Bill Nighy

Bill Nighy (birthname: William Francis Nighy)’s diverse career as an acclaimed actor in the cinema, at the highest level of the British theater, and in both prestige and commercial TV, has made him one of the most identifiable English actors of his generation. His career extends from regional theater work in the late 1960s and 1970s to London’s National Theatre (1983-2000), decades of performances on London’s West End, forty years of radio performances in BBC Radio 4, and TV work back to 1976.

But it’s in the movies where Bill Nighy has become an international star, beginning with his first credited screen role in director Richard Marquand’s fine version of Ken Follett’s thriller, Eye of the Needle (1981), followed by a string of small roles in Curse of the Pink Panther (1983), The Little Drummer Girl (1984), Phantom of the Opera (1989), Mack the Knife (1989), Bill Forsyth’s Being Human (1994), Alive & Kicking (1996), and FairyTale: A True Story (1997).

Nighy’s breakthrough film performance was an aging rocker in the U.K. comedy, Still Crazy (1998), with Stephen Rea, Billy Connolly, Timothy Spall, and Bruce Robinson, followed by the first of a series of British rom-coms in which Nighy became closely identified for his precise deadpan style: director Paddy Breathnach’s Blow Dry (2001), with Alan Rickman, Natasha Richardson, Rachel Griffiths, Rachael Leigh Cook, Josh Hartnett, Rosemary Harris, and Heidi Klum. Nighy received the Best Actor nomination from the British Independent Film Awards for his role in writers-directors Tom Hunsinger’s and Neil Hunter’s Lawless Heart (2001), premiering at the Locarno film festival and featuring Tom Hollander and Sukie Smith.

After his performance in producer-director Peter Cattaneo’s critically dismissed comedy, Lucky Break (2000), with Spall, Olivia Williams, and Christopher Plummer, Nighy won a Best Supporting Actor award from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for four movies in 2002: writer-director Duncan Roy’s AKA, I Capture the Castle (2003), Lawless Heart, and the first blockbuster hit of Nighy’s film career and his first role under writer-director Richard Curtis, Love, Actually (2003), starring Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Keira Knightley, and Rowan Atkinson, and grossing over $246 million globally.

Bill Nighy appeared in another hit, the vampire movie Underworld (2003), starring Kate Beckinsale and Michael Sheen, and earning just short of $96 million, thus spawning four sequels, including Underworld: Evolution (2006) and Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009). Nighy then shifted into zombie comedy in the highly influential and successful black comedy directed by Edgar Wright and written by Wright and co-star Simon Pegg, Shaun of the Dead (2004), with Kate Ashfield, Nick Frost, and Penelope Wilton, and grossing a healthy $30 million worldwide.

In another shift, Nighy supported Daniel Craig, Rhys Ifans, and Samantha Morton in the Ian McEwan adaptation directed by Roger Michell, Enduring Love (2004), premiering at the Telluride Film Festival. Another colorful ensemble of which Nighy was a standout was the long-awaited movie version of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005), starring Martin Freeman, Sam Rockwell, Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel, Alan Rickman, and John Malkovich, and grossing a strong $104.5 million worldwide.

Nighy’s next assignment was another literary adaptation, John le Carré’s The Constant Gardener (2005), gaining a supporting actor Oscar nomination for Rachel Weisz and starring Ralph Fiennes, Danny Huston, and Pete Postlethwaite, and earning a solid $82.4 million globally. Nighy’s first Hollywood blockbuster role was as Davy Jones in the Gore Verbinski-directed sequel, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006), starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, and Jonathan Pryce, grossing a massive $1.06 billion box office to become the highest earning movie of the year; he followed this up in 2007 with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, earning $961 million.

After acting in two underwhelming 2006 projects (Stormbreaker and DreamWorks Animation/Aardman’s Flushed Away), Nighy enjoyed one of his finest roles to date in the Richard Eyre-directed drama, Notes on a Scandal (2006), starring Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett, and nominated for four Oscars while grossing $50.6 million. Bill Nighy reunited with Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg for the second feature in the “Three Flavors Cornetto” trilogy, Hot Fuzz (2007), spoofing action movies and earning strong critical and commercial success ($80 million worldwide), with Jim Broadbent and Timothy Dalton joining the ensemble.

Nighy went into heavy dramatic mode as a Nazi General in Valkyrie (2008), directed by Bryan Singer, and starring Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, Carice van Houten, and Terence Stamp, earning $201.5 million globally. Nighy’s second Richard Curtis comedy, The Boat That Rocked (2009), with Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rhys Ifans, Nick Frost, and Kenneth Branagh, wasn’t as successful as Love earning only $36.6 million.

Another animated movie for Nighy’s resume was the hit Disney spy comedy, G-Force (2009), with the voices of Zach Galifianakis, Will Arnett, Sam Rockwell, Tracy Morgan, Penelope Cruz, Jon Favreau, Nicolas Cage, and Steve Buscemi, grossing nearly $293 million. Nighy followed with a less successful ($42 million global gross) animated movie, the U.S.-Hong Kong co-production, Astro Boy (2009), with the voices of Freddie Highmore, Kristen Bell, Nathan Lane, Eugene Levy, Samuel L. Jackson, Donald Sutherland, Charlize Theron, and Nicolas Cage.

Nighy co-starred in writer-director Stephen Poliakoff’s World War II drama, Glorious 39 (2009), with Romola Garai, Julie Christie, Eddie Redmayne, and Christopher Lee, followed by the poorly-received black comedy, Wild Target (2010), in which Nighy led a cast including Emily Blunt, Rupert Grint, Eileen Atkins, Martin Freeman, and Rupert Everett.

Nighy’s second blockbuster franchise in which he played was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—Part 1 (2010), as the “Minister of Magic,” Rufus Scrimgeour, directed by David Yates and grossing $977 million globally. Another hit project for Nighy was his second movie under Gore Verbinski’s direction, the animated Western comedy, Rango (2011), starring Johnny Depp, Isla Fisher, Alfred Molina, Harry Dean Stanton, Ray Winstone, and Timothy Olyphant, earning over $245 million and winning the Oscar for Best Animated Feature.

After a small role in the rom-com, Chalet Girl (2011), Bill Nighy rejoined Aardman Animation for their next project, the well-received Arthur Christmas (2011), with the voices of James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent, and Imelda Staunton. The most successful comedy for Nighy since Love was the John Madden-directed The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011), starring Judi Dench, Penelope Wilton, Dev Patel, Tom Wilkinson, and Maggie Smith, with the $10 million production earning an unexpected $137 million worldwide; this spawned a similarly successful 2015 sequel, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, reuniting the original cast and creative team, with new cast members David Strathairn and Richard Gere.

Another massive hit with Nighy in a prominent role was the U.S.-Spain co-production, Wrath of the Titans (2012), with Sam Worthington, Rosamund Pike, Edgar Ramirez, Danny Huston, Ralph Fiennes, and Liam Neeson, grossing $302 million or double costs. Nighy was in a supporting role in the remake, Total Recall (2012), starring Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston, and John Cho, earning a fair $198.5 million.

Bill Nighy reunited with director Bryan Singer for a voice role in the failed, $200-million-budgeted fantasy adventure, Jack the Giant Slayer (2013), with Nicholas Hoult, Eleanor Tomlinson, Stanley Tucci, Ian McShane, and Ewan McGregor, followed by another voice role in Edgar Wright’s and Simon Pegg’s praised “Three Flavours Cornetto” trilogy finale, The World’s End (2013), with Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, Eddie Marsan, Rosamund Pike, and Pierce Brosnan, earning more than double its $20 million expenses and winning Best British Film at the Empire (magazine) awards.

Rejoining writer-director Richard Curtis for another successful rom-com, Nighy co-starred with Domhnall Gleeson and Rachel McAdams in About Time (2013), earning a strong $88.5 million. After the box-office bomb, I, Frankenstein (2014), in which Nighy co-starred with Aaron Eckhart and Miranda Otto, Nighy starred in the comedy-drama, Pride (2014), premiering at Cannes’ Directors Fortnight (where it won the Queer Palm Award), with Imelda Staunton, Dominic West, Paddy Considine, and George MacKay, earning over $16 million globally and winning three BAFTA awards including Best British Film.

After a pair of minor 2016 projects (Dad’s War and the animated Norm of the North), Bill Nighy co-starred with Gemma Arterton and Sam Claflin in the acclaimed Lone Scherfig-directed WW2 comedy-drama, Their Finest (2016), with a colorful supporting cast including Jack Huston, Helen McCrory, and grossing over $12 million globally.

After the well-reviewed though little-seen period murder mystery, The Limehouse Golem (2016), in which Nighy starred opposite Olivia Cooke and Douglas Booth, Nighy then co-starred in Spanish writer-director Isabel Coixet’s British-based drama, The Bookshop (2017), with Emily Mortimer and Patricia Clarkson and narrated by Julie Christie, winning three Goya awards (Best Film/Director/Adapted Screenplay) and with a total box office tripling its $3.4 million budget.

Bill Nighy was the star of another critically successful comedy-drama, the Carl Hunter-directed Sometimes Always Never (2018), with Sam Riley, Jenny Agutter, and Alice Loew, earning a modest $1.4 million, followed by Nighy taking a supporting role in another Lone Scherfig drama, The Kindness of Strangers (2019), starring Zoe Kazan, Tahar Rahim, Andrea Riseborough, and Caleb Landry Jones, premiering at the Berlin film festival.

Nighy took a voice role in the incredibly successful (at the box office–$433 million globally) Pokémon video game adaptation distributed by Warner Bros., Detective Pikachu (2019), with the voice cast of Ryan Reynolds, Ken Watanabe, and Suki Waterhouse. In a characteristic switch of projects, Nighy joined writer-director William Nicholson (adapting his play, The Retreat from Moscow) and co-star Annette Bening for the intimate drama, Hope Gap (2019), premiering at the Toronto Film Festival.

After a voice role in the cast (including Nick Frost and Gemma Arterton) of the little-seen animated StarDog and TurboCat (2019), Nighy played opposite Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Josh O’Connor, Callum Turner, Mia Goth, and Miranda Hart in the acclaimed Autumn de Wilde-directed, Oscar-nominated Jane Austen adaptation,  Emma. (2020), more than doubling ($26.5 million) its $10 million budget. Nighy reunited with Johnny Depp for the serious drama, Minamata (2020), with Hiroyuki Sanada, Minami, Jun Kunimura, Ryo Kase, and Tadanobu Asano, and premiering at the Berlin Film Festival.

After the Australian/Canadian co-production, Buckley’s Chance (2021), from writer-director Tim Brown, Bill Nighy achieved perhaps his greatest artistic triumph as the moving lead as a London bureaucrat in Living (2022), adapted from Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 drama, Ikiru, by Nobel-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro; the sublime film was directed by Oliver Hermanus and featured the supporting cast of Aimee Lou Wood, Alex Sharp, and Tom Burke, and after a remarkable festival run including Sundance, Telluride, Venice, and Toronto, the film’s near-unanimous critical reception led to Nighy winning Best Performer award (shared) from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.

Nighy next appeared in the Thomas Vincent-directed U.S. thriller, Role Play (2023), with Kaley Cuoco. Nighy joined directed Thea Sharrock for the soccer drama, The Beautiful Game (2023), with Valeria Golino and Micheal Ward, followed by a voice role in the animated Spanish-Chinese co-production set in ancient China, Dragonkeeper (2023), with cast mates Brendan Coyle, Bill Bailey, and Mayalinee Griffiths.