"He had been unwell off and on for around two years and not worked as frequently as normal during the past year because of the cancer and its side effects," the spokesman said. Postlethwaite had been described by director Steven Spielberg as "probably the best actor in the world today."

The two worked together on the movies "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" and "Amistad." He was nominated for an Oscar for his role in "In the Name of the Father", the 1993 film about the wrongful convictions of the so-called Guildford Four for an Irish Republican Army bombing. Other notable film credits included "Brassed Off," "The Usual Suspects" and "Inception", while on stage he played the lead in "King Lear" in 2008 at Liverpool's Everyman, the northern English theatre where he began his career.