James Nesbitt

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand eight.

Presenter0:27

My castaway this week is the actor James Nesbitt, from the twinkly eyed everyman charmer of cold feet to the flinty cynical cop in Murphy's Law.

Presenter0:36

He is a performer with an enviably broad range and huge audience appeal.

Presenter0:41

He has, according to one of our most eminent directors, that magical thing which connects him with the public, humanity. Uh Jimmy Nesbitt, it was the director Paul Greengrass that said that about you, the humanity bit. You worked with him must be six or seven years ago now on possibly one of your most demanding roles. So far it was the lead in Bloody Sunday.

James Nesbitt1:02

It was, you know, and I think it was a defining moment for me in many ways. I had achieved, I suppose, through an enormous amount of luck a fair amount of success with things like Cold Feet and I'd been working consistently, but I'd never really tackled anything about where I came from, especially something so important, something that was such a watershed in the recent history of where I come from.

James Nesbitt1:23

And uh Paul approached me. Uh he had for a long time been fascinated by

James Nesbitt1:29

Bloody Sunday about how he felt it was something the Irish couldn't forget and the English didn't want to remember.

James Nesbitt1:35

And I think rather cleverly he put at the centre of it Ivan Cooper, who was himself a Protestant like myself, but there he was leading an anti-nationalist protest.

Presenter1:45

And just to remind people, Bloody Sunday was about the civil rights march through the streets of London Derry from Derry's bog side, and thirteen Catholic civil rights protesters, unarmed protesters, were shot dead in the streets. One later died. So a historical watershed. I'm wondering if it was some sort of personal watershed for you too in some way, maybe connecting with Northern Ireland and Northern Irish.

Speaker 11:55

Esther's

James Nesbitt2:06

It wasn't an ancestry. It certainly was, because I I I grew up fairly distanced from the troubles, you know, even though I had a fairly idyllic upbringing, or so my parents kept telling me. But I wasn't really connected to the history of where I came from. I mean, I was culturally.

Presenter2:11

In my heart.

James Nesbitt2:19

And I'm delighted to be so. You know, I w along with my father um played in march bands and um I was very happy in that respect, but I certainly never really

James Nesbitt2:30

I looked at where I came from, why what had happened to it had happened, and how, in a way, my job could somehow reflect the history. At the time, there were those that would have questioned why I did it. And I can understand that. You know, as I say, I'm from a Protestant background. There have certainly been terrible things that have been visited upon Protestants over the years. And I think those stories are still to be told, and I hope will be told. But it not only taught me a bit about where I came from, it reminded me why I love it, and it also reminded me very much why I love acting and why I think for the first time I was able to see that maybe it had worth.

Presenter3:06

I reminded you of where you came from. Seems a perfect time for me to ask you about the first track that you've chosen. Today, tell me about this.

James Nesbitt3:12

Well, this is an old Irish ballad called The Green Glens of Antrim. It was my mother's favourite song. My mother is from the Glens of Antrim up in Carnloch.

James Nesbitt3:21

And it was something she signed to me as a child, and when I then became a parent myself, it was something I signed to my two girls.

James Nesbitt3:30

You know, they've grown up in England and I wanted them to be imbued with a sense of their dad's Irishness and their own Irishness and where they come from. And the Green Glens of Antrim reminds me not only uh very fondly and always will of my mother, but

James Nesbitt3:43

I have a connection to my mother, through my children, through it.

Speaker 33:47

But across yonder blue lies a true fairy land, With the sea rippling over the shingle and sand, Where the gay honeysuckle is luring the bee And the green glance of anthrim

Speaker 34:13

Are calling to me.

Presenter4:17

Canum Kennedy and the Green Glens of Antrim. And you you were saying that you you sing that to your daughters, your your daughters who've been born and and and brought up in England. Do they like it? Does it connect with them?

James Nesbitt4:23

Don't know.

James Nesbitt4:25

Yeah.

James Nesbitt4:27

Well it did from a very early age. It's funny, you know, when Peggy, uh the eldest learned to talk at a very early age and um I was away working one day and my wife phoned me. She says, I'll not believe what's happened and I said, What? She says, We're in the kitchen and Peggy was about just over two.

James Nesbitt4:41

She said, um we were drawing and Peggy said, um, Mummy, uh draw heaven and Sonia said, Well, what's heaven? and Peggy said, It's where the sea ripples over the shingle and sand.

James Nesbitt4:51

Which is a line from the song, and it floors you, you know. So, um, I think my mother would be proud of it.

Presenter4:55

What about where you were brought up then? You said uh an idyllic or at least that's what your parents tell you, an idyllic childhood. Where was it?

James Nesbitt5:01

Where was it? Brought up uh it was in County Antrim in um an area called The Braid, and my father was primary school headmaster of a very small school. I think there was only thirty or thirty between thirty and forty in it at any time. So there was two classrooms, you know, and he was um a marvellous teacher, my father.

James Nesbitt5:19

I mean, it was idyllic when I look back at it, and I don't think that's through rose-tinted glasses. It's something I remember.

Presenter5:23

And your m mother, what sort of a mother was she?

James Nesbitt5:25

She was fantastic. Well, I was the only boy, you know, three old sisters. Three big sisters. Three big sisters. Which explains a lot, I think.

Presenter5:27

Three big systems.

James Nesbitt5:32

Not all of it could. Uh but mum worked uh in the housing executive. Uh she was a fab fabulous woman, you know. I mean I was uh I was very, very close to her. We would have you know arguments, but she was incredibly loving and very funny. I think a lot of my sense of humour would come from my mother. You know, she's uh she's still uh a huge part of my life.

Presenter5:52

Um three big sisters, you say that explains a lot. I think it probably does explain a lot. I'm imagining you with a mop of curly black hair and a cheeky twinkle in your eye, just being able to weave your way through these three women.

James Nesbitt5:59

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

James Nesbitt6:03

You'll

James Nesbitt6:04

I think there's good things of having three sisters. I mean, you know, people say you must have been spoiled rotten, and I've always thought the spoiler is a euphemism for being loved, actually. I mean, I think they adored me in many ways, but

James Nesbitt6:14

But I think, you know, the legacy of that as you go into later life can be quite difficult. I think you're probably in a sense trying to.

James Nesbitt6:21

Recreate that in a way, you know, because he'll ever love you as much as your three older sisters and your mum did. I mean, I think that can be quite a burden in a way.

Presenter6:23

Yeah.

James Nesbitt6:28

But if I had a fair large or a

James Nesbitt6:30

Is it where you learned your charm? I don't think you learned charm. I mean, I think it's a very hard thing to learn. My mother was extremely charming and uh and funny and uh you know I am in so many ways. So much of me is uh what my father uh gave me, but so much of what uh lies within, I think, is what my mother just what I just happened to inherit from her.

Presenter6:49

And you are a fanatical Manchester United fan. Di did you start worshipping the great god best when you were afraid of the menu?

James Nesbitt6:54

Well I was I was a wee bit young for George, you know I was born in 1965 um but my father loved him and I saw George play actually. After George died they kept showing the the famous disallowed goal that he scored against England where he took the ball out of Gordon Banks' hands and I was sure all my life that I had been there with my father pressed against the fence uh of the spy on cop at Windsor uh Park in Belfast and um

James Nesbitt7:19

Now thanks to modern technology, when they showed that goal I was able to freeze frame it and there in shot, just as George finds out the goal has been disallowed, you have my two heroes, you have George and in the background you see my father in his cap and then this tiny little head beside him. I mean it's amazing.

Presenter7:34

Incredible. Tell me about your next piece of music.

James Nesbitt7:36

Um well, the uh first sort of band I got into really was the Beatles. I was introduced to them by my cousin, uh my adored cousin Andrew Shannon because not having um any brothers and growing up in the country, you know, where I spent a lot of time just by myself kicking a ball against a wall. Andrew was about five years older than me and he was just God to me. Very hard to pick a Beatles song, but

James Nesbitt8:00

In my extreme arrogance I didn't want to let either the deceased John or their life Paul down by picking just one, so I picked If I Fell, which uses the both of them.

Speaker 38:09

If I trust in you Oh please don't run and hide if I love you too

Speaker 38:22

Oh, please.

Speaker 38:24

Don't hurt my pride like her Cause I couldn't stand the pain

Speaker 38:33

And I would be sad if I knew love.

Speaker 38:39

Yeah.

Presenter8:39

The Beatles and If I Fell. As you say then, Jimmy Nesbitt, your your dad was a head teacher. Your three sisters have all gone on to be teachers. Was there an expectation that you would follow in the family tradition?

James Nesbitt8:46

Yeah.

James Nesbitt8:49

I follow in the future.

James Nesbitt8:51

You know, I think there was not really a conscious expectation, but that seemed to be the way things were going, you know. But um I started a degree in French, I suppose, with the notion of um becoming a teacher. But I'd already started acting uh then, you know, I I acted from a very early age and I was. Your first role was what the artful dodger, I read. Strangely enough.

James Nesbitt9:11

I don't know. I just I mean I've been to play in the same way. Was there ever a better

Presenter9:12

Was there ever a better match? I'm glad.

James Nesbitt9:14

Well, they hadn't played in the same role ever since, just different character names. And then it sort of took off from there. I mean, it was a great way to.

James Nesbitt9:21

Get off school sometimes to do Christmas shows. It was a great way to meet girls and I enjoyed it.

Presenter9:25

So your parents knew your parents knew that they had somebody with a talent.

James Nesbitt9:28

Well, I mean, all the girls are talented. Andrea, the sister closest to me, she's the talented one. You know, it's only now at that thirty years later, thirty years after playing the Dodger, that I'm beginning to think that maybe I knew that that's what I wanted to do. And maybe I'm at a stage now where I might be able to admit that, you know, which is crazy in a way. Because you have always sort of slightly pretended that you sort of ended up

Presenter9:46

You just have

James Nesbitt9:46

Fallen into. I know, and I think that it takes a long time, you know, because I'm I was from that kind of work ethic, I was from a deliriously happy background. Um, but

Presenter9:46

Foreign

Presenter9:56

So did the Protestant work ethic stop you from feeling like it was a real job?

James Nesbitt10:00

I think so, but you know, to tell you the truth, I've worked an awful lot the last twenty years. So if anything, the Protestant worker I think is the very boy that has uh made me work as much as I do and has given me the the belief to to to work as much as I've done. So um I think only now do I realize that all along I kind of felt that I fitted in the the job that I do.

Presenter10:19

And did you love a room looking at you from the fer from the moment you stepped onto a stage? You weren't ever full of fear about the prospect?

James Nesbitt10:25

No, I've loved it. From the minute I uh walk on to the set I absolutely adore it. I love everything that comes with it. I love the the process, I love the collaboration, I love the right from the naisence of uh the script to the very, very end until you rap, uh everything about it appeals to me.

Presenter10:42

Tell me about your next piece of music then.

James Nesbitt10:43

Well the other band that Andrew, my adored cousin, introduced me to, uh which again for

James Nesbitt10:48

You know, a boy from the braid who basically wore one pair of flared trousers and an iron jumper that made a granny had knit. I was.

James Nesbitt10:56

amazed and astonished by the fantastic access of Slade. And in my room, you know, now with kids, as you know yourself, there's so much in the kids' room now. I mean I had a poster of George Best, a poster of Manchester United and a poster of Slade. They sort of to me promised that there was excitement out there and no more so than in this song Come On Through the Night.

Speaker 311:18

Feel good.

Presenter11:45

Slade and come on feel the noise, noise with a Z there, I notice.

James Nesbitt11:48

I know I always loved that as well.

Presenter11:50

You dropped out of university, you said. Wa was that a was that a problem? I mean, how did your parents respond to that? You you dropped out to go to university.

James Nesbitt11:56

Well, it's actually it was it's now it's now called the University of Ulster, but it was then uh the Ulster Poly, which I'd sort of scraped into because I was bright, you know, and I'd done well, done well on the O levels. When I got to the A levels, I just.

James Nesbitt12:07

I had lost the will, I think.

Presenter12:09

Got your attentions elsewhere.

James Nesbitt12:10

Ah they were. They were all over the place, apart from my books really. But I had my equity card from quite a young age. So I was working professionally with the Ulster Actors Company in Belfast and and really spending very little time at college. So I went round to my eldest sister Margaret who is living not far from me in Belfast and that said can you ring mum and dad anymore and tell them I'm giving up my degree. Courageous to the end.

Presenter12:33

And and you knew that you were going to go and study drama.

James Nesbitt12:36

I felt that that was at the time. You know, I needed something that sort of um ludicrous uh to happen. So the reaction was very poor. My mother um didn't talk to me for about a month. And um and what are you?

Presenter12:46

Your mum was she worried about the acting?

James Nesbitt12:47

Oh I terrified, you know what would happen to me.'Cause she probably knew what kind of an Egypt I was, you know, and knew that it wasn't a very good marriage.

Presenter12:54

Can it be true that she wanted you to be a missionary?

James Nesbitt12:56

She was very keen, yeah. I mean I would think because, you know, mum uh you know, they talk about God fearing people. Mum and dad were God loving in that respect, you know, they were never austere or uh strict, although funny enough when I think about it, you know, on Sunday nights and this will seem i insane and so alien to people, but uh, you know, on Sunday nights we would occasionally we'd sit round the piano and sing hymns and stuff.

Presenter13:17

I suppose what that seems is incredibly old-fashioned. That seems like a childhood from the fifties, not the seventies.

James Nesbitt13:19

Yeah.

James Nesbitt13:21

I know.

James Nesbitt13:22

I think Northern Ireland was uh a wee bit behind uh other places, which is no bad thing necessarily. I mean Saturday Night Fever has just opened in Belfast. But um I auditioned for Santville got in and away I went.

Presenter13:33

As you describe it, that it was a very straightforward and simple upbringing, kicking the ball against the wall, the three posters in the room, the Aaron jumper. How do you feel bringing up your own kids in

James Nesbitt13:40

On the sweet.

James Nesbitt13:41

Yeah.

Presenter13:46

In London, Daddy's a big star, there'll be a lot more money around. Is that is that ever difficult for you to accommodate?

James Nesbitt13:56

But, you know, they have a sense of it and they have a a mother who's um very aware of that as well. I mean, I think it can be awkward for the girls the notion of their dad being famous, but actually girls don't really they they don't really care that much. They just care that I'm around a bit of the time to kind of, you know, uh show them love and tell them I love them and uh you know, buy them the odd thing. I mean I think they're happy enough with that.

Presenter14:16

Tell me about your next piece of music then, track number four.

James Nesbitt14:18

Now track number four is well I got to teenage uh

James Nesbitt14:22

Years in Coleraine. By this stage I'd moved to Colerain. My dad had gone to a much bigger school, massive. There was all of seventy in it. The undertones were a huge band from just up the road in Derry. And at difficult times, you know, even though I was distanced from the Troubles, you couldn't help but know that you came from a small place that the rest of the world saw as a place of terror and they saw it very negatively. And the undertones through that were this raw, magnificent, superb band. And I would have loved to have picked Teen H Kicks, but I think Mr. Peel had the monopoly on that. But this is my other favourite, which starts with a whistle. It's called Get Over You.

Speaker 315:08

Dressed like that, you must be living in a different world

Speaker 315:13

Anyone that doesn't know where you can't look like all the other girls They stop you in the street, they wanna know your name

Presenter15:23

the undertones and get over you and so, Jimmy Nesbit, it was to London you came to pursue your fame and fortune. Was it a sophisticated young teenager who landed uh

James Nesbitt15:29

Up.

Presenter15:33

On the Door of Acting School.

James Nesbitt15:34

Um well, I thought so.

Presenter15:36

Hmm.

James Nesbitt15:36

Actually I thought I knew everything about everything, but I actually discovered very quickly I knew very little about everything.

Presenter15:41

And how would you have looked? What what would you have been wearing?

James Nesbitt15:43

I had uh a mop of curly hair. I had my father's old um sheepskin jacket. I looked like an out-of-work football manager from the 70s that had gone down on his luck. I was very green, you know. I was um party me boy arriving in London, but uh I loved it. And what did you do for your audition? For my audition. Well, I hadn't learned yet to do two uh um Shakespeare speeches in a modern and I'd only learnt one Shakespeare and um for that

Presenter16:08

Why had you only learnt one if you really wanted it?

James Nesbitt16:11

I've always been a bit trans a Northern Irish word there about a bit stubborn about learning things and um but I just didn't get round to it and also I was I went over on a stay with a friend the night before the auditioning you know and even though I was auditioning for the next part of my life really and the the rest of my life it seemed to make more sense to uh go to the pub and um so I I did the best bit of acting I've done in my life I just went into a whole I don't know started crying and stuff and said something terrible had happened at home and I hadn't been able to learn it and blah blah so I think they felt sorry for me and let me in.

Presenter16:40

Did that make you I mean you must have felt terribly smart.

James Nesbitt16:43

I was delighted. I was delighted from my my fool. Oh, why? But now I mean sure that's the whole thing. Sorry, you know, acting is just about fooling people. But it was brilliant, you know, and Central wasn't too uh austere. He just bas basically went to go to school every day and acted.

Presenter16:57

And you met Sonia while you were out?

James Nesbitt16:58

No, Sonia I met she was at the same time as me, she was going to the much more uh demanding and challenging uh drama centre, which had split from Central back in the sixties. Um we both met on uh one of the first jobs I did out of drama school, which was a world tour of Hamlet. It was a very odd production uh which we took round the world for um ten months.

Speaker 117:08

Dry.

Presenter17:18

Is it true that I remember very clearly one of the most memorable scenes in Cold Feet I think it was the end of the pilot episode was you serenading Rachel, the object of your affections rather beautifully, it has to be said, but the shot pulled out and there you were naked with a a red rose clinched between your buttocks.

James Nesbitt17:26

Uh

Speaker 317:26

It was

James Nesbitt17:26

Uh

Speaker 117:26

Uh

Speaker 117:27

Uh

Speaker 317:28

Right.

Speaker 117:29

Uh

Speaker 317:29

Yeah.

Speaker 317:31

He said, but

James Nesbitt17:33

I read

James Nesbitt17:35

Aha. Yeah.

Presenter17:36

You serenaded Sonia. I'm I'm presuming you you had your clothes on when you did

James Nesbitt17:39

I did. Well, I was prepared to take them off. From a very early age I I caught on dawn that singing to women's not a bad thing to do. Um I signed a song one night uh but she uh was asleep through all of it. Apparently I was out there for hours in the rain.

James Nesbitt17:52

And the next day said, Well, what do you not what do you think? So you'd no idea.

James Nesbitt17:56

And what sort of woman was Sonia then? Is she now? How would you d Scriper

James Nesbitt18:00

Well, she's strong, tremendous mother, doesn't suffer fools, doesn't take things too like my career, you know, uh understands the uh absurd nature of it, but tries to keep me, I suppose, grounded within it, is incredibly protective of her family and of her uh children and is um

James Nesbitt18:21

funny and bright.

Presenter18:23

Let's take a break for the next piece of music then. What have we got?

James Nesbitt18:25

The next piece is Frank Sinatra, who I don't know when I was introduced to Frank Sinatra, but I'm glad I was. I've often said I'd give up all my acting just to uh be frank for one night walking onto a state. And uh this is him singing live at the Sands with Count Basie and the song is Come Fly.

Speaker 318:47

How did all these people get in my room?

Speaker 318:54

Come fly with me, we'll fly, we'll fly away.

Speaker 319:00

If you can use some exotic booze, there's a bar in far Bombay. Come on, fly with me, we'll fly, we'll fly away.

Speaker 319:12

Come on

Presenter19:14

Frank Sinato with Count Basie and his orchestra and Come Fly With Me recorded live at the Sands in Las Vegas in 1966. So the big breakthrough for you of course, we've mentioned it was cold feet. Huge audiences. I mean reportedly around about sort of nine million on a Sunday night. It became one of those things. It was the water cooler drama. Huge attention. I mean it must have felt incredibly exciting.

James Nesbitt19:28

On a on a Sunday night.

James Nesbitt19:30

Yeah

James Nesbitt19:31

Drama

James Nesbitt19:35

It was wonderful, you know, and it was just so exciting, you know. I'd had a brilliant time. I remember reading The Pilot, uh which has been made for, you know, next to nothing, uh but it was such exciting writing. Mike Bullen and and Christine Langham and they just captured something that was of its time. You know, I'm very proud of. I loved it.

Presenter19:52

And what about, of course, with huge popular success comes huge attention, at least from the press? How did you handle the sort of the amount of tabloid attention you got?

James Nesbitt19:56

On the

James Nesbitt19:58

How did you

James Nesbitt20:01

You know, I think uh certainly I've had my fair share of it. Uh self-inflicted, unquestionably a lot of it. Um it can be very invasive. But nevertheless that is the world. You know, I don't necessarily regret anything that the papers wrote about me. I don't necessarily regret that there were photographers uh at times when you didn't want them. I perhaps regret some of the things I've done in my life and I perhaps even more so regret

James Nesbitt20:24

Uh that we live in a society where there is such an appetite for that, but I can't really blame anyone else for uh some of the mistakes I've made.

Presenter20:30

And what about I mean, you you do sort of live in the grand tradition, or at least you have, of the of the wild boys, the wild actors. I mean, you know, do you take a drink yourself?

James Nesbitt20:37

Yeah.

James Nesbitt20:39

I think, you know, I'm not a stranger to uh uh uh a drink, but uh you know

James Nesbitt20:46

I I'm also not a stranger to not having a drink. I mean, I I embrace that whole socializing thing. My three best friends are still my three friends uh from when I was a kid, uh Alan, Peter and Carcy. And you know, when we'll go away and we'll have a bit of an outlash at it, but then uh

James Nesbitt20:59

Uh then it'll stop for a while. I mean, I and long may that continue. It's just a shame that people then find they they need to write about it, but that's the way of things, you know.

Presenter21:07

It was while you were doing Cold Feet that Paul Greengrass approached you to do Bloody Sunday. In it, as you said, you play the Protestant MP, Ivan Cooper, the man who headed up this civil rights march. He sees his friends shot in front of him in the streets of Derry. Much of it is shown through this eyewitness experience. How much contact did you have with Ivan Cooper? How much did you?

James Nesbitt21:12

Yeah.

James Nesbitt21:28

Sweet.

James Nesbitt21:32

Well, Ivan, you know, I mean, Ivan Cooper is uh an extraordinary man, and I'm so glad that Bloody Sunday was in and sort of politically a sort of renaissance for Ivan, although he went on to a very successful career and other things.

James Nesbitt21:44

When for right from the off when I met Paul he uh handed me the most you know astonishing amount of research that he wanted me to go into. Because when we shot the film he wanted to be very much kind of uh in the moment and so a lot of the time I didn't know what was happening in the film. So I needed to be versed and articulate in the political language uh of the civil rights movement. I went to m spend a day with Ivan in Derry and persuaded him to

James Nesbitt22:09

Do the march. Now, I even hadn't done the march in thirty years because I even felt culpable for what happened, but I persuaded him to do the march and it took him back thirty years, and it was an incredible odyssey for him, I think, but also for me, because it really helped me see just what it meant to that city, what it meant to the future of Northern Ireland, you know, what what happened after that. And uh also at the end of the march I checked into uh the hotel and uh I was very nervous about you know a Protestant from up the road coming to tell this story.

James Nesbitt22:34

I was worried what people would think and I sat down and someone tapped me on the shoulder and said, Who am I? and I looked round and I went, You're Bubbles Donnicky were you're a first person shot in Bloody Sunday and he kind of reached across and it just it was sort of um just'cause I'd read it in the book and and and that made me think, Oh, actually it'll be okay this.

Presenter22:52

And you felt accepted. You felt there was a fairy.

James Nesbitt22:54

My family accepted, but you know, it was more important to me in the sense that my family accepted me doing Bloody Sunday.

Presenter22:58

Yes, I that's precisely what I was going to ask you next, of course, because as you describe it, coming from a proud Protestant tradition, you'd played in a flute band with your dad, you everything that it meant to be a Unionist was close.

James Nesbitt23:04

They need

James Nesbitt23:05

It was your dad.

James Nesbitt23:08

To you it almost culturally but also culturally.

James Nesbitt23:11

When I grew up, you know, marching with the Balamini Young Conquers, average age 65, with my father's band, you know, it was it meant so much and it was a day out for everyone. And then, of course, the marches became hugely drawn into the political situation with what happened to Drum Cree. And I hugely regret that, because I think you know, as Greengrass said, if Bloody Sunday can do anything, it it can maybe show us the importance of we don't have to embrace each other's cultural differences, but it it might mean that we can accept them and not fight over them. And I yearn for a time when I can still go back on the Twelfth March with my father.

Presenter23:51

Tell me about your next piece of music, then, Jimmy.

James Nesbitt23:53

Uh next is from the first job I did on film.

James Nesbitt23:57

Uh the film is called Hear My Song written by Adrian Dunbar and Peter Chelsom. It's a film that uh tells the story of Joseph Locke, uh a great tenor in Ireland in the fifties. When I hear it it just reminds me of the very beginning of my career and, you know, drinking Guinness in the evening and singing songs and well before fame or success and uh there's an innocence to it that um I'll never forget and to Adri I'll always be eternally grateful.

Speaker 324:25

Here it soft and low hail a love and love of singing long ago

Speaker 324:46

Hear my song.

Presenter24:51

Oh yeah.

Speaker 324:51

Yeah.

Presenter24:51

Yeah. And then

Presenter24:54

Very Midgley and Hear My Song and Strong Memories for You of that movie that you worked on in the early days. You have this I mean, it I can't really fit them all in a very, very long line of credits. You're constantly in work and very few actors can say that. Do you th is that to do with the Protestant work ethic? Are you loath to turn down good jobs?

James Nesbitt25:13

Wah

James Nesbitt25:14

I think it's a mixture of things, you know. I I think certainly work generates work. Um and I think a lot of it's to do with luck and um you know I always uh have been fairly careful about the scripts I've chosen.

Presenter25:25

You say luck, but of course the harder you work, the luckier you get.

James Nesbitt25:27

Blairwell Murbay.

Presenter25:29

Yeah.

James Nesbitt25:29

Maybe.

Presenter25:30

You do work very, very hard.

James Nesbitt25:31

I kinda like it, you know.

Presenter25:33

Do you have a certain amount of time that you think I must ring-fence that to be at home, or do you think?

James Nesbitt25:37

You try to and and again, you know, um success gives you that opportunity. Uh I mean I'll take a few months off now. You know, by the time uh after three months my my family are desperate to get me out of the house again'cause I'm pacing the place, you know. And I love work. I mean I absolutely adore it. You know, I I just

James Nesbitt25:54

I can't believe um what an enormous privilege it is, you know, and I haven't forgotten that.

Presenter25:57

And what about your family back home in Ireland? How how do they deal with this very famous brother and son?

James Nesbitt26:03

I think they're proud. I think the sisters are proud. But they will um they'll remind me if I'm um

James Nesbitt26:08

Uh doing another thing that they think is a bit out of character.

Presenter26:10

Yeah, I mean, how do they deal with the bad boy stuff in the press? Do do they give you a hard time about it?

James Nesbitt26:15

They wouldn't be that keen on it now, I have to say. I think ultimately, you know, they they're they're sisters that love a brother and they're parents that love a son. And if there was any difficulties, I remember I got a card from my mother, my mother's not that well now, and I remember getting a card from her saying, Well, you'll always be my son and I'll always love you So that's kind of forgiving enough, I think.

Presenter26:31

And uh your mother, as you say, she's not so well now. Your mother has uh dementia.

James Nesbitt26:35

Yeah, she has uh she has you know, deteriorating Alzheimer's. Um

James Nesbitt26:40

Which in a way I suppose I can talk about because my mum, you know, uh I mean, it's a it's terribly sad to me that my mother will never hear this because, you know, I grew up with her listening to Desert Island discs. But it's also something to talk about because it is so devastating. It has such a devastating impact on a family, particularly my father.

James Nesbitt26:54

And it's very hard to find the necessary help and support out there. You know, I think there will be people listening to this all over the country who will go absolutely and it's torture.

Presenter27:02

It is so often, given, as you say, that the support that people need isn't there. It is so often, of course, the families that end up doing all the support. And you're not at home to do that.

James Nesbitt27:08

Mm-hmm.

James Nesbitt27:11

Do you feel like you're not going to be able to sisters, particularly my sister Catherine, who's the middle one? Um it's been very hard for her over the last number of years, you know, not only losing a mother but having to deal you know, because that's what it's like. It's like a slow uh disappearance. You know, I was home there a while ago when my mum went out.

James Nesbitt27:27

uh for a walk, desperate to get out, you know, and this is before she's now in a in a home. Um

James Nesbitt27:32

And uh she was desperate to go for a walk late at night up in Castle Rock, you know, by the sea and the wind's howling, the rain's coming down and and I said, Oh, I'll come out with you and she said, No, no, but I mean I followed her out and just to see a woman kind of totter off into the distance, you know, is very um uh painful, you know, it's like her t tottering off from your life. So uh Catherine's had to deal with that a lot and very hard for my father and uh I mean the only reason I'm talking about it is because I think more needs to be done. There needs to be more support um for families around and uh and my father's been just amazing and as as I I salute him for the way he's dealt with.

Presenter28:05

Let's take a little break for some music then. What have you chosen as uh disc number seven?

James Nesbitt28:09

Well, Van Morrison, it's hard to come from home and not pick a Van Morrison song. I mean, I would have filled all eight with Northern Irish songs, but Geordie Best and Van Morrison to emerge from Northern Ireland during the Troubles is not bad. And I could have picked any Van song, but I've really picked this one not only because it was the title attract to Film India with Milo Winterbottom, Welcome to Sarajevo, but you just can't believe how Van wrote this. It's a cacophony of different things kind of shouting at each other, but somehow out of it comes this piece of music which stirs the soul the way young lovers do.

Speaker 328:43

And though we chance tonight, don't we?

Speaker 328:47

And tangent to each other say I love you

Speaker 328:54

I love you.

Speaker 328:58

The way that you

Speaker 329:00

Ah

Speaker 329:03

Yeah.

Presenter29:03

How does it do?

Presenter29:08

Van Morrison and the way young lovers do. So, uh Jimmy Nesbut, of course, you know, you are staple fodder on BBC One on a Saturday night or Sunday night. People see your face all the time, it seems. Well, that's your judgment, not mine. For which I apologise. You've done some movies, but you haven't yet done anything in Hollywood. Have you dipped your toe in the grimy waters of

Speaker 129:17

Uh

Speaker 129:20

Uh

James Nesbitt29:20

Marketing.

James Nesbitt29:23

Uh

James Nesbitt29:29

I've been over there, you know. I went over with um film 80 years ago, Waking Ned. But um because uh I've been so lucky here, you know, I feel that there's so much work to do here and and it's never really been my thing. My career utopia is not necessarily about sitting beside a pool and I waiting to get a part in a film with an accent I can't do in a not very good film.

Presenter29:50

I didn't know whether I could ask you if you'd think it was too rude for me to ask you about your accent. I mean, are you able to do lots of things? Bye.

James Nesbitt29:56

But I mean

Presenter29:56

Yeah.

James Nesbitt29:56

Yeah.

James Nesbitt29:58

Do you know why? I would do, he says. Uh I know I've I've done them before, but it's a lot easier to uh I think it's a lot easier to act in your own accent, you know.

Presenter30:06

Right, what accents have you done? Go and give me liver puddley and I'm throwing that one at you.

James Nesbitt30:10

Oh no, I haven't done that, but no, I could do all those, I'm sure. Um

Presenter30:13

One

James Nesbitt30:14

The panel

Presenter30:14

It's a perfect opportunity.

James Nesbitt30:15

Uh

Presenter30:15

There are so many casting directors listening, Jenny. I can't tell you.

James Nesbitt30:18

No, I um I've just finished a piece called Occupation for the BBC. You know, I've been working with uh a Sky Saxon in that and a Manc actor and that, uh, Stephen Graham and Warren Brown and you know, as long as there's actors from those areas out there, I don't see why they should cast me.

Presenter30:31

Okay, you're not going to do it, but I did ask. The other thing I have to ask you, of course, because my eight-year-old daughter will never forgive me. Will you be Doctor Who?

James Nesbitt30:38

I think not. To tell you the truth, no real interest. I I was never into Doctor Who as a kid, although my kids and I love watching it now, but David Tennant.

James Nesbitt30:45

Is far too good for me to replace, I think.

Presenter30:49

And so on the island I'm sending you to to a desert island?

James Nesbitt30:50

The duck.

Presenter30:52

Uh

James Nesbitt30:52

On your own? Yeah, no, I'd b I'd be okay with that'cause funnily enough I think people would think that far too uh gregarious, but actually I'm fairly intolerant to tell you the truth and uh I grew up, as I say, spending a lot of time on my own, so I'd be happy enough.

Presenter31:04

Okay, tell me about your final track to do that.

James Nesbitt31:06

Well I wanted something for the girls and I read last year about this girl called Laura Marling, an eighteen year old from Reading, who's about a musical prodigy. I bought the album and played it in the car with Peggy and Mary and we the three of us were just immediately put into a trance and it's something we share. It's just for my two daughters and I and um

James Nesbitt31:25

I'll always have them as long as I have uh the memory of this song. It's Laura Marling and Failure.

Speaker 131:31

He used to be a singer in a rock'n'roll band He would write the songs and I'd tremble at his hand but oh

Speaker 131:44

He lost poetic ethic and his songs were pathetic.

Speaker 131:48

He's a failing now.

Presenter31:51

Laura Marling and Failure Chosen for You and Your Girls and the Memories of Songs Shared in the Car. Um I'm going to give you the Bible, the complete works of Shakespeare, and Jimmy, you can pick another book.

James Nesbitt32:02

If I'm allowed, I'd like the collective uh writings of James Lawton, who's the chief sports correspondent for The Independent. Magnificent man who within his writings it doesn't write just about sport, all human life is there, and I could read Jim Forever. He's wonderful.

Presenter32:18

You can have that and And a luxury too.

James Nesbitt32:20

Yeah.

James Nesbitt32:20

Well, not a huge surprise. Uh I wouldn't mind a glass of wine at the end of every night, so or actually I'd like a bottle of wine at the end of every night, so I'd just like a nice bottle of sanscera every night.

Presenter32:30

Chilled even. I'll give it to chill.

James Nesbitt32:31

So listen, you could break over my head and I'd be hollywood.

Presenter32:35

You may have that, and if I was to force you to choose just one of the eight, which record would be your one?

James Nesbitt32:40

I'd find it hard to live without Frank, as I'm sure if he were still alive he'd find it hard to live without me.

Presenter32:45

Uh

James Nesbitt32:45

Uh

Presenter32:45

James Nesbitt, thank you very much for letting us hear your desktop on discs. Thank you, Kirsten.

Presenter32:56

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/radio4.