Bill Nighy Biography: In His Own Words – Exclusive Video, News, Photos, Age

by Hailey SchipperMarch 10, 2023, 7:18 amNews, News Feed, U Bio >

Bill Nighy is a British actor. He is best known for his roles in Love Actually (2003), the Pirates of the Caribbean series (2006-2007) and the Underworld series (2003-2009).

BILL NIGHY BIOGRAPHY: EARLY LIFE, AGE, FAMILY, EDUCATION

Bill Nighy (William Nighy) was born on December 12, 1949 (Bill Nighy: age 73) in Caterham, Surrey, England to Catherine and Alfred Nighy. He has two older siblings, a brother Martin and a sister Anna.

Nighy went to the John Fisher School and was a member of the school theatre group. He later went to the Guildford School of Acting.

In an exclusive interview with uInterview, the actor described how he got into acting.

“Well I never got a bug for acting and I never made a decision that this was what I wanted to do with my life, it just sort of happened and I did it rather than have to do anything else,” he began. “But my first experience of professional acting was with a wonderful woman called Marcella Markham. I had six lines in rehearsal in Tennessee Williams’ The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Anymore. I delivered my six lines in a southern American accent and she didn’t reply and she was wearing very large sunglasses and her fur coat with high heels, which is what I thought all actresses wore, and she didn’t respond and I thought I was about to get fired and then as an act of kindness she turned to the director and said, ‘where did you find this kid, he’s incredible.’ And I knew exactly how incredible I’d been, she was just trying to let me off the hook because she saw a very nervous young man standing beside him and that was not a bad introduction to the professional world.”

BILL NIGHY BIOGRAPHY: CAREER

Nighy’s acting career started on the National Theatre stage in Liverpool in Illuminatus! (1977). He continued to act in Pravada (1985), King Lear (1986), Betrayal (1991), Arcadia (1993), Seagull (1994) and Blue/Orange (2000). From his role as a consultant psychiatrist in Blue/Orange, Nighy was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best Actor.

His television acting credits include Agony, People Like Us, State of Play, Gideon’s Daughter, The Man Who Fell to Earth, The World’s Most Scenic Railway Journeys and a cameo in Doctor Who.

Nighy’s film credits include roles in Still Crazy (1998), Underworld (2003), Love Actually (2004), Shawn of the Dead (2004), The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005), Underworld: Evolution (2006), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006), Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007), Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One (2010).

In the Underworld series, Nighy played the vampiric villain, Viktor. He enslaved and later massacred the Lycans and killed his own daughter for her fraternizing with the Lycans. In the Pirates of the Caribbean series, Nighy played another villain, the squid-faced Davy Jones. The photorealistic CGI surprised many fans as they believed he wore a latex mask to achieve the look. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part One, Nighy played the crooked Minister of Magic Rufus Scrimgeour.

Nighy won the BAFTA Film Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2004 for his role as Billy Mack in Love Actually. Later that same year, Nighy won the Best Actor Award from the BAFTA Television Awards for State of Play. For his role in Gideon’s Daughter as the titular Gideon, in 2007 Nighy won a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Movie or TV Film.

BILL NIGHY BIOGRAPHY: EMMA

In 2020 Nighy starred as Mr. Woodhouse in Autumn de Wilde‘s debut film and Jane Austen adaptation, Emma.

In an exclusive interview with uInterview, Nighy discussed what it was like working with costars Anya Taylor-Joy, who played Emma, and Johnny Flynn, who played Mr. Knightley.

“Very pleasurable,” he began. “They’re a very good crowd. We had a good laugh and they were all super prepared, exemplary, and professional and very funny. Mostly I worked with Anya Taylor-Joy and with Johnny Flynn, the two leading artists, and they were both dreamy to do business with. They were both, as I said, super prepared, all preparations are taken and they were funny and relaxed- at least they gave the appearance of being relaxed as much as you can be relaxed on a film set- and they told the story impeccably and it was very and you kind of raised your game. The great thing about acting is that you don’t have to wait to be any good. It’s nothing to do with the date on your passport. They were just very very good company.”

Nighy also revealed what it was like working with director Wilde.

“Autumn de Wilde is a very unusual and very rare person and she’s extremely clever and has a completely unique way of looking at the world, let alone movie making,” he continued. “She handled this large cast with great delicacy and with great humor and she had a muscular vision of how Jane Austen could be presented. One of the first things she did for the whole younger members of the cast I’ve seen it before, and I wasn’t around to view this particular screening, but she showed Bringing Up Baby with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn as a tonal reference for the performance, which was a big, you know, a big clue as to how she was going to approach it and she wanted to include what in America they call ‘screwball comedy.'”

BILL NIGHY BIOGRAPHY: PERSONAL LIFE

Nighy started his relationship with English actress Diana Quick in 1980. In 1984 Nighy and Quick had their daughter, actress Mary Nighy. They were together for 28 years before divorcing in 2008.

It has been rumored since 2015 that Nighy is dating Vogue editor Anna Wintour based on the events the two attend together, such as the film screenings, dinners and fashion shows.

Nighy supports total gender equality and has highlighted the gender inequality problems in the film industry in some of his interviews. He is supportive of the LGBTQ community. Nighy has said that he bases his choice of film roles on his morals and stands with his minority costars.