Tom Wilkinson, Actor in ‘The Full Monty,’ Dies at 75

Tom Wilkinson, an admired performer on the British stage who in middle age became a skillful character actor and supporting star in a range of movies that gained popularity and acclaim in the United States, including “The Full Monty,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and “Shakespeare in Love,” died on Saturday. He was 75.

A statement by his agent said he died suddenly at home. It did not provide other details.

Wilkinson might not have been known by name to many American moviegoers, but he used that inconspicuousness to his advantage, evading typecasting and inhabiting instead a wide array of roles persuasively. Some of them remain broadly memorable today.

He earned Academy Award nominations for his work in the legal thriller “Michael Clayton” (2007) and the drama “In the Bedroom” (2001), an unusual turn for him as a movie’s protagonist.

He also delighted audiences in comedies, not only “The Full Monty” (1997) but also “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” (2011).

In addition to “Shakespeare in Love” (1998), his other blockbuster films included “Batman Begins” (2005) and “Rush Hour” (1998), both movies in which he played greedy villains.

He was so convincing acting as an American that he earned roles as several of the nation’s best-known historical figures, including Benjamin Franklin in the HBO miniseries “John Adams” (2008), Joseph P. Kennedy in the Reelz miniseries “The Kennedys” (2011) and President Lyndon B. Johnson in the 2014 movie “Selma.”

He worked alongside some of the most famous actors in film, including George Clooney, Sissy Spacek and Ben Affleck.

“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 degree of anonymity about them.”

To many Britons, “The Full Monty,” remains his most beloved performance, as one of the gruff, unemployed steelworkers in Sheffield, England, who scheme to make some money and repair their self-regard by starting a striptease act for the town.

Wilkinson played Gerald Cooper, an aging ex-foreman who joins the cadre in part to escape the ornamental gnomes his wife erected on the lawn. Former New York Times film critic Janet Maslin described his performance as “winning.”

His star turn on “In the Bedroom,” in which he played Matt Fowler, a prosperous and shrewd doctor whose son has an affair and is murdered, prompted particularly admiring reviews. “As Matt, Tom Wilkinson continues to build a career of largely ignored astonishments,” critic Stanley Kauffmann wrote in The New Republic. “He is one of those acting treasures who seem quite content to go on being insufficiently appreciated as long as they get sufficient good roles.”

The movie’s director, Todd Field, said he was drawn to Wilkinson because of his everyman quality.

“You don’t typically think that Robert Redford is going to live next door,” Field told the Times. “But you believe that Tom Wilkinson could live next door. That’s the difference.”

Wilkinson’s performances sometimes gained more appreciation than whatever it was he had acted in. In his review of 2005 British drama “Separate Lies,” former Times critic Stephen Holden wrote that Wilkinson “nails every detail” of a “self-satisfied snob” in his role as an imperious lawyer.

“This powerful performance, equal in stature to Mr.Wilkinson’s grieving father in ‘In the Bedroom,’ pushes ‘Separate Lies’ halfway toward the rarefied class of that 2001 film,” Holden continued. “But that’s not nearly far enough to begin to lift this intriguing but chilly moral puzzle to anything close to greatness.”

Geoffrey Thomas Wilkinson was born in Yorkshire, England, on Feb. 5, 1948. His parents, Marjorie and Thomas Wilkinson, moved to Canada when he was 4, seeking better work than farming. Their stay lasted only six years, during which time his father worked as an aluminum smelter. The family returned to Britain, where Geoff’s parents ran a Cornwall pub until his father died when he was a teenager, drawing him and his mother back to Yorkshire.

He later adopted his middle name professionally when he realized there was already a professional actor named Geoffrey Wilkinson.