Tom Wilkinson, the actor who can turn a manic lawyer, a steel-foreman-turned-stripper and parts small and large into captivating turns, has won Oscar nominations and praise for his performances in films such as of “Michael Clayton” and “The Full Monty,” died Saturday. He was 75.
A statement sent by his agent on behalf of Mr. Wilkinson’s family said he died suddenly at home. It gave no other details.
The range of Mr. Wilkinson seems to have no boundaries.
He earned Academy Award nominations for his work in “In the Bedroom” and “Michael Clayton” and delighted audiences with comedies such as “The Full Monty” and “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.”
He appeared in blockbuster movies like “Shakespeare in Love” and “Batman Begins” and tackled horror in “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” history as Benjamin Franklin in the HBO series “John Adams” and memory in the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”
He often lacked the name recognition or sheer star power of the actors opposite him — George Clooney, Sissy Spacek and Ben Affleck among them. But he caught the eye of audiences and critics through decades of work in television and film and on stage.
“I see myself as a utility player, the one who can do everything,” he told The New York Times in 2002. “I’ve always felt that actors should have a level of anonymity about them.”
To many Britons, however, “The Full Monty,” remains his most beloved performance, as one of the rude, unemployed steelworkers in Sheffield, England, who plan to earn money and repair their self-esteem by starting a striptease act for the town.
Played by Mr. Wilkinson is Gerald Cooper, an elderly ex-foreman who joins the cadre to escape the ornamental gnomes his wife has erected on the lawn.
But his range extended beyond comedy, and he was nominated for an Academy Award for best actor for his performance in “In the Bedroom,” directed by Todd Field.
In front of Ms. Spacek, played by Mr. Wilkinson is one half of a Maine couple struggling with the death of their son. said Mr. Field that he was attracted to Mr. Wilkinson because of his quality in everything.
“You don’t usually think that Robert Redford is going to live next door,” Mr. Field in The Times. “But you believe Tom Wilkinson can live next door. That’s the difference.”
A few years later, Mr. Wilkinson as a high-powered lawyer with a breakdown in Tony Gilroy’s “Michael Clayton”. He was nominated for another Academy Award for his performance in that film.
At that time, Mr. had been acting for three decades. Wilkinson, in theatre, television and film.
He was born in Yorkshire, England, and his parents immigrated to Canada when he was 4, looking for better work than farming. Their stay lasted only six years, during which his father worked as an aluminum smelter. The family returned to Britain, where Mr. Wilkinson’s parents ran a Cornwall pub until his father’s death, drawing Mr. Wilkinson and his mother back to Yorkshire.
Information about his survivors was not immediately available.
Mr Wilkinson said his life changed at the age of 16, at King James’s Grammar School in Knaresborough, where the principals “just decided he was going to do me”.
This, he said, “means being invited to his house, being taught how to eat, which knives and forks to reach for first.”
“We’re going to the theater together,” he said. “Being wandering around aimlessly at school, suddenly something took an interest in me.”
But he wasn’t drawn to acting until he got to the University of Canterbury in 1967, he said. After college, he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, where he discovered that it was possible for “working children from the provinces” to open art galleries, run rock bands, become designers, be an artist.
“All the things that weren’t cool became cool,” he said. “I saw the young, provincial bohemian and thought, that role could be mine. I will be arts. You can have a life in art. Why not?”
