The veteran British actor tells John Hisock how Love Actually transformed his career…..
Bill Nighy has made almost 150 movies and television shows, ranging from little British productions to huge-budget Hollywood blockbusters.
But the one that continues to come back into his life and resonate with him is Love Actually, the Christmas romantic comedy from 2003 in which he plays ageing rock star Billy Mack.
He credits it with making him an internationally known actor and, he tells me when we talk in Los Angeles: “It’s almost certainly the reason I’m sitting here. It’s possible it would have happened anyway but Love Actually certainly accelerated it.
“And – who knew? – it’s become kind of beloved and it’s entered people’s lives in all kinds of ways. From people coming up and saying, ‘You helped me through my chemotherapy’ to people saying that they dress up as the characters every Christmas and actually have Love Actually parties,” he laughs.
“And now it’s like every Christmas you get the Queen’s Speech and then you get Love Actually.”
One line from Billy Mack is part of cinema legend. “The line that follows me around everywhere is: ‘Hey kids, don’t buy drugs. Become a rock star and people give you them for free,’” he says.
“When the movie first came out all the kids in my district used to follow me down the street shouting it and they all knew it by heart,” he says.
“I once came through Immigration from Canada to the US at about 4am. I was the only person there, and this very scary Immigration guy with a huge black moustache beckoned me over and I thought, ’Oh my God.’ and he said: ’Hey kids, don’t buy drugs, become a rock star, people give you them for free, right? Am I right?’
“And I thought, ‘Drugs, no I don’t have any drugs!’
“When I die the words, ’Hey kids, don’t buy drugs’ will be on my tombstone.”
A talk with 70-year-old Bill Nighy is always entertaining. Drily amusing and self-deprecating, he has had some dark moment and bouts with depression in the past but now clearly enjoys life without taking much of it too seriously.
Because of his long career and appearances in so many movies and TV productions he is often recognised in the street – and frequently mistaken for somebody else.
“This morning in the elevator, a woman said, ‘you look really familiar,” he recalls. “I just went, ‘Well my name’s Bill’ and she went, Do I know you from somewhere?’
“I was in Melbourne in Australia and a woman came up and said ‘Mr. Stamp, it’s lovely to have you here.’ And lately I’ve been Paul Smith, the designer. A man came out of a diner the other day holding his shirt, he said ‘you designed this!’ I said ‘No, I didn’t.’ He said ‘yeah you did,’ and there was a guy behind him eating a sandwich, he said ‘that’s Paul Smith, isn’t it?’ And the guy went, ‘yeah.’
And if I have glasses on I’m mistaken for Gary Oldman. I have been congratulated on Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy half a dozen times. I just say, ‘thank you, we had a lovely time making it,’ What are you going to say?”
He has lived alone since his 27-year relationship with the actress Diana Quick ended in 2008. And he is horrified at the idea of anyone trying to “fix him up” with someone.
“People have occasionally tried and I go to a dinner party and there’s a woman on her own sitting opposite me and I think, ‘Oh, I see.’
“But if anybody ever proposes that I should meet someone for the specific purpose of being intimate with them or spending the rest of my life with them, that’s the end of it,” he says with a laugh. “I go missing. I’m gone because I can’t deal with that situation. I’d just can’t bear it and I’d go to pieces.”
