 Nesbitt 's performance in Hear My Song had also impressed first @-@ time screenwriter and film director Kirk Jones , who cast him in his 1998 feature film Waking Ned . Playing <unk> pig farmer " Pig " Finn brought Nesbitt to international attention , particularly in the United States ( where the film was released as Waking Ned <unk> ) ; the cast was nominated for the 1999 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a <unk> Motion Picture . In 1999 , he appeared as the paramilitary " Mad Dog " Billy Wilson in The Most <unk> Man in Ireland ( <unk> <unk> ) . The following year , he appeared in Declan Lowney 's feature debut , Wild About Harry . Lowney had personally asked him to appear in the supporting role of cross @-@ dressing Unionist politician Walter Adair . In 2001 , he made his debut as a lead actor in a feature film in Peter <unk> 's Lucky Break . He played Jimmy Hands , an incompetent bank <unk> who <unk> an escape from a prison by staging a musical as a distraction . On preparing for the role , Nesbitt said , " Short of robbing a bank there wasn 't much research I could have done but we did spend a day in <unk> Prison and that showed the nightmare <unk> of prisoners ' lives . I didn 't interview any of the inmates because I thought it would be a little <unk> as it was research for a comedy and also because we were going home every night in our fancy cars to sleep in our fancy hotels . " The film was a commercial failure , despite receiving good feedback from test audiences in the United States . 
