Bill Nighy on "Skylight"
It's almost Tony time on Broadway -- the big award show is just two weeks from tonight, here on CBS. And among the five nominees for Best Leading Actor is a man whose name might not immediately come to mind. Rita Braver reveals his identity:
Walking in New York City, Bill Nighy says people on the street may think he's their dentist or brother-in-law. "It's like, 'Do I know you?' You go, 'Well, maybe, probably not!'"
You may not know his name, but you probably have seen Nighy's familiar face on the big screen. He's been in dozens of films, frequently drawing rave reviews for making small parts into significant ones, such as in "About Time."
And now he doing his best on Broadway, nominated for a Tony Award for his role in "Skylight."
"You know, I occasionally surprise myself," he told Braver. "Mostly I just try to do the best I can."
Nighy plays a man who has reconnected with his former mistress (played by Carey Mulligan, also a Tony nominee).
Tom (Nighy): "You looked down always on the way we did things. On the way things are done. You could never accept the nature of business. I mean, finally that's why you had to leave."
Kyra (Mulligan): "I never knew that was why I had to leave."
Tom: "I put it badly -"
Kyra: "I thought I left because your wife discovered I'd been sleeping with you for over six years."
Tom: "Well ... that played a part in it."
Braver asked Nighy, "Why do you like playing this character? What do you see in him that makes you want to do this play every night?"
"It's just a very good part. It exercises you," he replied. "I mean, you know, not that much. I'm not one given to -- you know, if anybody mentions the word 'challenge' I usually call a cab, you know what I mean? People say, 'Oh, this is refreshing, it must be a challenge.' You think, 'Yeah, right, I need a challenge like I need a gun at my head.' But it is challenging, and you get to kind of run the gamut."
On stage, Nighy and Mulligan argue about everything, even cooking. But off stage she marvels at his ability:
"His energy works with an audience in way that I've never really kind of got, [or] understood before," Mulligan told Braver. "He's able to understand what an audience is sort of tuning into and what they're not."
Today, at 64, Nighy is known for his elegant manners and bespoke suits ("Check me out! Check me out!") . But he grew up a restless, working class kid in Surrey, England.
How did he decide to become an actor? "I met a girl," he said. "She was the first girl who had paid any attention to me. And she could have said 'astronaut,' and I would probably have given that a shot. And she was going to drama school, she said, 'You could be an actor.' And I had no idea what that meant.
"And then, you know, one thing led to another."
And what did he discover he liked about acting? "I didn't discover anything that I liked about it. It terrified me! I thought, 'In a minute, I'll stop.' Every time I finished a job, I swore that I would never put myself through that kind of humiliation ever again."
But don't be fooled: In play after play, he established himself as a top actor in the competitive world of British theatre.
And then in 2003 came a film role that would change his life, playing an aging rocker in "Love Actually." Critics went wild, and he won a BAFTA for the role.
Nighy was in his fifties by then. "What was it like to be kind of an overnight success at that stage in your life?" asked Braver.
"The groovy thing [was] I didn't have to audition any more," he said. "I used to go for interviews about jobs, and there would be something odd about the exchange. And I'd realize that they were trying to talk me into the job, rather than me begging for it, which was a big and desirable change!"
He went on to play the Minister of Magic in a Harry Potter movie; he was the squid-faced villain Davy Jones in two "Pirates of the Caribbean" films; and he's one of the retirees taking up residence in India in the hit "Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" films.
There's no double of him driving the motorbike, with Judi Dench as passenger. "Every morning I used to wake up and think, 'Just don't kill Judi Dench!'"
In real life, Nighy is single, after a 27-year relationship and one daughter with British actress Diana Quick. He acknowledges overcoming alcoholism; and there is something else: "One of the things that people do talk about is the way you hold your hands," said Braver.
"Well, I suffer ... I don't suffer, I have Dupuytren's Contracture, which is a hereditary condition, which my mother had, and her father had." It means his fingers cannot fully straighten.
"It kind of looks elegant," said Braver.
"Well, younger actors have on occasion come up and said, 'I love that thing you do with your hands.' And I could say, 'Yeah, you know, it's something we came up with in rehearsals,' but I have to tell the truth!"
Indeed, it hasn't cramped his style. But even with "Skylight" nominated for seven Tony Awards, Bill Nighy isn't taking anything for granted:
"I do have average difficulty thinking positively about myself," he said. "I mean, I just always have. So there's nothing like a Tony nomination. For ten minutes gives you confidence. For those ten minutes when the phone call [comes], you go, 'Well, maybe I'm not crazy!'"
For more info:
- "Skylight" at the John Golden Theatre, New York City
- Complete CBS News.com coverage: The Tony Awards