‘I don’t do smiley emojis’ … Bill Nighy. Photograph: Charlie Gray View image in fullscreen ‘I don’t do smiley emojis’ … Bill Nighy. Photograph: Charlie Gray Film Interview ‘I ran away to Paris to be a writer and ended up begging’: Bill Nighy on dashed dreams, golf emojis and playing a cranky novelist Ryan Gilbey As his new film & Sons hits the screen, the actor turned podcast agony uncle relives his ‘cliched’ ambitions, deplores working lunches – and yearns to do the splits like Prince
Prefer the Guardian on Google A dying patriarch summons his brood for a dramatic announcement. It may not be the most original starting point for a movie, but & Sons adds an eccentric twist – one that it would be unfair to reveal here but which nudges the material into the realm of science fiction. The father in question is a revered novelist who is as reclusive as JD Salinger and as whiskery and dishevelled as Catweazle. Dormant for decades, the fictional AN Dyer is first glimpsed in a horizontal position on the sofa, refusing to come to the telephone: “I don’t do phonecalls,” he grumbles.
That is patently not true of the actor who plays him. “I spend a lot of time on the phone,” Bill Nighy says breezily. He is speaking to me from north-west London, where he has been nosing around bookshops. “I’m also an enthusiastic texter. I was always very quick on the old Nokia. Quite proud of myself, I was.” Where does he stand on emojis? “I used to be philosophically opposed. Most of them are a bit naff.” He then proceeds to list the exceptions. “I like the flamingo and the purple dahlia. I like the leaping shark. Sometimes I combine it with the leaping dolphin. Very occasionally, I like the golfer in mid-swing if I’m congratulating someone. I don’t do smiley faces.”
What one thing would make me turn down an acting job? Togas Communicating over Zoom is a no-go, hence our phone conversation today. “It got to the point where every time I had a Zoom call, it made me unhappy. I’m old enough to be able to say, ‘Can I retire from Zoom?’” At 76, he has ruled out other undesirable experiences. “Food where you talk about work. That’s one. Particularly lunch. You have to sit there for so long and it just confuses the issue. Working lunches are absolutely out of the question now.” He has never been much of a partygoer either, and used to get what he calls “a thrill, or a kind of anti-thrill” from putting invitations, especially highly prized ones, straight in the bin. When I ask if there is any one thing that is likely to make him turn down an acting job, his answer is instant and unequivocal: “Togas.”
View image in fullscreen ‘No fireworks, no reaching for prizes’ … Imelda Staunton and Bill Nighy in & Sons. Photograph: Icon Film Distribution No such garments in & Sons, which pits Nighy as Dyer against his vexed older offspring (played by Johnny Flynn and George MacKay) and the ex-wife (Imelda Staunton) who has never forgiven him for siring a son (Hamnet’s Noah Jupe) by another woman. The old man has been an abrasive and emotionally absent parent, but appears to believe his literary talent excuses that. Nighy has no time for such guff. “It’s like when footballers behave badly on the pitch and people say, ‘Temperament is part of his genius.’ Give me a break. That’s anathema to me. I don’t believe it in the least.”
Dyer claims his goal as a father was to “do no harm”. Nighy himself has a daughter – the actor-director Mary Nighy – by his ex-partner, the actor Diana Quick, w…