Broadbent, Jim

▪ British actor

born May 24, 1949, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, Eng.

      British actor known for his versatility and his often humorous roles. He received an Academy Award for his performance in Iris (2001).

      Broadbent was born into a theatrically inclined family: both his father, a furniture maker, and his mother, a sculptor, were founding members of the Lindsey Rural Players, an amateur theatre group in Lincolnshire, Eng. As a child, Broadbent was educated at a Quaker boarding school in Reading, and, after a brief period at an art school, he moved to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He graduated in 1972 and began his stage career with a number of prominent theatre companies, including the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. His first major production came with Ken Campbell's Illuminatus (1976), a 12-hour science fiction epic in which Broadbent played more than a dozen roles.

      Broadbent's film career commenced with small roles in The Shout (1978), The Hit (1984), and two films directed by Terry Gilliam, Time Bandits (1981) and Brazil (1985). He appeared in a variety of television roles in the late 1980s and played a number of character roles in successful films of the early '90s, including The Crying Game (1992)—about a British soldier kidnapped by a member of the Irish Republican Army—and Woody Allen (Allen, Woody)'s Bullets over Broadway (1994). Broadbent gained significant exposure in two films by British director Mike Leigh. In Leigh's offbeat comedy Life Is Sweet (1990), he starred as the working-class father of twin daughters, and he played W.S. Gilbert (Gilbert, Sir W.S.) in Topsy-Turvy (1999), a film depicting the nuanced relationship of playwright Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan (Sullivan, Sir Arthur).

      In 2001 Broadbent had what was perhaps his most successful year, both critically and commercially. He played the title character's father in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), a comedy about the adventures of a bumbling thirtysomething single woman. In the musical Moulin Rouge! (2001), he appeared as Harold Zidler, the dancing and singing owner of the fantastic Moulin Rouge theatre. Broadbent starred opposite Dame Judi Dench (Dench, Dame Judi) as Iris Murdoch (Murdoch, Dame Iris)'s husband, John Bayley, in Iris (2001), a film that chronicled the two authors' early lives together, their marriage, and Murdoch's struggle with Alzheimer disease. For his part in Iris, Broadbent won the Academy Award for best supporting actor. He had smaller roles in Vera Drake (2004), a drama about a woman who performs illegal abortions in 1950s England, and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (2005), the film adaptation of the beloved children's novel by C.S. Lewis (Lewis, C.S.). Broadbent reprised his role as Bridget's father in Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004) and later appeared in the quirky action-comedy Hot Fuzz (2007).

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