FILM stars including Julie Walters and Bill Nighy and Liverpool writer Alan Bleasdale last night paid tribute to Oscar-nominated actor Pete Postlethwaite, following his death.

The Warrington-born stage and screen star passed away peacefully in hospital on Sunday, at the age of 64, after a lengthy illness.

Actors and friends paid their respects after the sad announcement yesterday.

Julie Walters led tributes to a man equally at home on a Liverpool stage or the set of a Hollywood blockbuster.

The actress, who worked with him at the city’s Everyman Theatre in the 1970s, said: “He was quite simply the most exciting, exhilarating actor of his generation.

“He invented ’edgy’. He was an exhilarating person and actor.

“Spielberg was right when he said he was the best actor in the world.”

Postlethwaite, who was made an OBE in 2004, was once described by director Steven Spielberg as “probably the best actor in the world today”.

In response, Postlethwaite, who worked with him on The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Amistad, joked: “I’m sure what Spielberg actually said was, ‘the thing about Pete is that he thinks he’s the best actor in the world’.”

Postlethwaite’s films included Brassed Off, The Usual Suspects, The Shipping News, Inception and Romeo and Juliet.

He received his Oscar nomination for his performance as Guiseppe Conlon in the 1993 film, In The Name Of The Father, about the wrongful convictions of the Guildford Four for an IRA bomb attack.