I used to joke that one of the reasons there was a lack of classical work on my CV was because I couldn’t operate in those kinds of trousers. Which is a joke, but it’s actually also true – if I want to appear in public I want to look my best.
BILL NIGHYWhen you have a family, or even when you’re just seeing a girl, it’s difficult to be skint.
More Bill Nighy Quotes
-
-
I’m always happy when actors get rich, because the odds on it are so long!
BILL NIGHY -
With stage, you feel completely like you’re just in a bubble. I love not being able to see anything. I love coming out and I can’t see anything because the lights are so bright and it’s pitch black. That’s ideal for me, that’s when I have the best time.
BILL NIGHY -
If I’m onstage I like to do contemporary work, largely because of the trousers, because of the clothes. I like a decent, what we used to call a lounge suit. Then I can start to motor.
BILL NIGHY -
I don’t do plays without jokes anymore. I’ve retired from those plays. I think it’s bad manners to invite people to sit in the dark for two and a half hours and not tell them the joke.
BILL NIGHY -
If you ever see me in a social setting wearing any sort of sportswear, then you know I’m in crisis.
BILL NIGHY -
In one way, an attempt to reproduce the way people actually speak, but it’s not just an attempt at naturalism. It’s stylised and it’s heightened, to great effect. It’s elegant and it’s funny and that’s the way to my heart, frankly.
BILL NIGHY -
I have no memory, any at all, of actually performing the play, no recall in terms of the lines. I can’t tell you any line from any play I’ve ever done.
BILL NIGHY -
I never go on the net or the web, or whatever it’s called.
BILL NIGHY -
Standing in front of a fake mountain with fake snow falling and seven girls dressed as Santarettes will stay in my memory.
BILL NIGHY -
I’m probably the only person who actually remembers pirate radio.
BILL NIGHY -
I don’t want to associate myself with any specific group of politicians.
BILL NIGHY -
Often in America people would assume that [as an English actor] you’ve had some sort of deep, classical training, or that you’re a Shakespeare enthusiast. I have zero interest in me performing Shakespeare.
BILL NIGHY -
Hunger is almost like something the West does. It’s almost like the direct result of the way the West performs.
BILL NIGHY -
I’m not famous for my back story investigations; I’m lucky that I work with good writers and it’s usually in the script.
BILL NIGHY -
One of the great regrets of my life is that I smoked. If I could say anything to anybody starting out in life it would be, ‘
BILL NIGHY -
I quoted David Hare one of his lines the other day to illuminate whatever point we were trying to make in the conversation, and I said ‘What play was that?’ and he said ‘It was your line, you said it about a hundred and fifty times in The Vertical Hour.’
BILL NIGHY -
To be serious, the things you really want to relive are things like bedtime with your daughter when she becomes incredibly entertaining ’cause she doesn’t want to go to sleep.
BILL NIGHY -
Try to be in the day. Try to not have today stolen from you by anxiety about yesterday or tomorrow.”
BILL NIGHY -
I’m not good at watching myself which I think is perfectly natural. I don’t give myself a hard time about it. I am the worst critic.
BILL NIGHY -
In the street, people talk to you about all kinds of things, but by far, the most number of people talk to me about Love, Actually.
BILL NIGHY -
Emma Watson is adorable in the extreme. She is such a lovely person.
BILL NIGHY -
All actors who have been around for a long time, which I have, and have been skint for long periods, which I have, find it difficult to turn down jobs. If I turn anything down my stomach turns over. I feel sick. It feels like gambling.
BILL NIGHY -
When you are in something that you’re proud of and it’s funny and it’s a good night out and all of those things, there’s nothing quite like it. The rewards are proportionate to the amount of alarm and distress it causes you.
BILL NIGHY -
I’m crazy about James Brown. I’m crazy about soul music. And then the blues. Rhythm and blues.
BILL NIGHY -
I’m not an actor who consciously accesses bits of my life, in order to play parts. Obviously, you don’t need to have been a father to play one, otherwise everyone who’s been a father would be able to act.
BILL NIGHY -
My dad had a personal style which was very attractive. It was quite reserved and quite elegant, and it was infectious.
BILL NIGHY