
Died at 78
male
Thomas Geoffrey Wilkinson (February 5, 1948 – December 30, 2023) was an English actor. Known for his roles on stage and screen, he received numerous accolades including a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and two Laurence Olivier Awards. In 2005, he was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). Wilkinson trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art before making his West End debut portraying Horatio in Hamlet (1980) for which he received a nomination for the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. He returned to the West End playing Dr. Stockmann in the Henrik Ibsen play An Enemy of the People (1988) receiving a Laurence Olivier Award for Actor of the Year in a Revival nomination. Wilkinson received the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for The Full Monty (1997) as well as two Academy Award nominations, one for Best Actor for In the Bedroom (2001) and Best Supporting Actor for Michael Clayton (2007). He became known as a character actor, acting in numerous films such as In the Name of the Father (1993), Sense and Sensibility (1995), Shakespeare in Love (1998), The Patriot (2000), Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Batman Begins (2005), Valkyrie (2008), The Ghost Writer (2010), The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011), Belle (2013), Selma (2014), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), and Denial (2016). In 2009 he won a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for playing Benjamin Franklin in the HBO limited series John Adams (2008). His other Emmy-nominated roles were as Roy/Ruth Applewood in the HBO film Normal (2003), James Baker in the HBO film Recount (2008), and Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. in the limited series The Kennedys (2011).

In the Eighteenth Century, in a small village in Ireland, Redmond Barry is a young farm boy in love with his cousin Nora Brady. When Nora gets engaged to the British Captain John Quin, Barry challenges him to a duel of pistols. He wins and escapes to Dublin but is robbed on the road. Without an alternative, Barry joins the British Army to fight in the Seven Years War. He deserts and is forced to join the Prussian Army where he saves the life of his captain and becomes his protégé and spy of the Irish gambler Chevalier de Balibari. He helps Chevalier and becomes his associate until he decides to marry the wealthy Lady Lyndon. They move to England and Barry, in his obsession of nobility, dissipates her fortune and makes a dangerous and revengeful enemy.
