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 NIGHYIf 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.
More Bill Nighy Quotes
-
-
I’m not a financial expert. The Robin Hood tax seems to me a very simple and beautiful idea. I don’t see the problem.
BILL NIGHY -
Actors always talk about taking their work home and I always think: ‘What are you on? You just turn it off. You are at work and then you go home.’
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 got briefly mistaken for someone who might be good in bed, which was very, very good.
BILL NIGHY -
I don’t dislike the process of animation… I find it daunting, but only as much as I find everything daunting.
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 like being in kids’ movies, and I like being in family movies.
BILL NIGHY -
I guess part of the hit-man appeal is the solitude. Everybody is lured to the idea of the solitary life.
BILL NIGHY -
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 NIGHY -
I don’t think there’s an improvised word in the movie. I hope not because I admire writing. Improvising is kind of gambling. It’s just that you’re standing up.
BILL NIGHY -
There are only three men in the world who are licensed to wear shorts: Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp and Tom Cruise.
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 -
I’m one of those weird people who doesn’t even own a computer.
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 -
Hunger is almost like something the West does. It’s almost like the direct result of the way the West performs.
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 -
I wanted to be a journalist, I thought it was glamorous and that I’d meet beautiful women in the rain.
BILL NIGHY -
Somebody asked me recently, ‘Have you done a lot of plays?’ I thought hang on. .
BILL NIGHY -
I love playing half squid/half crab guy because you can get away with a level of acting that if you tried it anywhere else they’d arrest you for crimes against acting.
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 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 -
The way the elderly are treated, and in some cases warehoused and medicated, rather than nurtured and listened to, is distressing.
BILL NIGHY -
I have never owned a computer. I am one of those weirdos. I’ve never needed a computer. I’m lucky that I have a job where I’m not required to use one.
BILL NIGHY -
Anyone who can do the splits and come back up on the backbeat, as James Brown and Prince can, has my eternal respect.
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