Tom Wilkinson, Actor Known For The Full Monty And Batman Begins, Is Dead At 75
British actor Tom Wilkinson has died at the age of 75. According to a statement shared with the BBC, Wilkinson passed "suddenly" at his home with his wife and family in his company. The Wilkinson family asks for privacy as they mourn.
The son of a farmer, Wilkinson approached acting like a pure professional; he was committed but unsentimental, never sparing unneeded effort. He spent his early acting days in the 1980s content with roles on TV, but he shifted his focus to films in the 1990s because, as he bluntly admitted, that's where the money was. He recounted to the Guardian in 2008: "I was broke, and in a position I'd never been in before — phoning people up to ask: 'Have you got anything for me, anything?' I knew lots of actors who were making movies, and I thought: 'I'll have a piece of that, please.'"
Sure enough, Wilkinson appeared in films of both high and low prestige over the next decades. His breakout role was as Gerald Cooper in "The Full Monty," the 1997 comedy about a group of unemployed men in the northern English town of Sheffield, who put on a strip show to try and make some money. Wilkinson reprised the role of Cooper for the 2023 "Full Monty" sequel TV series — and it ultimately became his final role.
A consummate character actor
Wilkinson received two well-earned Oscar nominations during his film career. The first was for Best Actor in 2001's "In The Bedroom," where he plays a Maine doctor and the patriarch of a dysfunctional family. In 2007, he was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for "Michael Clayton," where he plays a corporate lawyer having a crisis of conscience while defending an agricultural monopoly. However, I first encountered Wilkinson on-screen in Christopher Nolan's "Batman Begins." As Carmine Falcone, the crime kingpin of Gotham City, his memorable scenes include him schooling a young Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) on the true rot of the world, and being patient zero for Dr. Crane's (Cillian Murphy) fear toxin.
Watching Wilkinson in "Batman Begins" now, it's a bit funny to see this very British gentleman do his best impression of a brusque and husky-voiced American gangster. But his scene presence left an impression on my young self, and I recognized him when he showed up next in "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol," or when I watched "Recount" in my high school Government & Politics class, and then finally (as my tastes matured) in "Grand Budapest Hotel."
Tom Wilkinson was one of my first "Hey, it's that guy!" movie-watching experiences; he was what I now know to be called a character actor. If I saw his name on a cast list, I knew I would enjoy the movie more than if he was absent. I'm sad there won't be any more that include him.
May he rest in peace.