When I read the news sites which reported on the actor's death, I was met with pictures from his outings as Theoden in the Lord of the Rings trilogy as well as his portrayal of the Titanic's captain in James Cameron's blockbuster movie about the 1912 tragedy.
Then, when I was watching the news, I noticed that he was Yosser in the 1980's series - Boys from the Black Stuff.
'Wow,' I thought as I recalled 'Yosser was also Will's dad in Restless Natives'.
As I am sure I've written many times on this blog, Restless Natives is one of my favourite films. It is, without a shadow of a doubt, my favourite British-made movie.
All those times I've seen Titanic and the few I've seen Lord of the Rings, I never once realised he was the same actor from those 80s titles.
As noted, my surprise was doubled last night.
While reading up about Bernard Hill and Restless Natives, I found out that - just three weeks ago - Vince Friell, who played Will, passed away.
They shared a couple of brilliant scenes together in Restless Natives. The father thought his son was a lost cause because he didn't have a job yet thought the highway robbers (Will was one of them) showed 'initiative'. It made for a great scene because Will was being applauded by his father, but Will couldn't flat out acknowledge he was one of the infamous bandits.
It's surreal they both died within weeks of each other in real-life.
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