成人快手

1. Bill is the son of mechanic – but he doesn’t own a car

Bill Nighy was born in Caterham, Surrey, in 1949. His mother was a nurse and his father ran a garage, where they also lived. “You opened our front door and there were the petrol pumps,” the actor recalls.

His dad had two records: one was White Christmas by Bing Crosby and the other was the start of the 1953 Le Mans road race. “He would talk me through the gears, usually on Christmas morning,” Bill recounts. “He was a petrol head.”

Bill hasn’t inherited his father’s enthusiasm for motors: “I passionately don’t want to own a car.” He did, however, pass his driving test aged 17, following his father’s sage advice: “If you mess up, don’t panic. It’s how you recover that counts.”

“I’ve hijacked that for other purposes throughout my life,” he admits.

2. He was a messenger boy for The Field magazine

Bill left his Catholic school at 15 because he “flunked everything”. Despite being cast in plays at school, he had no desire to be an actor. In fact, he didn’t want to work at all. “I’m quite good at loafing,” he admits. “I’m a suburban slacker.”

Having expressed an interest in becoming an author, the National Youth Employment Agency got him a job as a messenger boy on country magazine The Field. “I was the kid in the office and I used to change the magazines in all the big hotels; I used to put the kettle on.”

3. He’s begged on the streets of Paris

“I ran away from The Field magazine to write the great English short story in Paris,” states Bill. But his plan to “write killer sentences and get a girlfriend” fell flat. “Never wrote a word,” he admits, “and I begged on the Trocadero.”

Bill would approach American tourists by the Eiffel tower and attempt to sweet talk them out of money. He also recounts how the photographers would offer him 250 francs to sleep with what they described as 'old women'. However, he felt too inexperienced to take them up on this. “I’d never slept with anyone,” he says, “so obviously I couldn’t apply.”

4. He went to drama school because of a girl

Bill applied for drama school because a girl he was dating told him to. “She could have said '[be an] astronaut' and I would have given it a shot,” he admits. “I thought we were going to be together for the rest of our lives because we’d kissed quite a lot, and I’d only just finished being a Catholic.”

He didn’t realise that he’d chosen two female monologues for his audition until the judging panel questioned his selection. Thankfully, he made it through to a second audition and was granted a place.

5. He wanted to be a rock and roll star

Nighy at the 2003 premiere of Love Actually

“Music is a big part of my life,” says Bill. “I listen to music all of the time. It’s constant.” His favourite artists include Frank Sinatra, Van Morrison and Bob Dylan.

The actor had musical ambitions himself. “I wanted to be in The Rolling Stones. I wanted to be a rock and roll star, frankly, but it was never going to happen.” He has, however, played ageing rock stars on film.

The screen test for Still Crazy was in a disused tax office. “They put me in four-inch fake crocodile platform heels and a pair of black velvet loon pants that stopped just under my navel and they put me in a kind of swing wing, lamé top, which didn’t meet my trousers. And I was 46.”

When they asked him to do karaoke to Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple, he knew he had a choice: “You either run from the building or you simulate sex with the mic stand.” He chose the latter – and he got the gig.

6. He came of age in Liverpool

In 1974 Bill joined the Liverpool Everyman Theatre’s repertory company, acting alongside heavyweights like Jonathan Pryce, Pete Postlethwaite and Julie Walters.

It was a very politically engaged theatre – writers there included Alan Bleasdale and Willy Russell – and they put on works about dockers and social struggles. “Whatever was happening in the city, there would be a play about it,” he states.

“Liverpool, without question, was a huge cultural event in my life. I sort of came of age in Liverpool.”

7. His nickname used to be ‘Nervous’

The Everyman was “jam-packed with people who were overburdened with talent.” He felt very insecure. “I was just a mess,” Bill recalls. “My nickname was Nervous. There are still people alive who will call me Nerv.”

He possessed an “anti-talent” for undermining himself, and never felt comfortable. “I always felt that I was a bogus member of an extremely talented group and I spent my life just tap dancing, trying to make sure that nobody busted me for it.” When his peers had conversations about their acting methods, he would put the kettle on. “My shameful secret was I didn’t have a method or a process, I was too busy trying to obscure the fact I couldn’t act.”

He still suffers from nerves: “Opening a play, officially, it’s terrifying.”

8. The playwright David Hare was his biggest professional influence

Bill Nighy in the the 1980 TV play Dreams of Leaving by David Hare

Over the years, Bill has worked with writer and director David Hare on 10 projects. “He is the single most influential thing in my professional career,” states the actor.

David’s was the first contemporary work that he admired deeply. “Not just the ideas expressed but the ways in which they were expressed. It was so exquisite and the dialogue was so refined and funny… There was something about it that just rang in me.”

“He’s given me the greatest opportunities,” he says, “and he was the first person really who’d ever considered me as a leading man – and I wasn’t really leading man material.”

9. Adam Sandler is one of his big influences

Bill recently got to star alongside one of his greatest influences, Christopher Walken. “Everything he does is poetic. It’s like Lionel Messi,” he says. “I find him compelling and compulsive and deeply attractive and very funny and very spooky… I couldn’t quite believe I was standing next to him, and I made no secret of it.”

He also raves about Adam Sandler’s performance in Punch Drunk Love. “It’s the holy grail,” he states: “Getting laughs without getting caught.”

Embarking on a Richard Curtis film, in which he wanted to emulate Sandler’s approach, he wrote the movie star’s name on his script as a prompt. Later, meeting the actor at an awards event, he tried to play it cool but failed: “I just immediately said, 'I put your name on my script!'”