James Nesbitt: Bloody Sunday film was ‘huge moment’

Actor James Nesbitt has said his involvement in a film about Bloody Sunday was a ‘huge moment’ in his life. Nesbitt, star of the hit TV show Cold Feet, played the role of civil rights campaigner Ivan Cooper in the film called Bloody Sunday which was released in 2002. The film, which was directed by Paul Greengrass, was critically acclaimed for its portrayal of the events of that day in January 1972 when 13 people were shot dead by British paratroopers during a civil rights demonstration in Derry. A 14th victim later died from his injuries.
Nesbitt, who was born in Broughshane in County Antrim and came from a Protestant background, admitted he had reservations about taking on a part in the film. He had left Northern Ireland in his early 20s to study drama in England and admitted that he came from a generation that ‘sort of didn’t want to acknowledge the Troubles in our country’. However, he said taking on the role in Bloody Sunday ‘shook his indifference’. “For me, my involvement with the project was a huge moment,” he said. “It was important for me not only as an actor but for my understanding of myself as an Ulsterman. “It helped me realise that this had been a watershed and the ensuing years of conflict in Northern Ireland were in large part due to what happened on that day in January 1972. “As you know it was on that night on all over the country young men joined up with the IRA in a sense of rage and injustice at what had happened.” Nesbitt was speaking in Derry on Friday when he was the special guest at the annual President's Lunch organised by the Londonderry Chamber of Commerce. He told the event in the City Hotel that a lot of people from an Ulster Protestant background, including himself, would have been suspicious of the notion of a film about Bloody Sunday. “Our fear, as I know my father’s fear was, was that it would be terribly against-British, anti-soldiers, a piece of nationalist propaganda. “On top of that I was also very wary of the fact that I as a Protestant from just up the road was arriving in Derry to tell this nationalist story and not only to tell that story but to tell it through the eyes of a Protestant nationalist man, my now good friend Ivan Cooper. “I was very worried about what the families would think, about what Derry would think and about what my own community would think. “I did attract much vitriol, as indeed did my mother and father. “But I read the script and it was tightly written and it was balanced. “My immediate thought was I wish I hadn’t read that because once having read it, I couldn’t walk away. I had to do it.” Nesbitt said he learnt a lot from his involvement in the film. “I think there was a realisation, almost cathartic, that my country and its neighbours had allowed conditions to be created in this country where I was born and bred, and without making any political comment, led to the devastation that happened on that day and on many other tragic days. “And perhaps more significantly for me as an actor, I soon realised I couldn’t just turn up and deliver the lines. “At first it was thrilling and moving, it was so hard but so validating and at the end I walked away from it and thought maybe I can see where this job of being an actor can have some worth. “I couldn’t pretend that acting was just this thing that I didn’t take too seriously anymore. It required constantly living in the moment “In Bloody Sunday, we had to be able to put ourselves back in 1972 and to be able to cope with everything. We had to be part of the story. And being part of the story and hearing the stories of all of those involved, including the soldiers, meeting the families of the victims and hearing their stories revealed much to me about how events had impacted on them and their families and underlined the importance of hearing and understanding people’s stories to try and bring about an enduring reconciliation. “And drama I now can say has its own small part to play for there are many more stories to be told from both sides. “As director Paul Greengrass said to me when we finished, ‘If Bloody Sunday can be a pebble in the wall of peace, we will feel that we have achieved something’. I think we did and I hope you do too.” During his speech on Friday, Nesbitt, who is the Chancellor of Ulster University, also spoke about how important the development of the Magee campus in Derry is to the university.