I did actually sit down with a blank sheet of paper once. I think the phone rang and that was the end of my literary career.
Bill NighyMore people saw me in 'Love Actually' than had seen me in everything else I had ever done up to that point.
Bill NighyThere 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 NighyI 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 NighyAnyone 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 NighyI 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 NighyActors 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 NighyJerry 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 NighyI 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 NighyIn 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 NighyI 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 NighyIn 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 NighyThe 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 NighyI'm crazy about James Brown. I'm crazy about soul music. And then the blues. Rhythm and blues.
Bill NighyAll 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 NighyI don't normally watch films I'm in because I'm squeamish about that and it takes me quite a long time to recover and I have to go to work. I'm not being coy or cute, but it's just true.
Bill NighyI 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 NighyI'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 NighyI 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 NighyI 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 NighyI think in the old days, everybody used to act really quickly because Hollywood was built by theatre people.
Bill NighyThe phenomenon of vampires has always appealed to me. Everyone kind of likes a vampire story because it almost could be true.
Bill NighyI 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 NighyYou have all these plans to act, and maybe do it rather elegantly, and then they turn the rain machine on.
Bill NighyI 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 NighyHunger is almost like something the West does. It's almost like the direct result of the way the West performs.
Bill NighyIf 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 NighyAs 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 NighyI 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 NighyWhen 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 NighyWhen you have a family, or even when you're just seeing a girl, it's difficult to be skint.
Bill NighyI wanted to be a journalist, I thought it was glamorous and that I'd meet beautiful women in the rain.
Bill NighyWhen you've been going on about something for a while, it is always satisfying to discover that other people agree with you.
Bill NighyA way of describing performances that I admire is that there is an absence of careerism. It's a clumsy way of describing it but it sort of does it for me.
Bill Nighy