Bill Nighy famous quotes

When people warned me there would be long periods out of work if I became an actor, I couldn't keep a straight face because that was exactly what I had in mind.
-- Bill Nighy

#Long #People #Mind

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

#Memories #Play #Done

As you get older you feel you need to pay more attention to what is around you and relish it. I'm greedy for beauty.
-- Bill Nighy

#Needs #Attention #Pay

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

#Numbers #Love Actually #People

If you ever see me in a social setting wearing any sort of sportswear, then you know I'm in crisis.
-- Bill Nighy

#Social #Crisis

I'm probably the only person who actually remembers pirate radio.
-- Bill Nighy

#Pirate #Radio #Remember

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, 'Whatever you do, don't smoke'. I have had to recover from that and been lucky that I have been able to stop.
-- Bill Nighy

#Regret #Smoking #Say Anything

I like American black soul music, that was my first big enthusiasm.
-- Bill Nighy

#Soul #Black #Enthusiasm

The way the elderly are treated, and in some cases warehoused and medicated, rather than nurtured and listened to, is distressing.
-- Bill Nighy

#Elderly #Way #Cases

I'm not a World War II buff. I know a little bit about it, I was taught the other side of the story in school, so it was unfamiliar to me, the idea of a German resistance, and yet it was considerable.
-- Bill Nighy

#War #School #Ideas

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

#Beautiful #Simple #Ideas

Anti-Semitism and Fascism have a long, mysterious, bewildering, poisonous and vile history and it's not exclusive to the Germans.
-- Bill Nighy

#Long #Mysterious #Fascism

One of my great regrets, and I don't have many, is that I spent too long putting people's status and reputation ahead of their more important qualities. 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 Nighy

#Kindness #Regret #Compassion

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

#Squids #Guy #Acting

The phenomenon of vampires has always appealed to me. Everyone kind of likes a vampire story because it almost could be true.
-- Bill Nighy

#Vampire #Stories #Likes

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

#Jobs #Crazy #Thinking

I find it hard to relax around any man who's got the second button on his shirt undone.
-- Bill Nighy

#Men #Relax #Buttons

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

#Actors #Auditions #Really Happy

I got briefly mistaken for someone who might be good in bed, which was very, very good.
-- Bill Nighy

#Bed #Might #Very Good

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. 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

#Clothes #Looks #Want

I really have no interest in delivering the iambic pentameter, I just want to kill myself. I don't mind other people doing it. I say that, but really I don't want to watch other people doing it. I get embarrassed.
-- Bill Nighy

#People #Mind #Watches

I'm crazy about James Brown. I'm crazy about soul music. And then the blues. Rhythm and blues.
-- Bill Nighy

#Crazy #Soul #Brown

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

#Father #Order #Play

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. Try to be in the day. Try to not have today stolen from you by anxiety about yesterday or tomorrow."
-- Bill Nighy

#Yesterday #Self #Anxiety

I'm lucky that I get to play a wide variety of parts.
-- Bill Nighy

#Play #Lucky #Variety

I do think 3D has seriously improved, since I was a boy. It's fabulous.
-- Bill Nighy

#Boys #Thinking #Fabulous

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

#Play #Trying #Fifty

I admire David Hare as much as I admire certainly any writer ever. What I like about his writing is it is very conscientiously, 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

#Writing #Heart #People

Opening a play is just tough. The idea that actors are weirdly protected from it is a myth. If you imagine yourself having to spend two and a bit hours cooking bolognaise, remembering a whole major work by David Hare and speaking it at the correct moment between chopping carrots and stirring the onions in front of an audience - the normal human response is 'Please, can I go to the airport?'
-- Bill Nighy

#Ideas #Two #Airports

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. I was lucky enough to be a part of it at one point in its life, and it's a timely thing to deliver it again in the modern world.
-- Bill Nighy

#Play #Lucky #World

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

#Good Night #Alarms #Proud

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

#Light #Black #Able

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. 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

#Thinking #Feelings #Important

The job is the same - to attempt to make it sound like you've never said it before and as if it's just occurred to you. And that's the same whether you're on camera or whether you're on stage in a room full of people.
-- Bill Nighy

#Jobs #People #Cameras

Somebody asked me recently, 'Have you done a lot of plays?' I thought hang on. 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

#Jobs #Play #Done

One is that you legislate according to natural selection, the other is that you don't. You have compassion, you try and help people. It's a fundamental clash between two people who happen to love each other, which complicates everything.
-- Bill Nighy

#Compassion #Two #People

I never go on the net or the web, or whatever it's called.
-- Bill Nighy

#Goes On

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

#Jobs #Lucky #Use

I love imaginative representations of a possible near-future, where you look at the technology and you think, "Well, yeah, that could really nearly be true." I like those kinds of backgrounds.
-- Bill Nighy

#Technology #Thinking #Looks

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. 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

#Daughter #Sleep #Thinking

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

#Zero #America #People

I never mind doing press; it's never bothered me.
-- Bill Nighy

#Mind #Bothered

I think in the old days, everybody used to act really quickly because Hollywood was built by theatre people.
-- Bill Nighy

#Thinking #People #Theatre

There is something, yeah, I mean traditionally it's more fun to play bad guys than it is good guys and when you're playing a bad guy, yeah, the fun in it is to see how scary you can be, how horrible you can be. And it's surprising what you come up with.
-- Bill Nighy

#Fun #Mean #Play

It's probably healthier to find fame later in life.
-- Bill Nighy

#Fame

If I'm going to appear in front of people I like to look my best.
-- Bill Nighy

#People #Looks

You get older and you see yourself and say, 'God, he's old, who's that?'
-- Bill Nighy

You can ruin your life wanting to be an actor.
-- Bill Nighy

#Actors #Ruins

Never go anywhere you have to wear brown shoes.
-- Bill Nighy

#Shoes #Brown

If I ruled the world, every woman would have a Chanel suit in her wardrobe.
-- Bill Nighy

#World #Suits #Wardrobe

More people saw me in 'Love Actually' than had seen me in everything else I had ever done up to that point.
-- Bill Nighy

#Love Actually #People #Done

Jerry Bruckheimer says that he makes films that he would want to see, and it seems that that coincides with what a lot of people want to see.
-- Bill Nighy

#People #Want #Film

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

#Lucky #Stories #Scripts

One of the reasons I like a suit is because I've never been that keen on my body. The shape a suit presents is always going to be better than anything I can do.
-- Bill Nighy

#Body #Shapes #Suits

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

#Dark #Thinking #Play

When I do a play, it's like agreeing to be ill for a couple of months.
-- Bill Nighy

#Couple #Play #Months

When you've been going on about something for a while, it is always satisfying to discover that other people agree with you.
-- Bill Nighy

#People #Agree

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

#Jobs #Gambling #Long

Anyone who can do the splits and come back up on the backbeat, as James Brown and Prince can, has my eternal respect. Prince, who is a genius of the highest order, can come back up while singing and playing the guitar.
-- Bill Nighy

#Guitar #Order #Singing

I'm always happy when actors get rich, because the odds on it are so long!
-- Bill Nighy

#Odds #Long #Actors

The degree of notoriety I have is fine and easy. There's nothing hysterical about it.
-- Bill Nighy

#Degrees #Easy #Hysterical

When a movie is called 'searingly honest,' it's almost invariably grim and demonstrates how bad things can get.
-- Bill Nighy

#Honest #Grim

When it comes to casual clothing, my enthusiasm for clothes starts to waver.
-- Bill Nighy

#Clothes #Enthusiasm #Casual

I'm one of those weird people who doesn't even own a computer.
-- Bill Nighy

#People #Computer #Weird People

If you are supposed to be villainous and have some sort of agenda, I like the idea of delivering that kind of character in a perfectly well-mannered way.
-- Bill Nighy

#Character #Ideas #Agendas

Hunger is almost like something the West does. It's almost like the direct result of the way the West performs.
-- Bill Nighy

#Doe #Way #West

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

#Men #Kind #Shirts

Standing in front of a fake mountain with fake snow falling and seven girls dressed as Santarettes will stay in my memory.
-- Bill Nighy

#Girl #Memories #Fall

One of the things that is assumed about actors is that they are extrovert, which is almost never the case, in my experience.
-- Bill Nighy

#Actors #Extroverts #Cases

I guess part of the hit-man appeal is the solitude. Everybody is lured to the idea of the solitary life.
-- Bill Nighy

#Men #Ideas #Solitude

I generally do things I'm proud to be in and generally I'm in things people like.
-- Bill Nighy

#People #Proud

I don't want to associate myself with any specific group of politicians.
-- Bill Nighy

#Groups #Want #Politician

I don't spend a lot of time with anybody.
-- Bill Nighy

I don't seem to be able to learn from experience or anything useful. History doesn't help me. Precedents don't inform my experience.
-- Bill Nighy

#Able #Helping #Help Me

I don't even own a car.
-- Bill Nighy

#Car

I don't dislike the process of animation... I find it daunting, but only as much as I find everything daunting.
-- Bill Nighy

#Process #Animation #Dislike

I did pick up a guitar once, but the strings hurt my fingers so I put it down again.
-- Bill Nighy

#Hurt #Guitar #Strings

Emma Watson is adorable in the extreme. She is such a lovely person.
-- Bill Nighy

#Adorable #Lovely #Emma

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

#Home #Thinking #Actors

I speed up past mirrors.
-- Bill Nighy

#Past #Mirrors #Speed

I hardly even leave my own house.
-- Bill Nighy

#House

I have a perfectly average skewed perception of myself. We often don't know what we're like.
-- Bill Nighy

#Average #Perception

I have nothing against romanticism. I'm all for it. I'm helpless in the face of romance.
-- Bill Nighy

#Romance #Faces #Helpless

I'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.
-- Bill Nighy

#Football #Sorry #Kids

My dad had a personal style which was very attractive. It was quite reserved and quite elegant, and it was infectious.
-- Bill Nighy

#Dad #Style #Attractive

I'm not a royal family watcher.
-- Bill Nighy

#Royal #Royal Family

When you have a family, or even when you're just seeing a girl, it's difficult to be skint.
-- Bill Nighy

#Girl #Difficult

I like being in kids' movies, and I like being in family movies.
-- Bill Nighy

#Kids #Kids Movie

I used to think that prizes were damaging and divisive, until I got one. And now they seem sort of meaningful and real.
-- Bill Nighy

#Meaningful #Real #Thinking

You have all these plans to act, and maybe do it rather elegantly, and then they turn the rain machine on.
-- Bill Nighy

#Rain #Acting #Machines

There are only three men in the world who are licensed to wear shorts: Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp and Tom Cruise.
-- Bill Nighy

#Men #Three #World

It can't be overstated how wonderful it is not to have to audition any more. Any actor will tell you, it's like Christmas.
-- Bill Nighy

#Christmas #Actors #Auditions

I wanted to be a journalist, I thought it was glamorous and that I'd meet beautiful women in the rain.
-- Bill Nighy

#Beautiful #Rain #Glamorous

I know really, really famous people who are terrified every time they walk on to a stage.
-- Bill Nighy

#People #Stage #Walks

In life, if you have an enthusiasm for what they call 'good manners,' sometimes people don't quite believe you. I've had that once or twice before, where they assume you can't be for real.
-- Bill Nighy

#Real #Believe #People