I learned far too late in life that a long list of letters after someone’s name is no guarantee of compassion, kindness, humour, all the far more relevant stuff.
BILL NIGHYI’ve always slightly worried the kids who play football around my house. They know I’m an actor, but felt sorry for me because they’d never seen anything I’ve done.
More Bill Nighy Quotes
-
-
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’m one of those weird people who doesn’t even own a computer.
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 -
You get older and you see yourself and say, ‘God, he’s old, who’s that?’
BILL NIGHY -
It’s more than usually possible that I won’t do a play again. But Skylight is one of the great plays in the English language.
BILL NIGHY -
So there are things like projection and filling the room, and not dropping the ends of lines – technical things which are important, but I don’t think they change the way I feel in a scene.
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 -
They’re at their most enchanting ’cause they just want to put it off, so they do a cabaret for you. You sit there thinking, “Please don’t let this end.”
BILL NIGHY -
You tell yourself that you’re not auditioning but of course you work like crazy, and you prepare like mad. And you think, “Well, I won’t get that job. But maybe they’ll have another job sometime, and they’ll remember that I was good.”
BILL NIGHY -
I did pick up a guitar once, but the strings hurt my fingers so I put it down again.
BILL NIGHY -
I used to do nothing but plays. I’ve been very fortunate that on several occasions I’ve had jobs where I didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world whatever you had to offer – however much money you’ve got
BILL NIGHY -
I’m just aware of what I’m thinking and feeling but I do obviously have to get that to the back of the auditorium.
BILL NIGHY -
If you ask any actor “What single thing would make you really, really happy?” Among the top five things they’d say is not having to audition anymore.
BILL NIGHY -
I’m a jacket man. And if I’m without one, I am kind of seriously disabled. I don’t know how to operate in shirt sleeves.
BILL NIGHY -
Prince, who is a genius of the highest order, can come back up while singing and playing the guitar.
BILL NIGHY -
I got briefly mistaken for someone who might be good in bed, which was very, very good.
BILL NIGHY -
I would like to change everything, but obviously not everything. I’ve been incredibly fortunate. I guess everybody would do this, but I’d go back to my younger self and say, “Lighten up. Take it easy. Relax. Don’t be so anxious about everything.
BILL NIGHY -
I am a fan of rehearsal. I like doing it [scene] over and over and over and over until it looks like you never did it before.
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 -
I think in the old days, everybody used to act really quickly because Hollywood was built by theatre people.
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 -
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 -
When a movie is called ‘searingly honest,’ it’s almost invariably grim and demonstrates how bad things can get.
BILL NIGHY -
You can ruin your life wanting to be an actor.
BILL NIGHY -
I find it hard to relax around any man who’s got the second button on his shirt undone.
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