James Nesbitt has spoken about fighting to use his native Northern Irish accent on TV.
The Ballymena-born actor, 61, has enjoyed a prolific career, starring in series such as Murphy’s Law and Bloodlands, while finding international fame more recently in a run of Harlan Coben adaptations on Netflix – Stay Close (2021), Missing You (2025) and Run Away (2026).
In a new interview with The Times, Nesbitt pointed to the “global platform” that the streaming series provides as a reason why he advocates for the use of his own accent.
“I absolutely fight to do the Northern Irish voice now because I want that sound to travel the world,” he said. “I love the idea of those countries where they dub the actors trying to translate ‘a bucket of s***e’ into Chinese.”
He added that the adaptations are bonkers”, but he called Coben “great” and said he “loves” how much excitement they whip up.
“The Netflix thing has been quite a shift for me because I’ve been well known here in the UK and a bit in Europe, but I’ve never really had a global platform. Anywhere I go now, since I did my first Harlan one, it’s extraordinary. You’re known everywhere.”
Nesbitt also recalled his audition for the ITV relationship comedy Cold Feet (1997 to 2003), when he first insisted on using his own accent.
“There was sweat on my palms because I wasn’t really known, and it was only a pilot but everyone went up for it,” he said. “I knew it was going to be good and a chance it was going to be massive. I walked in and said, ‘I’m the only person that can play this and it has to be done in a Northern Irish accent.’
“And I said to the director, ‘You will be able to take credit for having a Northern Irish voice in a drama where it’s nothing to do with the Troubles for the first time.’”
Nesbitt explained that while he holds both British and Irish passports, he very much considers himself “an Irish Protestant from the North of Ireland”.
“[Which] in no way denies anyone else the titles that they give themselves,” he added. “I think you can call yourself Irish, you can call yourself Northern Irish, you can call yourself from the north, you can do whatever you want.”
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