Jim has appeared in Blackadder, Murder Most Horrid and The Peter Principle, the films Bullets Over Broadway, The Avengers, Little Voice, The Borrowers, Enchanted April, The Crying Game, Brazil, and Smilla's Sense of Snow, The Borrowers & Bridget Jones's Diary  recently.

He won a Best Actor award at the Venice Film Festival in 1999 for his performance as the librettist WS Gilbert in Mike Leigh's film, Topsy Turvy.

Jim has been offered many parts in television but has been renowned for turning most of them down, one of these being the part of Derek Trotter.

Although Jim has only appeared in Only Fools and Horses three times, it was essential for Del to have an enemy. Jim plays bent copper Roy Slater in May The Force Be With You and To Hull And Back, after he served time for diamond smuggling he returned in Class Of '62 as an undertakers assistant, but only for Del to find out he is Raquel's husband.