Michael Clayton and Full Monty Star Tom Wilkinson Dies at 75
BAFTA-winning and Oscar-nominated actor Tom Wilkinson has died. He was 75. According to a statement from his family (obtained by BBC News), he died at home with his wife and family by his side. Wilkinson won a BAFTA for playing Gerald in The Full Monty, and reprised the character in the Disney+ show. He began acting at the age of 18. “For the first time in my life, I started doing something I knew how to do,” he said. “I realized it wasn’t necessarily just these southern middle-class types that got to be actors; it could possibly be people like me. And once I knew, I never changed my mind.”
Wilkinson worked in over 130 films and TV shows across his career, earning Academy Award nominations for In the Bedroom and Michael Clayton. He played Carmine Falcone in Batman Begins (even reprising the role for the video game), ran the memory-erasing Lacuna in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and won an Emmy in 2008 for the role of Ben Franklin in John Adams. His Michael Clayton co-star George Clooney paid him tribute in Variety. “Tom made every project better. Made every actor better,” Clooney said. “He was the epitome of elegance and he will be dearly missed by all of us.”
This post has been updated.
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