James Nesbitt - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

James Nesbitt was born on 15 January 1965 in Ballymena, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. His father, James "Jim" Nesbitt, was the headmaster of the primary school in Lisnamurrican, a hamlet near Broughshane, while his mother, May Nesbitt, was a civil servant. Jim and May already had three daughters—Margaret, Kathryn and Andrea. The family lived in the house adjoining the one-room school where Nesbitt was one of 32 pupils taught by Jim; the other pupils were all farmers' children. Nesbitt grew up "completely" around women, and spent a lot of time alone, "kicking a ball against a wall". He had ambitions to play football for Manchester United, or to become a teacher like his father. The family was Ulster Presbyterian, and Lisnamurrican was in "Paisley country". The Nesbitts spent Sunday evenings singing hymns around the piano. Jim marched in the Ballymena Young Conquerors flute band and Nesbitt joined him playing the flute. After the Drumcree conflicts, they stopped marching with the band. The family's residence in the countryside left them largely unaffected by The Troubles, although Nesbitt, his father, and one of his sisters narrowly escaped a car bomb explosion outside Ballymena County Hall in the early 1970s.

When Nesbitt was 11 years old, the family moved to Coleraine, County Londonderry, where May worked for the Housing Executive. He completed his primary education at Blagh primary school, then moved on to Coleraine Academical Institution (CAI). In 1978, when he was 13, his parents took him to audition for the Riverside Theatre's Christmas production of Oliver!. Nesbitt sang "Bohemian Rhapsody" at the audition and won the part of the Artful Dodger, who he played in his acting debut. He continued to act and sing with the Riverside until he was 16, and appeared at festivals and as an extra in Play For Today: The Cry (Christopher Menaul, 1984). He got his Equity card when the professional actor playing Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio broke his ankle two days before the performance, and Nesbitt stepped in to take his place. Acting had not initially appealed to him, but he "felt a light go on" after he saw The Winslow Boy (Anthony Asquith, 1948). When he was 15, he got his first paid job as a bingo caller at Barry's Amusements in Portrush. He was paid £1 per hour for the summer job and would also, on occasions, work as the brake man on the big dipper.

He left CAI at the age of 18 and began a degree in French at Ulster Polytechnic in Jordanstown. He stayed at university for a year before dropping out. In a 1999 interview, Nesbitt said, "I had the necessary in my head, but I just couldn't be bothered. Being 18 is the worst age to expect people to learn things. There are other things to be bothered with, like girls and football." He made the decision to quit when he was trying to write an overdue essay on existentialism in Les Mains Sales at 4 a.m. one day. His father suggested that he should move to England if he wanted to continue acting, so Nesbitt enrolled at the Central School of Speech and Drama (CSSD) in London. Nesbitt felt lost and misrepresented when he first arrived in London, on account of his Northern Irish background; "When I first came to drama school I was a Paddy the minute I walked in. And I remember going to drama school and them all saying to me, 'Aww, yeah, Brits out', and I was like 'It's a wee bit more complicated than that, you know.'" He graduated in 1987, at the age of 22.