Beloved actor Tim Curry, who died on August 25, 2026, leaves behind an impressive body of work that includes iconic roles in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” “Clue,” and the “It” miniseries. Audiences who grew up watching Nickelodeon in the late ’90s and ’00s might also remember Curry for perhaps his most “smashing” role: Nigel Thornberry in “The Wild Thornberrys.”
Curry voiced the eccentric, enthusiastic aristocrat-turned-wildlife documentarian for 90 episodes of the show, which premiered in 1998 and ran for five seasons before ending in 2004. “The Wild Thornberrys” followed Nigel’s daughter, Eliza (Lacey Chabert), a nature-loving 12-year-old with the ability to talk to animals, though she’ll lose the power if she tells anyone. As the Thornberry family travels the world, Eliza often finds herself caught up in animal adventures while Nigel remains good-natured and a little oblivious. “Nigel never really grew up,” Curry said of the character in a Nicktoons video promoting the show.
Curry also voiced Nigel’s father, Col. Radcliffe Thornberry, who appears in a few episodes of the series.
In 2002, Curry brought Nigel to the big screen in “The Wild Thornberrys Movie.” He reprised the role the following year in “Rugrats Go Wild,” a crossover movie that brought the Thornberrys together with the babies from “Rugrats.”
Tim Curry used animation to explore American accents
“The Wild Thornberrys” was just one of Tim Curry’s many voice roles. One of his notable early performances was the villainous Hexxus in “FernGully: The Last Rainforest.” Television audiences could also hear Curry in a lot of ’90s cartoons, including “The Pirates of Dark Water,” “The Legend of Prince Valiant,” “Captain Planet and the Planeteers,” “Mighty Max,” “Aaahh!!! Real Monsters,” “Gargoyles,” and “Freakazoid!” He also voiced multiple characters in the ABC sitcom “Dinosaurs.”
“One of the reasons I started doing cartoons is I really wanted to play American characters and they let me play American characters in cartoons,” Curry, who was born in England, told syndicated columnist Frank Lovece in 1992. “So it’s been a way for me to work on my American accents.”
Nigel Thornberry, of course, was decidedly English, with Curry dialing up his natural accent whenever he uttered Nigel’s catchphrase, “Smashing!”
In a 2002 interview with UGO, later uploaded to Curry’s official Facebook page, Curry said he initially tried using a version of the voice he’d given Romanian philanthropist Herkermer Homolka in the adventure movie “Congo,” but it didn’t fit Nigel’s look. “He looked like one of those bomber pilots from WWII,” Curry said, adding that the “braying sound” of that sort of accent was “the sound of the [British] Empire and it’s still with us.”