The British character actor Ronan Vibert, who has died aged 58 after a brief illness, made his most impressive entrance in Saving Mr Banks, the 2013 live-action Disney film about PL (Pamela) Travers, author of the Mary Poppins books.
In the opening scene, set in 1961, the writer – played by Emma Thompson – lets her longtime publisher, Diarmuid Russell (Vibert), into her plush Georgian house in London and exchanges formal pleasantries (“Mr Russell”, “Mrs Travers”). In the battle of wills that follows Russell persuades a reluctant Travers, with no money or book ideas left, to sell the Mary Poppins film rights to Walt Disney, who has been chasing them for two decades.
