Iris

Background:

“Making Iris was the most joyful, wonderful experience.” Jim Broadbent

A tall, jovial English character player with broad stage experience appreciated for his blundering comic skills, Jim Broadbent achieved wealth recognition and appreciation with his Academy Award, scene-stealing role as the devoted husband of writer Iris Murdoch (Judi Dench) in director Richard Eyre’s biopic film Irish (2001), where he took home a number of awards like an Oscar, a National Board of Review award, a Los Angeles Film Critics Association award and a Golden Globe award. One of Britain’s most versatile performers, Broadbent also gained additional acclaimed as Parisian cabaret owner Harold Zidler in the Baz Luhrmann-directed Moulin Rouge! (2001). Delivering a bravura supporting performance, he nabbed a National Board of Review award, a Los Angeles Film Critics Association award, a Golden Satellite award and a British Academy Award. In 2001, he won a National Board of Review award for his role in Nicholas Nickleby (2002). Before the massive victories, Broadbent was well-praised for his portrayal of the snooty William Gilbert in the 1999 movie Topsy-Turvy, for which he was awarded a Venice Film Festival award and earned nominations at the BAFTA, Chicago Film Critics Association Awards and British Independent Film Awards.

In addition to the award-winning performances, Broadbent is also memorable for playing roles in film like Time Bandits (1981), Brazil (1985), Life Is Sweet (1990), Enchanted April (1992), The Crying Game (1992), Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway (1994), Little Voice (1998), the box office smash Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) and Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York (2002). His more recent and forthcoming credits include Around the World in 80 Days (2004), Vanity Fair (2004), The Magic Roundabout (2005), the animated Robots (2005), Valiant (2005, lent his voice) and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), Art School Confidential (2006), the animated feature Free Jimmy (2006) and Hot Fuzz (2007).
On the small screen, Broadbent has made a number of TV films and acted in several TV serial, most notably the BBC film The Young Visitors (2003, received a BAFTA nomination), The Gathering Storm (2002, earned a Golden Globe and an Emmy nominations) and the extremely well-liked sitcom “Only Fools and Horses” (1983, 1985, 1991). He now plays Stan in the drama series “The Street” (2006-?) and is set to star in the television movie Longford (2006).

Off screen, Broadbent is the Honorary President of the Lindsey Rural Players. As for his private life, he has been spent his life outside the limelight with his wife of 19 years, artist Anastasia Lewis, whom he married in 1987.


Lincolnshire’s Son

Childhood and Family:

On May 24, 1949, Jim Broadbent was born in Lincoln, Lincolnshire, England. His father is Roy Broadbent (died in 1971), a sculptor and interior designer, and his mother is Dee Broadbent, a sculptress who died in 1995 after suffering from alzheimer disease. His parents both were the founder members of the Lindsey Rural Players and stalwarts of the Broadbent Theatre. Jim was educated at Leighton Park School, a Quaker school in Reading, before being accepted in art school. Realizing his calling was acting, he then transferred to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) and graduated in 1972. Upon completing his degree, Jim embarked on his professional stage career and later also added film and TV acting to his endeavors.
Jim was married to artist Anastasia Lewis in 1987. The couple currently resides in North West London and maintains a home in Lincolnshire.


Topsy-Turvy

Career:

The youngest son of the founders of the Lindsay Rural Players and stalwarts of the Broadbent Theatre, Jim Broadbent was exposed to the world of theater early when at age four he made his first stage appearance in “A Doll’s House” at his father’s founded theater. His love for acting later brought Broadbent to study with the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) and by the time he graduated in 1972, he had decided to pursue a career in acting.

Starting out as an Acting Assistant Stage Manager at the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre in London, Broadbent sharpened his stage acting by joining the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. He also became one second of the National Theatre of Brent, a two-man troupe which he co-founded with Patrick Barlow. In addition to working with such renowned British directors as Max Stafford Clark, Lindsay Anderson, Richard Eyre and Trevor Nunn, Broadbent also began a long and productive collaboration with director Mike Leigh. Their earliest association included the plays “Ecstasy” (1979) and “Goosepimples” (1981). The trained stage actor delivered his first significant breakthrough in 1977 with Ken Campbell’s” Illuminatus, ” a 12 hour science-fiction TV miniseries where Broadbent was cast in 12 different characters.

Broadbent went on to work on stage and TV, and began acting in films in the late 70s. In 1978, after appearing in TV film The Life Story of Baal (1978), he made his first film debut with a bit part in Jerzy Skolimowski’s The Shout, followed by other small roles in The Passage (1979), Breaking Glass (1980), The Dogs of War (1981), Uliisses (1982), Dead On Time (1983), The Man Who Shot Christmas (1984), The Hit (1984), and earned some laudable notice for his roles in the Terry Gilliam films, the imaginative Time Bandits (1981) and the haunting Brazil (1985). It was director Mike Newell that firstly cast Broadbent in his first prominent film role as a fragile dad who lost his son to a kaput marriage in Newell’s feature directorial debut, the powerful drama The Good Father (1985), starring with Anthony Hopkins.

Following TV movie appearances in Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe (1985) and The Insurance Man (1986), Broadbent broadened his market to America by releasing his Hollywood debut film, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, in 1987. The effort was worthless and he returned to the British television films with the comedy Blackadder’s Christmas Carol (BBC, 1988) and Revolution!! (1989), and the London stage with the revival of the Georges Feydeau comedy “A Flea in Her Ea” (1989). He rounded out the year with a feature role in the Tim Robin adventure vehicle Erik the Viking (1989).

Still in the U.K., Broadbent entered the 1990s by teaming with Leigh again in the comedy movie Life Is Sweet (1990), where he was perfectly cast as a chef who wants to open a restaurant, before starring in the six-part comedy-drama series “Gone to the Dogs” (1991) and enjoying a notable recurring role in the enormously popular sitcom “Only Fools and Horses” (1983, 1985, 1991), wherein he played an associate character DCI Roy ‘The Slag’ Slater. After a series of TV projects, including one the comedy short A Sense of History (1992), where he took double duty as an actor and screenwriter and helmed by Mike Leigh, Broadbent re-embarked on the big screen film in 1992 with memorable supporting turns as separated husband Frederick Arbuthnot in the Mike Newell-helmed drama Enchanted April and pleasant bartender Col in Neil Jordan’s thriller The Crying Game (1992).

Next up for Broadbent, he portrayed Deric Longden in the BBC TV production Wide-Eyed and Legless (1993), played a supporting role opposite Mia Farrow, Joan Plowright and Natasha Richardson in John Irvin’s Widows' Peak (1994) and had a small but memorable turn as an adored stage actor and neurotic eater in Woody Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway (1994), which starred John Cusack and Jennifer Tilly. Broadbent continued to elevate his popularity throughout the second half of the 90s by undertaking roles in such films as The Last Englishman (1995, TV), Richard Loncraine’s Richard III (1995), Rough Magic (1995), The Secret Agent (1996), Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997), The Borrowers (1997), The Avengers (1998) and Little Voice (1998, earned a Screen Actors Guild for Outstanding Performance by a Cast for his strong supporting turn as dodgy nightclub owner Mr. Boo).

In 1999, Broadbent’s acting career received a real momentum when Leigh had him play the supporting role of the snobbish William Gilbert in the biopic of Gilbert & Sullivan, Topsy-Turvy. For his bright acting, he was handed a London Critics Circle Film for British Actor of the Year and a Venice Film Festival for Best Actor, as well as earned nominations from BAFTA, Chicago Film Critics Association Awards and British Independent Film Awards.

Broadbent kept on with his luminous efforts in 2001 with high-profiles performances in two acclaimed films. He first was cast in the supporting role of Harold Zidler, the Parisian cabaret owner, in Baz Luhrmann’s musical film Moulin Rouge! (2001), which starred Nicole Kidman as Satine and Ewan McGregor as Christian. The role garnered Broadbent such awards as a National Board of Review and a Los Angeles Film Critics Association for Best Supporting Actor and a Golden Satellite and a British Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role. Broadbent gained even more recognition with his next scene-stealing role, this time as writer Iris Murdoch’s dutiful husband John Bayley in the biopic Iris (2001). With Richard Eyre directed at the helm, he successfully took home a National Board of Review, a Los Angeles Film Critics Association, a Golden Globe and finally an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. Additionally, he was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role, a BAFTA for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role and an Orange British Academy Film for the best Performance by an Actor in a leading role for his role in the Judi Dench starring vehicle. Also in 2001, he had a feature role as the titular character’s sardonic father in the successful Bridget Jones’s Diary, a role he would reprise for the 2004 ill-begotten sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.

Broadbent made his way back to TV in the following year when once again he collaborated with director Richard Loncraine for the-made-for-TV film The Gathering Storm. As Albert Finney’s Churchil pal Desmond Morton, he was so imposing that he received nominations at Golden Globe and Emmy Awards for Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television. As for film, he was seen in The King’s Beard (2002, voiced the Wizard), Martin Scorsese’s highly anticipated Gangs of New York (2002, starring Leonado DiCaprio) and the film version of Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby (2002, won a National Board of Review for Best Ensemble Performance).

2003 saw roles in the movie Bright Young Things, the HBO film And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself and BBC’s telefilm The Young Visitors. For his role in the latter, where he portrayed a low-born Brit who endures meticulous training to be a gentleman with the purpose of winning the heart of a lovely social climber, Broadbent earned a BAFTA TV award nomination. He then provided the voice of the rabbit in Tooth (2004) and Eddie in telefilm Pride (2004), appeared in Disney’s live action feature Around the World in 80 Days (2004), portrayed George Osbourne’s bossy father in the Reese Witherspoon vehicle Vanity Fair (2004) and was seen as a judge in Vera Drake (2004). In 2005, he added The Magic Roundabout (2005), the animated Robots (2005), Spider-Plant Man (2005, TV), Valiant (2005, lent his voice) and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) to his long impressive resume.

Recently, Broadbent acted in Art School Confidential (2006) and lent his voice for the Christopher Nielsen animated feature Free Jimmy (2006), and is scheduled to play a role in the upcoming Hot Fuzz (2007). On TV, he currently costars as Stan in the drama series “The Street” (2006-?) and will soon star in the television movie Longford (2006).


Awards:

• National Board of Review: Best Ensemble Performance, Nicholas Nickleby, 2002
• Golden Satellite: Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Comedy or Musical, Moulin Rouge!, 2002
• British Academy Award: Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, Moulin Rouge!, 2002
• National Board of Review: Best Supporting Actor, Moulin Rouge!, 2002
• National Board of Review: Best Supporting Actor, Iris, 2002
• Los Angeles Film Critics Association: Best Supporting Actor, Moulin Rouge!, 2001
• Los Angeles Film Critics Association: Best Supporting Actor, Iris, 2001
• Academy Awards: Best supporting actor, Iris, 2001
• Golden Globe: Best Actor in a Supporting Role, Iris, 2001
• London Critics Circle Film: British Actor of the Year, Topsy-Turvy, 2001
• Venice Film Festival: Volpi Cup, Best Actor, Topsy-Turvy, 2001
• London Evening Standard Film: Best Actor, 2001