Jim Broadbent

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 Broadbent and sculptress Dee 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 (1992), 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/I), 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.

Movie		Character	Year
	Brazil	Dr. Jaffe	1985
	The Wedding Gift	Deric Longden	1994
	Richard III	The Duke of Buckingham	1995
	Little Voice	Mr. Boo	1998
	Bridget Jones's Diary	Bridget's Dad	2001
	Moulin Rouge!	Zidler	2001
	Gangs of New York	William Tweed	2002
	Around the World in 80 Days	Lord Kelvin	2004
	Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason	Dad	2004
	Robots	Madame Gasket (voice)	2005
	Valiant	Sergeant (voice)	2005
	The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe	Professor Kirke	2005
	Hot Fuzz	Inspector Frank Butterman	2007
	Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull	Dean Charles Stanforth	2008
	Einstein and Eddington	Sir Oliver Lodge	2008
	Inkheart	Fenoglio	2008
	The Young Victoria	King William	2009
	The Damned United	Sam Longson	2009
	Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince	Professor Horace Slughorn	2009
	Another Year	Tom	2011
	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2	Horace Slughorn	2011
	Arthur Christmas	Santa	2011
	The Iron Lady	Denis Thatcher	2011
	Cloud Atlas	Vyvyan Ayrs / Timothy Cavendish	2012