James Nesbitt looks to US as UK TV is 'desperate'

James Nesbitt looks to US as UK TV is 'desperate'
James Nesbitt looks to US as UK TV is 'desperate' (Image credit: PA Wire/Press Association Images)

James Nesbitt says he's considering turning to the United States for work as the recession-hit British TV industry is in 'desperate' straits. Speaking to the Radio Times about Hollywood, James said: "I could have gone there years ago, but the notion of waiting six months to play a baddie in a bad film just wasn't my idea of career utopia. "I was challenged here, I enjoyed what I was doing, but the British TV industry is in a desperate state - not creatively but financially." He went on: "So I've gone with an American agent and, well, we'll see what happens." The actor said he would miss his daughters Peggy and Mary - "but there's so little work happening here, it's not a door that I'd slam shut". The actor stars in the much-anticipated BBC One Iraq war drama Occupation, which screens next week. James plays Sergeant Mike Swift, who falls for a courageous Iraqi doctor. Asked about a scene depicting a uniformed soldier having sex with a woman in a burka, James: "You can get too hung up on that. "The short answer is that I was terribly moved by that scene and was more concerned with getting the scene right than the political ramifications."

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.