‘But the main birthday present, I suppose, was just me walking on the beach, looking out at the Atlantic.’ In fact, he adds, he’ll be back out there this evening, ‘swimming in the very cold, dark north Atlantic. Nesbitt puts down the slightly battered 1975 record and looks up and out of the window that overlooks the coast and Royal Portrush golf course. And he goes, “The youngest member of the band is J Nesbitt, whose father, James Sr, is a well-known and much-respected music-maker in the area.” He wrote more about him than he did me!’ he laughs. ‘My dad wasn’t in the band, but wrote the blurb for the back of it. I was the youngest member, and we made this record,’ he explains. He holds up an LP cover showing a shepherd on a hillside drystone wall: The Pride of the Braid by the Ballygelly Accordion Band. In terms of birthday presents, one of his three sisters Margaret, Kathryn and Andrea (who are all teachers) gave him some ‘photo memories’ found in their father’s house – retired head teacher and community pillar James Sr died last August, aged 91 – plus another childhood souvenir. She had a small part in 2009’s Five Minutes of Heaven, the Troubles-set BBC film he made with Liam Neeson, and in the 2016 ITV miniseries The Secret, a true-crime story in which he played ‘killer dentist’ Colin Howell.īut today Nesbitt, inhaling sharply, refuses to confirm or deny his relationship status: ‘Well, ah, I’m not talking about that.’ Last year, certainly, he was in a relationship with Irish actor Katy Gleadhill. Given that all three of his closest childhood friends have homes within walking distance of his house here in this coastal Country Antrim resort town, it’s not unfeasible that those drinks made up for in decades-spanning emotional intimacy what they lacked in the physical kind.ĭid his Covid protocol-friendly non-celebrations also involve a partner? The prolific star of Cold Feet, The Hobbit, Bloody Sunday, Murphy’s Law, The Missing and dozens of other films and TV dramas over the past three decades isn’t saying. Am I allowed to say that? Whatever we’re allowed to do, I did!’ ‘Then I had a few social-distance drinks in the garden. This is a reference to the home gym and personal trainer he makes good use of these days, as evidenced by the slim, rangy physique he brings to the police detective (a former rugby player) he plays in his latest TV series, Northern Irish-set thriller Bloodlands. When I ask how he celebrated, the actor shrugs. Speaking to me from what looks like a bedroom office in his second home in Portrush, the Northern Irish actor is relaxed in unfussy dad-wear of sweater and shirt, his salt-and-pepper hair a little askew. No hangover, no regrets, no existential crisis about now being closer to 60 than 50. Two days after his 56th birthday weekend, James Nesbitt is in fine fettle.
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