Nice guy Jim wants to be nasty.

Jim Broadbent (Bullets Over Broadway, Topsy Turvey, Bridget Jones's Diary) can take centre stage as one of Britain’s leading actors – but the star of The Boss still cherishes a secret ambition. “I wouldn’t mind being more of a baddie,” he confides. “Peter Duffley (his character in The Boss) is a bit of a baddie but I wouldn’t mind doing something quite nasty for a change.”

The Lincolnshire furniture maker’s son, who has just celebrated his 50th birthday, believes he knows how Duffley has managed to keep his job after the first series. “Peter hasn’t basically changed but now he is slightly less indolent and lazy. The question was raised as to how he still had his job, but now he has proved that even though he is by no means good at it, he can just hang in there. He spends a lot of time explaining his inadequate behaviour and justifying himself. He has a sort of native cunning; he knows how to watch his back and look after himself, but he is basically still incompetent and his career will always be somewhat in the balance.”

Jim says he can now empathise with those who have someone like Peter Duffley in their office. “If I had to work under him, I would become like Geoffrey – rather bitter, twisted, cynical and probably disruptive.”

Jim compares the weekly turn-around of a sitcom to being a part of a theatrical company, when the same group of people put on a play a week. “It generates a good team spirit and I was looking forward to working on it and seeing everyone again. I spent most of last year doing a Mike Leigh film based on Gilbert and Sullivan, called Topsy-Turvy, so it was a good change.”

The four-times-Oscar-nominated movie, also starring Allan Corduner, Timothy Spall and Alison Steadman, was premiéred at the Venice Film Festival in September, where Jim won the Best Actor award for his role as librettist WS Gilbert.

This is not the first time Jim has worked with Mike Leigh, who directed him in Life Is Sweet, in which The Boss co-star Claire Skinner played his daughter. Other high-profile and prolific directors he has worked with include Mike Newell and Woody Allen. He recalls being invited to appear in Allen’s Bullets Over Broadway.

“Woody is great. He just knows what he’s doing so well, to write and direct a new film every year is a phenomenal achievement. Jim remembers the day he received his phone call from Woody. “I was in a hotel in Ireland at the time and I got the call that he would be ringing in half-an-hour. It was very exciting, I was pacing the room, thinking if the phone is going to ring, it’s going to be Woody Allen, so I’ll have to be cool. It’s just like getting your first job or getting into drama school.”

His other movie roles have included The Borrowers, The Crying Game, Little Voice, The Avengers, Enchanted April and Brazil. He is currently in Australia working on Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge with Ewan McGregor, Nicole Kidman and director by Baz Luhrmann.

Jim has followed in the footsteps of his parents who were both members of an amateur dramatic society. After finishing his art foundation course he decided to go to drama school and was accepted by the prestigious LAMDA. His first acting job was with the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre immediately he left college, but it wasn’t until four years later that he got an agent or worked outside the arena of the theatre.

To supplement his income he took a variety of temporary jobs. “I worked on farms in Lincolnshire in the summer, did temporary jobs in London – van driving, table clearing, washing up in the Bank of England canteen, labouring, shop fitting, domestic cleaning, helping in a tea tent at a golf tournament… whatever was around. I quite enjoyed it all, actually, it was an experience I wouldn’t have been without.”

One job Jim remembers as one of his least successful was when he joined a modelling agency called the “Ugly Agency”. “They had all sorts of beautiful young men and women and, of course, character men and women. I went in on the character side but I didn’t get one job, perhaps I wasn’t ugly enough!”

Jim’s many television credits encompass a wide range of comedy and dramatic roles and, for the BBC, his performances include Heroes and Villains, Wide-Eyed and Legless, Bird of Prey, The Insurance Man, Murder Most Horrid, Blackadder, Only Fools and Horses and Victoria Wood As Seen On TV. He is also well-known as one half of the National Theatre of Brent, which he founded with Patrick Barlow. Away from the spotlight, Jim makes small gargoyle sculptures, a talent he inherited from his mother. He also enjoys writing – he has written three short films – and likes walking and golf which, he admits, he plays badly...