
Two acting lessons he learned later in life.
After he had his daughters, he was inspired by the way they could immediately, at ages 8 and 10, inhabit the reality of imaginary play and improvise without embarrassment, he told The Times in 2001.
“I still have it,” Mr Wilkinson said. “I kept it.”
And he prepared to make his leap to Hollywood in the 1990s, the Telegraph reported in 2002, keeping in mind that nothing in the United States could be as scary as stripping in front of 200 women, as he did it in “The Full Monty.” »
“Making that scene made me wonder why I should be afraid of looking stupid again,” he told the newspaper. “It took away any fears you might have about making a fool of yourself.”