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A late starter in movies, Bill Nighy is now one of British cinema's most dependable and versatile exports, as FOCUS discovers.
A British film star who is fast becoming a national treasure, Bill Nighy belongs to a generation of domestic actors for whom the Hollywood dream was as remote and unlikely as that description would suggest.
And yet here he is, seemingly as home in the part CG-animated guinea pig adventure movie G-Force, as he is terrorising Johnny Depp et al in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
Playing the estuary accented gadget magnet Leonard Saber he is suspected of being the mastermind behind a plan to take over the world one microwave at a time.
This is another role that proves that the notion of a British actor working in Hollywood is not only attainable but practicable, though the understanding of this possibility was a while in coming.
"When I was in the theatre I never expected to make a living doing that," he admits, "I was always continually astonished that it carried on. I didn't have any further ambition, I never expected to be on television because I didn't know anyone who'd been on television.
"I certainly didn't know anybody who'd been in a film until much later. So all of this is very gratifying, I'm very happy that I get to be in the movies but it came about as a sort of accident when I was in one because everybody else turned it down.
"It was a piece of luck that Brian Gibson cast me in Still Crazy. That became the precedent that showed I could play a principal role in a movie, and I’m still very grateful for it."
Nighy had been in the original National Theatre cast of Pravda, featuring a barnstorming performance from the pre-Hannibal Lecter Anthony Hopkins. His subsequent success in American cinema has proved to Nighy and others that British actors can thrive in that environment as well as more modestly paid endeavours on London’s south bank.
In the decade or so since Still Crazy Nighy has essayed dozens of characters in a range of movies at the same time maintaining a presence on television (in such series as State of Play and The Girl in the Café) and radio (Radio 4's Charles Paris mysteries).
"It's funny," he smiles, "but when someone approaches on the street you can guess what they know you from. I mean, I've got most of the age groups covered, so if they're younger guys they're usually Shaun of the Dead fans. With the under nines it's obviously Pirates or Stormbreaker or Fairytale.
"I like that kind of genre world and I like hopping around a bit and I'm lucky that I get to mix it up. There were a couple of days earlier in the year where I did a premiere for Valkyrie in Berlin one night, the following night was the premiere for Valkyrie in London and the following night a premiere for Underworld 3 in Los Angeles.
“The difference on the carpet from Valkyrie – which is obviously rather serious - to Underworld 3 was quite marked, where they were like 'Bill! You rock!'. I felt like, these were my people."
The oh-so-English note of irony in Nighy's voice is the only thing missing in print, but his dry delivery and ineffable charm is familiar enough as is his obsession with music, particularly that of his beloved Rolling Stones.
"The Stones have a sound that is beautiful and is unrepeated elsewhere in nature," he says, momentarily serious. "I've never gotten over the fact of what happens when Charlie kicks in and Keith gets started. It's a very, very special sound to me.
"I use it when I'm away to control the environment. I christen trailers with it, I really do, I have to play the Stones before anybody else. I talk about the Stones because I particularly dig them but I'll listen to everything you've got."
The laid back manner, the Hollywood career, the music collection, the cross generational appeal, Bill Nighy seems to be at a point in his career where - to contradict Mick Jagger - satisfaction seems thoroughly attainable.
And now he has been cast as Rufus Scrimgeour in the final two parts of the Harry Potter saga, so by any measure things are pretty good.
"I have finally made it onto Harry Potter," he beams. "I think they ran out of English actors. because I was beginning to feel a bit excluded. And I'm pleased about it not least to work with David Yates again, after working with him on State of Play and Girl in the Café.
"I was actually standing next to him at the moment he got the gig. We were shooting Girl in the Café I think and I said 'maybe now I won't be the only English actor who's not in the Harry Potter films,'. He laughed, and I laughed, and five years later I finally end up in the film. So yes, things are pretty good."
ANWAR BRETT
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