PAGE 26 • TV
THE BULLETIN • APRIL 1 - 7, 2021
What’s Available NOW On
“Movie: The Stand: How One
Gesture Shook the World”
From first-time director, producer and
writer Tom Ratcliffe comes this 2021
documentary that explores the motives
behind U.S. athletes Tommie Smith
and John Carlos’s controversial gesture
of a raised black-gloved fist at the 1968
Summer Olympics in Mexico City
and the consequences that followed.
(ORIGINAL)
Checking in with
JAMES NESBITT
BY GEORGE DICKIE
“Movie: The Last Face”
A pair of Oscar winners in Javier
Bardem (“No Country for Old Men”)
and Charlize Theron (“Monster”)
star in director Sean Penn’s 2016
melodrama about a charming Spanish
doctor and a compassionate relief
worker who are forced to balance their
blossoming love with their passion
for their work in war-torn Liberia.
Jean Reno, Jared Harris and Adèle
Exarchopoulos are also in the cast.
“Movie: Proxima”
“Movie: Priceless”
Australia native Joel Smallbone co-
wrote, directed and stars in this 2016
crime drama about a troubled widower
who discovers two Mexican sisters in
the back of the truck he’s driving across
the country for a one-time payment.
David Koechner (“Bless This Mess’),
Bianca Santos, Amber Midthunder and
Jim Parrack are also in the cast.
James Nesbitt may live in London but his heart still belongs to
Northern Ireland.
Indeed, the 56-year-old star of “Bloodlands,” a four-part Irish
thriller currently streaming on Acorn TV, is a native of County
Antrim, belongs to Royal Portrush Golf Club (which is one of
the host venues of the British Open) and does charity work for a
nonprofit that helps people traumatized by The Troubles, the 30
years of sectarian violence that plagued that country in the late 20th
century.
Which is why the series’ portrayal of Belfast and surrounds as they
are today was a big draw for him
“(Viewers are) going to see Belfast in a kind of a new,
cosmopolitan, post-conflicts, vibrant, sophisticated, diverse place
...,” the actor explains. “I am very keen that people, not just in
Northern Ireland but globally, get to see the beauty and the majesty
of it but also try and understand the complex past of it and to see
how important and fragile the peace is. So the responsibility to
kind of tackle The Troubles or the legacy of The Troubles even in a
fictionalized drama is something I wear quite proudly and carefully.
So that was the job to undertake.”
In “Bloodlands,” Nesbitt plays Tom Brannick, a veteran Northern
Ireland police investigator who sees a connection between a current
case and an infamous one from 20 years ago that is linked to a still-
at-large assassin, the disappearance of his wife and Northern Ireland’s
dark history. The role was a grueling one for Nesbitt, requiring him
to work bad hours in bad weather and play painful scenes, such as
An American astronaut’s (Eva Green)
late-minute assignment to the
International Space Station causes
upset with her family, particularly
her 8-year-old daughter, who must
spend the next year with her estranged
father in this 2019 action adventure
from writer/director Alice Winocour
(“Disorder,” “Augustine”). Matt Dillon,
Lars Eidinger and Alexei Fateev also
star.
one where Tom has a meltdown at the site of a shallow grave where
he thinks his wife may be buried.
Naturally, Nesbitt needed a coming-down period after filming
wrapped.
“You can’t help but get involved in these characters and I lived with
Tom for quite a while. But I feel for him and I felt for him that day,”
he says with a laugh.
Full name: William James Nesbitt
Birth date: Jan. 15, 1965
Birthplace: Coleraine, Northern Ireland
Family ties: Divorced; has two daughters
Education: A graduate of London’s Central of School of
Speech and Drama
Other TV credits: “The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles,”
“Covington Cross,” “Lovejoy,” “Touching Evil,” “Ballykissangel,”
“Jekyll,” “Murphy’s Law,” “The Passion,” “Occupation,”
“Babylon,” “Cold Feet,” “Stay Close” (forthcoming)
Movie credits include: “Welcome to Sarajevo” (1997),
“Resurrection Man” (1998), “Waking Ned Devine” (1998),
“Women Talking Dirty” (1999), “Bloody Sunday” (2002),
“Match Point” (2005), “Blessed” (2008), “Cherrybomb”
(2009), “The Way” (2010), “Coriolanus” (2011), “The Hobbit:
An Unexpected Journey” (2012), “The Hobbit: The Desolation
of Smaug” (2013), “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies”
(2014)