Tom Wilkinson, Oscar-Nominated Actor Known for ‘Michael Clayton’ and ‘The Full Monty,’ Dies at 75
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Actor Tom Wilkinson, known for his BAFTA-winning role in The Full Monty and Oscar-nominated turns in Michael Clayton and In the Bedroom, died Saturday. He was 75.
Wilkinson died “suddenly” at home, according to a statement from the actor’s family, who were with him when he died as was his wife.
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“The family asks for privacy at this time,” the statement continued.
Wilkinson was nominated for six BAFTA awards over the course of his career, winning best performance by an actor in a supporting role in 1998 for The Full Monty. His other nods included recognition for Michael Clayton, In the Bedroom and Shakespeare in Love.
In The Full Monty, he played Gerald, a former steel mill foreman who joins his fellow unemployed workers in staging a strip show.
Speaking about getting the part to The Guardian in 2011, Wilkinson recalled how he had been offered both a starring role in a TV show and “a possible part in a low-budget movie.”
“I remember phoning a friend and he said, ‘Take the TV, take the TV‘. But I didn’t follow his advice, and the TV turned out to be crap,” Wilkinson said.
In that same interview, he rejected the idea of stardom coming late, “I’ve always been quite successful. I was a leading performer in stage and getting great roles on television,” he said. “I saw a lot of my friends doing films, and there’s a bit of you that says: ‘I want to sit down with the big boys.'”
For his role in Tony Gilroy’s Clayton, the 2007 drama that starred George Clooney and Tilda Swinton, who won the best supporting actress Oscar for her performance, Wilkinson received a best supporting actor nod.
“Tom made every project better, made every actor better,” Clooney said of Wilkinson in a statement after his Michael Clayton colleague’s death. “He was the epitome of elegance, and he will be dearly missed by all of us.”
For Todd Field’s 2001 film In the Bedroom, he received a best actor Oscar nomination for his role as a bereaved father.
Wilkinson won an Emmy and a Golden Globe for his role as Benjamin Franklin in HBO’s 2008 John Adams miniseries, starring Paul Giamatti as the titular second president of the United States. At both awards shows, he was also nominated for his role as James Baker in another HBO project, the Jay Roach-directed film Recount, about the contentious weeks after the 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore and the Florida recount.
Nominated for nine Screen Actors Guild Awards, Wilkinson won twice, both as part of the casts of Shakespeare in Love and The Full Monty.
He reprised his Full Monty role in the 2023 FX/Hulu TV series of the same name, which caught up with the characters 26 years after the film.
In her review of the series, The Hollywood Reporter TV critic Angie Han writes, “The series is powered by a deep wellspring of affection for its characters, and an appreciation for the time-tested bonds between them. It’s never more heartening than when it’s rounding up the whole gang to throw together an unorthodox funeral or thwart a haphazard robbery. The returning cast, for their part, haven’t missed a step.”
His other film credits include playing Gotham villain Carmine Falcone in Christopher Nolan’s 2005 film Batman Begins and former president Lyndon B. Johnson in Selma and roles in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Debt, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Belle, Sense and Sensibility, RocknRolla, Rush Hour, The Patriot, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Black Knight, Valkyrie, The Lone Ranger, Denial and Snowden.
On the small screen, he also appeared in The Kennedys, The Gathering Storm and David Copperfield.
In 2005, Wilkinson was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE).
Born in Leeds and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he got his first major screen role in 1986’s First Among Equals miniseries, where he starred alongside Diana Hardcastle, whom he would marry in 1988. The pair had two daughters, Alice and Molly.
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