Nesbitt's performance in "Hear My Song" had also impressed first-time screenwriter and film director Kirk Jones, who cast him in his 1998 feature film "Waking Ned". Playing amiable pig farmer "Pig" Finn brought Nesbitt to international attention, particularly in the United States (where the film was released as "Waking Ned Devine"); the cast was nominated for the 1999 Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Theatrical Motion Picture. In 1999, he appeared as the paramilitary "Mad Dog" Billy Wilson in "The Most Fertile Man in Ireland" (Dudi Appleton). The following year, he appeared in Declan Lowney's feature debut, "Wild About Harry". Lowney had personally asked him to appear in the supporting role of cross-dressing Unionist politician Walter Adair. In 2001, he made his debut as a lead actor in a feature film in Peter Cattaneo's "Lucky Break". He played Jimmy Hands, an incompetent bank robber who masterminds an escape from a prison by staging a musical as a distraction. On preparing for the role, Nesbitt said, "Short of robbing a bank there wasn't much research I could have done but we did spend a day in Wandsworth Prison and that showed the nightmare monotony of prisoners' lives. I didn't interview any of the inmates because I thought it would be a little patronising as it was research for a comedy and also because we were going home every night in our fancy cars to sleep in our fancy hotels." The film was a commercial failure, despite receiving good feedback from test audiences in the United States.