Belle – In Cinemas Friday – Tom Wilkinson

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel – 2012

Director John Madden depicts the lives of multiple retirees travelling to the colourful and bustling city of Jaipur, India.  Wilkinson plays Graham Dashwood, a High Court judge who has finally decided to retire from his job after years of consideration. He returns to India, where he spent his childhood, to find the love of his life that he lost when he moved to England for college. Wilkinson performs the role with such sensitivity and with complete sorrow that gives the film a breathless take on growing older and making peace from past mistakes.

The Lone Ranger – 2013    

Wilkinson is featured alongside Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer in The Lone Ranger as the villainous Latham Cole, the railroad tycoon who will do whatever it takes to expand his empire and to earn a profit.

Sense and Sensibility – 1995

Direct by Ang Lee and based on Jane Austen’s novel of the same name, Sense and Sensibility follows the Dashwood sisters, Elinor, Marianne and Margaret, who are forced to seek financial security through marriage after their father, played by Wilkinson, asked his son from his first marriage to provide for the sisters, since they are from the second marriage and will inherit nothing after he passes. 

Shakespeare in Love – 1998

The film, which won seven Academy Awards including Best Picture, centres on the forbidden love between William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) and Viola de Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow). Wilkinson plays Hugh Fennyman, a loan shark who is waiting to be repaid by theatrical entrepreneur, Philip Henslowe. In order to pay his debts, Henslowe offers Fennyman a partnership with the theatre’s news show Romeo and Ethel, the Pirates Daughter, written by William Shakespeare.

The Ghost and the Darkness – 1996

The film tells the tale about two lions who attacked and killed workers in Kenya who were working on the construction of the Uganda-Mombasa Railway in 1898. Wilkinson plays Sir Robert Beaumont, the primary financer of the railroad project who is enraged that production is running behind schedule. He hires a military engineer to get the project back on track. After yet another delay, Beaumont hires a hunter (Michael Douglas) to kill the lions that have been keeping his railroad project on hold.

Michael Clayton – 2007

Wilkinson stands out as Arthur Edens, a senior litigation partner at a prestigious New York City law firm. In the middle of a deposition in Milwaukee involving a class action lawsuit against U-North, an agricultural products conglomerate, Edens has a mental outburst and ends up in jail where his colleague, Michael Clayton (George Clooney), arrives in Milwaukee and bails him out. When U-North’s general counsel discovers that Edens had stolen information that could hurt their company, she sends out two men to terminate Edens.

Batman Begins – 2005

Wilkinson plays Carmine Falcone, Gotham City’s most notorious crime boss who works with Dr. Crane (Cillian Murphy). The film was a reboot, and cast Wilkinson as the villain who could surpass the legal system so effortlessly. It is considered one of Wilkinson’s best performances in years.

Rush Hour – 1998 

Wilkinson plays Thomas Griffin, the British Commander who is the superior of the mysterious crime lord Juntao. The film picks up to a fast paced adventure starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker as Inspector Lee and Detective James Carter. Wilkinson promises a variety of twists and turns in the plot from beginning to end.

The Full Monty – 1997

After the steel mill that they have worked at for ten years shuts down, Gary ‘Gaz’ Schofield gets the idea to start a strip tease group after seeing crowds of women lined up outside of a Chippendale’s act. He recruits his former plant manager Gerald (Wilkinson) who has not told her wife that he was laid off. As Gaz promises that the show would be better than the Chippendales act because they would do “the full monty,” the other members of the group begin to grow weary. After it was released, the film earned near universal acclaim from critics. The Full Monty was nominated for several awards, including the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Belle – 2014

Based on the true story, Wilkinson plays Lord Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. Mansfield is personally affected by the trial to end slavery in England as he is the guardian and parental figure for his great-niece, Dido Elizabeth Belle, the illegitimate, mixed-raced daughter of Royal Navy Admiral, Sir John Lindsay. Mansfield, who loves Belle like she was his own child, is determined to make her aristocratic status recognized and honoured in England.