Jim Broadbent
- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
One of England's most versatile character actors, Jim Broadbent was
born on May 24, 1949, in Lincolnshire, the youngest son of furniture
maker Roy Laverick Broadbent and sculptress Doreen "Dee" (Findlay)
Broadbent. Jim attended a Quaker boarding school in Reading before
successfully applying for a place at an art school. His heart was in
acting, though, and he would later transfer to the London Academy of
Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). Following his 1972 graduation, he began
his professional career on the stage, performing with the Royal
National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and as part of the
National Theatre of Brent, a two-man troupe which he co-founded. In
addition to his theatrical work, Broadbent did steady work on
television, working for such directors as
Mike Newell and
Stephen Frears. Broadbent made his film
debut in 1978 with a small part in
Jerzy Skolimowski's
The Shout (1978). He went on to work
with Frears again in The Hit (1984) and
with Terry Gilliam in
Time Bandits (1981) and
Brazil (1985), but it was through his
collaboration with Mike Leigh that
Broadbent first became known to an international film audience. In 1990
he starred in Leigh's
Life Is Sweet (1990), a domestic
comedy that cast him as a good-natured cook who dreams of running his
own business. Broadbent gained further visibility the following year
with substantial roles in
Neil Jordan's
The Crying Game (1992) and
Mike Newell's
Enchanted April (1991), and he
could subsequently be seen in such diverse fare as
Woody Allen's
Bullets Over Broadway (1994),
Widows' Peak (1994),
Richard Loncraine's highly acclaimed
adaptation of Shakespeare's
Richard III (1995) and
Little Voice (1998), the last of
which cast him as a seedy nightclub owner. Appearing primarily as a
character actor in these films, Broadbent took center stage for Leigh's
Topsy-Turvy (1999), imbuing the
mercurial W.S. Gilbert with emotional complexity and comic poignancy.
Jim's breakthrough year was 2001, as he starred in three critically and
commercially successful films. Many would consider him the definitive
supporting actor of that year. First he starred as Bridget's dad (Colin
Jones) in
Bridget Jones's Diary (2001),
which propelled Renée Zellweger to an
Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Next came the multiple
Oscar-nominated film (including Best Picture)
Moulin Rouge! (2001), for which he
won a Best Supporting Actor BAFTA award for his scene-stealing
performance as Harold Zidler. Lastly, came the small biopic
Iris (2001), for which he won the Oscar
for Best Supporting Actor as devoted husband John Bayley to
Judi Dench's Iris Murdoch, the British
novelist who suffered from Alzheimer's disease. The film hit home with
Jim, since his own mother had passed away from Alzheimer's in 1995.
