I’m already in the business of trying to make the most out of every day
TAKING ON A CHARACTER CONFRONTED BY HIS OWN MORTALITY MAKES FOR A MOVING AND POWERFUL ROLE, BILL NIGHY TELLS
FROM a young age, Bill Nighy knew the nine-to-five wasn’t for him.
He did try his hand at a desk job – first as a writer in Paris, attempting to pen the great English novel, and next on his local newspaper back in London.
The multi-award-winning actor, 72, commuted to an office for about six months.
“And I remember standing crammed into a train, thinking, ‘This can’t be my life’,” he recalls.
“It was embarrassing because there were all these people, but nobody was saying anything. I found it very awkward and uncomfortable. And I just thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore’, so I ran away from it.
“I wasn’t very good at knowing what I wanted to do, but I was pretty good at knowing what I didn’t want to do,” he says. “And what I didn’t want to do was go to the same place every day, for the next 30 years, and know how much I was going to make.
“I wanted to gamble a little bit – and then somebody suggested being an actor...”
Fast forward five decades and Surrey-born Bill (star of such classics as Love Actually and Shaun Of The Dead, as well as blockbuster series Pirates Of The Caribbean) is regarded one of the industry’s finest talents.
Bill has been reflecting on the humdrum working life he escaped due to his role in Living, a British drama film which sees him play a veteran civil servant reduced by years of oppressive office routine.
A reimagining of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 film Ikiru, the feature is directed by South African filmmaker Oliver Hermanus, from a script by Kazuo Ishiguro (author of
It’s a privilege,... to work with an actor who understands the craft of acting Director Oliver Hermanus
GEMMA DUNN
the novels The Remains Of The Day and Never Let Me Go).
To set the scene, the year is 1953. A London shattered by the Second World War is still recovering. Bill plays Williams, an impotent cog within the city’s bureaucracy. Buried under paperwork at the office and lonely at home, his life is empty and meaningless.
That is until a shattering medical diagnosis forces him to turn his otherwise dull life into something wonderful – one he can say has been lived to the full.
“I actually grew up with this film,” notes Kazuo, 67. “When I was a little Japanese boy growing up in England, this was one of the very few Japanese films that was shown on television or in art cinemas, and it had a profound influence on me.
“So that’s partly why I wanted this film to be made, again, for a new generation,” he explains.
“For me, the inspiring message is that you don’t have to turn yourself into a superstar or make huge achievements (in life) – rather you have to accept who you are and accept the limitations of your world.
“It’s a story about an incremental change in one’s life; an incremental step that could unlock a real sense of value and satisfaction,” adds Oliver, 39, who’s known for Moffie and The Endless River. “I think that’s what has appealed to anyone who’s ever seen the film.”
As for casting Bill, Kazuo says the actor “was integral to the whole thing” and the part had been written with him in mind.
“He has that English sense of humour, that ironic sense, a stoicism, and a kind of melancholy behind the surface. And he looked to me like all those men on the railway platforms.”
“Bill Nighy is extraordinary,” says Oliver. “It’s a privilege, a once-in-alifetime experience to work with an actor who understands the craft of acting in that way.”
Following a shock diagnosis from his doctor, Williams takes to a seaside resort where he flirts with hedonism.
Back in London, he finds himself drawn to Margaret (Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood), a young woman who once worked under his supervision and is now determined to spread her wings.
Then one evening he is struck by a revelation: with a new energy, and the help of Peter (Alex Sharp), an idealistic new recruit to his department, he sets about creating a legacy for the next generation.
“We live in a time when people have to work so many long hours,” Kazuo reflects.
“When you look at these bureaucratic offices that we present in Living, it becomes a metaphor for the way that many of us are forced to live,” he says.
“It’s about people who have been ground down by the anonymity and the daily burden of living this kind of life, when you don’t know how your work is connecting with humanity out there or what it’s doing. (This film) is about a man who manages to transcend that, who cuts through that. And so I’m hoping that this is a story that a lot of people in today’s world will relate to.”
It’s a universal theme, adds Oliver: “At heart, this is a story about death affirming life. It’s about how, in the wake of this man realising that his life is coming to an end, he’s pressured into living.”
“The film is about how we deal with mortality, and how to best appreciate the time that we are given,” Bill says. “It’s an opportunity to see what a regular person who has a very constrained existence does when they are brought face to face with extinction.”
Did it change how the fatherof-one lives his own life?
“I try and remember how fortunate I am,” he says. “I’m already in the business of trying to make the most out of every day, and some days you can, some days you can’t.
“I hope this film is inspirational in that regard. Because that’s what it’s for, to encourage people to make the most of every day.”