Related movies

• Hot Fuzz
• Love Actually
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
• Shaun of the Dead
• Stormbreaker

Related people

• Robbie Coltrane
• Cate Blanchett
• Judi Dench
• George A Romero
• Mickey Rourke
• Richard Curtis
• Tom Hollander
• Alicia Silverstone
• David Hare
• Stephen Fry
• Steve Coogan
• Stellan Skarsgård
• Quentin Tarantino
• Sophie Okonedo
• Edgar Wright
• Bill Nighy
• Simon Pegg
• Gore Verbinski
• Richard Eyre
• Nick Frost
• Martin Freeman
• Patrick Marber

Bill Nighy Q&A

Our favourite famous Palace fan discusses 'Stormbreaker', 'Hot Fuzz' and the new 'Pirates of the Caribbean'.

Jun 20 2006

Star of the stage, the screen and the forthcoming summer blockbusters 'Stormbreaker' and 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest', Bill Nighy tells Chris Tilly what it's like to be shouted at by kids in the street and to play an evil squid on screen.

You never seem to be off our screens these days…

The last few years have been extremely good in that I've worked constantly, but there was one year where my projects came out one after the other. I thought I'd be asked to leave the country as it was slightly embarrassing, you know? How much of me can you take? There were about four television projects and a couple of movies, culminating in 'Love, Actually'. I think more people saw me in that than everything else I've ever done.

So would you say that's the film that put you on the map?

When I die, they'll put on my gravestone: 'Hey kids, don't buy drugs, become a rockstar and they give you them for free!' The children in the flats near me used to shout that whenever I'd pop to the shops. But it was great, it made me more useful – more castable. You could put me in films in a way that you couldn't before. I'd have been on the list, but way down. Now maybe I'm a bit higher because I'm more familiar to people. I should buy Richard Curtis dinner for the rest of my life – giving me that role with those jokes fundamentally changed the way I work and the pattern of my professional life.

Is there anyone else that's had a lasting effect on your career?

Working with David Hare has been as important as anything else. Working with him as a writer, but also working with him as a director, because he directed me on four occasions, during a very particular time in my life. In terms of loyalty, encouraging me and helping me to act, practically speaking, he is the most important person, because he gave me leading roles for the first time. He gave me leading roles on television and he gave me a leading role in the theatre, so that was the first big shift.
 
So how did you end up with a part in the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' sequels?

It seems they thought of me when they wanted someone to inhabit a half-squid, half-crab sea creature monster. They needed somebody to do that and apparently I drifted into their minds.

Is that a compliment?

I have to take it as a compliment because otherwise I'd kill myself. But as [director] Gore Verbinski said: 'How many times do you get to make a pirate movie?' It is an odd gig though, because my crew are half-man, half fish – lobsters and hammer-heads – and we are seriously scary.

Do you worry about going over-the-top in a role like that?

Well, I don't know what the top is – it's always mystified me – over-the-top, under-the-top. But movie reality is different to normal reality, and squid reality is another level. I was quite self-conscious early on, but I worked out I had to go big straight away, as soon as the rehearsals started, to break the spell of self-loathing and the wave of shame that comes over you doing such a silly job. I mean, he's got a crab leg, a hand claw and tentacles coming out of his chin. This man has a beard that can play the organ, so where's the top there?

So what was it like that first day on set?

It's insane – you walk out onto this amazing set and you've got to do something. But the whole thing is insane. I'm used to independent British movies, where you've got a brolly and a pastie, so I'm not used to that level of production. And it's fantastic – it's virtually all the people that did the first one. The cast are the same with some additions – myself and Tom Hollander are the nasty pieces of work, and Stellan Skarsgård is also involved.

So it'll be your fault if it goes wrong.

Yup, they'll blame me and I'll never work again.

You've also got children's spy flick 'Stormbreaker' coming out soon. Who do you play in that?

Blunt. Alan Blunt. And I am the grey man from the grey ministry. Basically, myself and Sophie Okonedo do what Judi Dench does all by herself in James Bond. It's a very witty take on Bond, revolving around a young spy called Alex Rider. We are M, Alicia Silverstone is young Alex's governess, Mickey Rourke is the villain, Stephen Fry is the gadget man, and Robbie Coltrane is the prime minister. But I spent most of my time with Alicia and Sophie.

Sounds like a tough gig.

Yes, exactly, I felt like I'd won a competition. It was like, 'Do you want to spend a few weeks on a film set with Sophie Okonedo and Alicia Silverstone?' Well, yes! They got on like a rocket – they are beautiful, lovely, funny girls, so I just used to make sure I was somewhere near them for most of the shoot.

And you've also just done some work on 'Hot Fuzz'?

I'm in it, but I think nearly everyone in the world is in it, because they are such great guys – Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost. And everyone loved 'Shaun of the Dead' - it was properly funny, it travelled, they got to meet George Romero and Quentin Tarantino – and everyone was happy. So you get people who probably wouldn't do it. I went along and had a couple of days with Martin Freeman and Steve Coogan, as the acceptable face of British policing, so that was fun.

You're a copper in that one?

Yes, I'm not just any old copper though, but I'm not at liberty to say who.

What's up next for you?

I've just done 'Notes on a Scandal', the Zoe Heller book, adapted by Patrick Marber, directed by Sir Richard Eyre and starring Dame Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett. We shot near my house and it was a very pleasant engagement. I must be a good person to work with such spookily gifted people and they are two tremendous roles for Cate and Judi – an unusual one for Judi in that it's quite a complicated, quite dark character. It concerns a primary school teacher who has an affair with a 15-year-old pupil. That is coming out in the autumn I think. Then I'm going to do a film called 'Warm Blue Day'. It's a low-budget independent movie in Los Angeles. It's with a bunch of people and I have no idea who they are but they seem very clever, and I'm going to go because it's a very nice script – very interesting and mysterious and big-hearted.

'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest' opens on July 6; 'Stormbreaker' opens on July 21.