My epitaph? Hey kids, don’t buy drugs. Become a rock star and get them for free
HE’S one of Britain’s bestloved actors and has starred in almost 150 Hollywood blockbusters, cult films, TV series and plays. But actor Bill Nighy knows he’ll always be associated with one particular movie and a single line of dialogue.
The film is Love Actually, the 2003 romantic comedy in which he plays ageing rock star Billy Mack.
And the line, one fans even shout at him in the street, is: “Hey kids, don’t buy drugs. Become a rock star and people give you them for free.”
He even credits it with making him an international star and believes it will end up as his epitaph.
Bill says: “It’s possible success would have happened anyway but Love Actually certainly accelerated it.Who knew?
“That film has become beloved and it’s entered people’s lives in all kinds of ways.
“People come up and say, ‘You helped me through my chemotherapy’, or tell me that they dress up as the characters every Christmas and actually have Love Actually parties.
“Now, every Christmas you get the Queen’s Speech and then you get Love Actually.
“But the line of Billy’s follows me around everywhere. When the movie first came out all the kids in my district used to follow me down the street shouting it and they all knew it by heart.
“I once came through immigration from Canada to the US at about 4am. I was the only person there, and this very scary immigration guy with a huge black moustache beckoned me over.
“I thought, ’Oh my God.’ But he smiled and said, ‘Hey kids, don’t buy drugs, become a rock star, people give you them for free, right? Am I right?’
“But all I heard was ‘drugs’ and went, ‘No, I don’t have any drugs!’
“When I die those words will be on my tombstone.”
Chatting with Bill, 70, is always entertaining. He is drily amusing and self-deprecating but has had some dark moments and bouts with depression in the past.
Now, he clearly enjoys life without taking much of it too seriously.
Because of his long career and appearances in so many movies and TV productions he is often recognised in the street – and frequently mistaken for somebody else.
He says: “I was in Melbourne, Australia, and a woman came up and said, ‘Mr Stamp, it’s lovely to have you here’ [mistaking him for actor Terence Stamp]. And I’ve been Paul Smith, the designer, too.
“A man came out of a diner holding his shirt. He said, ‘You designed this!’ I said, ‘No, I didn’t.’ He said, ‘Yeah you did.’ There was a guy behind him eating a sandwich. He said, ‘That’s Paul Smith, isn’t it?’ And the guy went, ‘Yeah.’
“If I have glasses on I’m mistaken for Gary Oldman. I have been congratulated on Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy half a dozen times. I just say, ‘Thank you, we had a lovely time making it.’ What else are you going to say?”
Occasionally, Bill is recognised for himself though.
He adds: “I never expected it but I am accustomed to it now. The only thing that gets you is sometimes when you have got your mouth full in a restaurant or you are picking your nose and you turn around and somebody is taking your photo.
“Now everyone has a camera and that can get to you a little bit.
“I’ve never refused a picture if people ask. But if they sneak them, it can make you feel like you are actually under surveillance.
“People are usually very nice about it and there’s no kind of heat.
“I’m not Tom Cruise or Hugh Grant after all. I’m that sad old rocker from that movie, and that’s fine.”
Bill’s latest movie is Emma, based on the Jane Austen novel, in which he plays Emma’s father, Mr Woodhouse.
He admits it is a role he enjoyed playing and talks affectionately about it. But he is equally forthcoming – and very funny – when the conversation turns to his past.
Brought up in south London, he is a lifelong Crystal Palace supporter and originally wanted to be a journalist.
He says: “I flunked school because I was looking out the window and dreaming of being F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“I went to my local newspaper asking for a job and the editor said I needed five O-Levels, but I didn’t have any.
“So I ran away to Paris to not write the great English novel instead.
“I had read Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce and everyone who had been in Paris in 1922. But I didn’t have any ideas so ended up begging on the streets at the Trocadero for a while.
“I tried to write. I sat down with a blank piece of paper at one point and I wrote a title. And then the doorbell went and that was the end of my literary career.
“I still have to remind myself that I do actually have a literary agent. She’s a friend of mine and she said, ‘It doesn’t matter if you never write anything.’ I occasionally see her in the street because she works near me and I say,
‘I haven’t written anything,’ and she says, ‘It’s okay, you don’t have to.’
“Peter Cook, the great English comedian, wrote a cartoon once and it was two guys in a bar, and one guy says, ‘I’m writing a novel’ and the other guy says, ‘Neither am I.’
“Which sort of sums up my literary career.”
While his dreams of writing the great novel didn’t materialise, Bill found a creative outlet on stage, working at the famous Everyman Theatre in Liverpool.
He also helped found Van Load, a travelling theatre group which toured pubs, prisons, car parks and other places where ordinary people could get to see a live production.
From there he went onto the London stage and into movies, although by the early 1990s his drinking and drug habits started to affect his career and personal life.
He gave it up and has been, as he puts it, “a sober alcoholic” since May 1992.
He rarely talks about it, but once said: “The central fact of my life is that I have an unhealthy relationship with mood-altering chemicals, liquid or otherwise.
“The most significant thing that ever happened to me was when I stopped. I take it very seriously, and I am very grateful that I no longer have to do any of that.” Bill has lived alone since his 27-year relationship with the actress Diana Quick ended in 2008.
But he is horrified at the idea of anyone trying to “fix him up” with someone.
He adds: “People have occasionally tried and I go to a dinner party and there’s a woman on her own sitting opposite me and I think, ‘Oh, I see.’
“But if anybody ever proposes that I should meet someone for the specific purpose of being intimate with them or spending the rest of my life with them, that’s the end of it. I go missing.
“I’m gone because I can’t deal with that situation. I’d just can’t bear it and I’d go to pieces.”
The only woman he shares his life with now is his and Diana’s daughter Mary, 35.
He says: “I was an anxious parent and I used to poke the child awake because when they are small they always look dead. “Fortunately, my daughter is ever-present in my life.” As an actor he is always in demand and works regularly in a wide variety of movies. Bill has appeared in smash hits Shaun Of The Dead, Pirates Of The Caribbean, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
He was once offered the chance to tour America as part of a rock band following the movie Still Crazy, which featured a fictional band called Strange Fruit.
He laughs: “It was Timothy Spall on drums, Jimmy Nail on bass guitar, Stephen Rea on keyboards and me in very tight trousers up front.
“Jimmy Nail got a call from an American promoter who wanted us to do a tour, but we didn’t go.
“People who know the movie are very fond of it and it’s become a minor cult hit. Cab drivers sometimes ask, ‘Are the Fruits getting back together again?’”
IN BETWEEN movies and TV commitments he has continued to return to the stage, starring with Carey Mulligan in David Hare’s Skylight in the West End and later when it was transferred to Broadway. And what about the book he’s still not written?
He says: “I’ve been not writing since I was 16 and I still haven’t really written a word.
“But anyone who gets any degree of notoriety, there’s always a publisher who wants you to write something because there’s a few bucks in it.And maybe if I get to be very old, I will sit down at some point and do it.
“But my great regret is that I didn’t keep a journal.
“Real advice for kids – don’t ever smoke a cigarette. And always write a journal.”