Bill Nighy's Quotes

When you've been going on about something for a while, it is always satisfying to discover that other people agree with you.

You can ruin your life wanting to be an actor.

You get older and you see yourself and say, 'God, he's old, who's that?'

All actors who have been around for a long time, which I have, and have been skint for long periods, which I have, find it difficult to turn down jobs. If I turn anything down my stomach turns over. I feel sick. It feels like gambling.

Anyone who can do the splits and come back up on the backbeat, as James Brown and Prince can, has my eternal respect. Prince, who is a genius of the highest order, can come back up while singing and playing the guitar.

I don't do plays without jokes anymore. I've retired from those plays. I think it's bad manners to invite people to sit in the dark for two and a half hours and not tell them the joke.

I've always slightly worried the kids who play football around my house. They know I'm an actor, but felt sorry for me because they'd never seen anything I've done.

I've never been a great enthusiast about how I look and I am very... when I was young I had a real anti-talent for inventing myself as unappealing - craven and unremarkable.

I've worked with Len Wiseman before, on the 'Underworld' series, in which I was a vampire. The first two of those were his first two films. And I admire him beyond measure. I think he's tremendous, as a man and as a director.

If you are supposed to be villainous and have some sort of agenda, I like the idea of delivering that kind of character in a perfectly well-mannered way.

One of the reasons I like a suit is because I've never been that keen on my body. The shape a suit presents is always going to be better than anything I can do.

The great thing about animation is it's like the radio. I used to do lots of radio when I was a kid, and you get to play parts you would never get to play ordinarily.

There is something, yeah, I mean traditionally it's more fun to play bad guys than it is good guys and when you're playing a bad guy, yeah, the fun in it is to see how scary you can be, how horrible you can be. And it's surprising what you come up with.

I'm not a financial expert. The Robin Hood tax seems to me a very simple and beautiful idea. I don't see the problem.

In life, if you have an enthusiasm for what they call 'good manners,' sometimes people don't quite believe you. I've had that once or twice before, where they assume you can't be for real.

The way the elderly are treated, and in some cases warehoused and medicated, rather than nurtured and listened to, is distressing.

One of my great regrets, and I don't have many, is that I spent too long putting people's status and reputation ahead of their more important qualities. I learned far too late in life that a long list of letters after someone's name is no guarantee of compassion, kindness, humour, all the far more relevant stuff.

Actors always talk about taking their work home and I always think: 'What are you on? You just turn it off. You are at work and then you go home.'

Emma Watson is adorable in the extreme. She is such a lovely person.

Hunger is almost like something the West does. It's almost like the direct result of the way the West performs.

I did pick up a guitar once, but the strings hurt my fingers so I put it down again.

I don't dislike the process of animation... I find it daunting, but only as much as I find everything daunting.

I don't even own a car.

I don't seem to be able to learn from experience or anything useful. History doesn't help me. Precedents don't inform my experience.

I don't spend a lot of time with anybody.

I don't want to associate myself with any specific group of politicians.

I find it hard to relax around any man who's got the second button on his shirt undone.

I generally do things I'm proud to be in and generally I'm in things people like.

I got briefly mistaken for someone who might be good in bed, which was very, very good.

I guess part of the hit-man appeal is the solitude. Everybody is lured to the idea of the solitary life.

I hardly even leave my own house.

I have a perfectly average skewed perception of myself. We often don't know what we're like.

I have nothing against romanticism. I'm all for it. I'm helpless in the face of romance.

I know really, really famous people who are terrified every time they walk on to a stage.

I like being in kids' movies, and I like being in family movies.

I like sci-fi.

I never watch my own films.