Bill Nighy
By my count, The Vertical Hour is the sixth David Hare script you've done.
I think it is. I've worked with David more than anyone else, and he is one of the most influential people in my career. He was the first person to give me a leading role on television and the first to give me more than one leading role in the theater. I have had some of the greatest times of my professional career delivering David's work, and I owe a great debt to his enthusiasm and his encouragement.
What do you like about his writing?
Everything. I love the angles at which he comes at things; his plays are entirely original. He also writes the best jokes in town. You never have a David Hare play that isn't liberally sprinkled with world-class gags, which warms the cockles of my heart. And they're always about the biggest themes. It's a rare gift to write plays that concern themselves with what's happening in the world. As a commentary on the last 30 years, his work is invaluable. I consider him to be a tremendously important person—a brave, elegant, wise and funny writer. Without him, the theater would be bereft.
Did you realize that Hare had you in mind when he was creating Oliver, this world-weary doctor who has retreated to the countryside to live?
He never said that to me, but I now understand it might be the case. If it is, I couldn't be more flattered and more pleased.
Is there a particular challenge in performing dialogue that's packed with political ideas?
I ask that because Julianne Moore, in particular, has to deliver lot of meaty, wordy speeches about politics.
Did you feel chemistry with her right away?
You felt daunted? She hasn't been on a stage in 16 years, and you've done multiple David Hare plays, the world premiere of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia and lots more.
With all your experience, each new play still feels like starting over?
American theater critics can be rough on movie stars who deign to take the stage. Is that the case in London, too?
What's your opinion of Broadway audiences?
And they're paying attention to the arguments and the serious content of the play?
Should anyone consider it odd that you do Hare and Stoppard onstage but also movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, Underworld and Shaun of the Dead?
It's interesting that you've played a rock singer a couple of times, since you've talked about how much rock music means to you personally.
The younger generation likes Mick and Keith, too!
Does fame feel different since it came in your 50s? Did you want to be famous?
You met your life partner, Diana Quick, in a David Hare play [A Map of the World in 1982], and she made a splash in America in the early '80s as Julia Flyte in Brideshead Revisited. How have you avoided competitiveness in your careers?
Have you ever been tempted to get married?
Your daughter, Mary, never pushed for a wedding?
An international vet? I'm not sure I get that.
Could you see yourself moving to L.A. and doing a TV series?
You've pooh-poohed the notion that you are a middle-aged sex symbol. Do you really not get where that idea is coming from?
See Bill Nighy in The Vertical Hour at the Music Box Theatre.
Yeah. I do. I mean, I hate to talk about characters as if they exist, because it's only me playing them [laughs]. I've never been "in character" in my life. You go to work, and you have to pretend. As part of this story, Oliver's plainly got problems. He's been through a traumatic experience, and you would hope it has improved him to some degree, that it has introduced a touch of humility to the character. The overnight [period] that the play concerns itself with is a charged and cathartic time for everyone in the play. Meeting this remarkable woman [Nadia, played by Julianne Moore] becomes very, very important to Oliver.
The challenge is the same as with any dialogue—to try and make it sound as if what you're saying just occurred to you and you've never said it before. But in David's case, that's taken care of in the writing: It is fashioned to resemble a human exchange, and the public and private themes beautifully inform one another. David balances the public and the personal very well. You never feel that you're standing there naked delivering some polemic; it's always within the context of the character in the story.
And she does it beautifully. She has some of the most wonderful speeches David has ever written, and she delivers them magnificently. It's her achievement that they are received with such attention and such respect. It's some of the greatest writing I've ever come across, and it's also entirely accessible.
Yes. Working with Julianne Moore has been one of the great pleasures of my career. Like anybody else, I've admired her; she's one of the great American actresses. On a personal level, she's a lovely woman, and the air slightly changes when Julianne goes to work. She's enchanting. I was thrilled when I heard I would be working with her—and slightly daunted.
That doesn't mean anything. I really don't feel as if my previous experience has informed what's happening now in any way. It may be true on some level, but it's not how I experience it. You have to invent yourself again every time; the challenges are the same.
I think people imagine that actors have a different response to the prospect of standing up in front of a lot of people and being the only person to speak. They don't. They have exactly the same reaction that any other human being would have. And it doesn't ever get any better. In fact, it gets marginally worse. So yes, like any actor in any play at any time in any city in any country on the planet, you have a certain degree of apprehension. But when you're in the hands of David Hare and a world-class director like Sam Mendes, along with [producers] Scott Rudin and Robert Fox, it's not a bad team. And you've got Julianne Moore and Andrew Scott, one of the most gifted young British actors, who plays my son Philip; and Dan Bittner and Rutina Wesley, wonderful young actors, who play the students. It's a pretty cool company.
To be absolutely frank with you, I never read reviews. They're not for me. I don't even read them for friends anymore because I'd rather make up my own mind. If I'm in something, obviously I don't read them. When you're young, you can't resist—but then you get burned and you can very easily resist.
Fabulous! Just bloody marvelous. They clap when you come on, before you've done anything, which is a phenomenon I've never experienced [laughs]. I found it a little startling at first, but then I thought, "Well I could get used to this." They clap when you come on and they stand up at the end, and that's really okay with me. We did two shows on Saturday and got standing ovations at both. You could wait a long time in England for that to happen.
This isn't serious. This is a funny play. The major characteristic of the evening is that every two and a half minutes, the audience falls apart laughing. I know, because I timed the laughs. And because I'm a craven fool, I count them, as well. I count the depth, length and volume of the laughs. I'm lucky because I've been given some nice ones. I can absolutely tell you that overall, this is a comedy.
They all have something in common: They all have a dead-on script. I'm very grateful that I get to play a wide range of parts, and I'm blessed that I can work in what I consider to be the top end of a lot of different genres. Take a look at Shaun of the Dead—if you don't laugh, I'll give you your money back. The boys who made that film, Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, are very clever lads and it's a really funny, satisfying film, made for virtually no money. The writers on Pirates, Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott, are bloody marvelous. And I've always wanted to be a vampire. There's something about getting your fangs in, and everything becomes clear. At one point in Underworld, I had no flesh because I'd been asleep for a thousand years. Kate Beckinsale was required to bleed upon me to bring me back to life, which is not a bad diversion, you know what I mean? [laughs]
I was aware that I was in a film by Richard Curtis, the other writer who has been the most influential in my life, and whom I adore. Again, he's a world-class practitioner. I worked with him on another project that's close to my heart called The Girl in the Café. So yeah, if you're a Richard Curtis movie, you know you're going to get a degree of attention which, in my case, I hadn't had before. I had a very nice part and a cool band. And it's one of those movies that has become beloved, like the first Pirates movie, which I was not in. They make people feel better about themselves.
When I was young, I used to practice in front of the wardrobe mirror trying to look like I might one day be vaguely good in bed. [laughs] I rehearsed a band when I was a young man but we never got out of the garage, largely because of my self-consciousness. People have a considerable affection for old rockers because they're kind of pioneers; rock-and-roll is not that old. As Keith Richards said, they operate in uncharted waters. The Rolling Stones, in my view, are the greatest rock-and-roll band in the world. I have never really recovered from what happens when Keith hits the strings and Charlie [Watts] kicks in. I just go soppy. They were the house band for my generation and I carry them wherever I go.
I don't own a computer, but I've been given an iPod and people younger than me put stuff on it—basically the Stones and Bob Dylan and a lot of soul music. I dig American music, Aretha [Franklin] and Marvin [Gaye] particularly. Van Morrison. The people you might expect me to like at my age. I suppose the most important artist in my life is Bob Dylan. I left home on the strength of the first Bob Dylan album. Not many a day goes by that I don't listen to Bob Dylan. And if I get the blues, I go to Bob.
Because I got a certain amount of attention late in life, I think it has made me more useful [as an actor]. I'm more easily castable, and therefore I've been lucky enough to get the kind of work that I wouldn't have gotten before. Like everybody, you have brief moments when you dream of world domination [laughs] but my expectations for my career have never been that high, which is a good thing and a bad thing. We'd need a psychiatrist to work that one out. When I became an actor, I didn't know any actors. There weren't any from around our way [Caterham, Surrey], and I never understood how anyone could make a living at it. And I didn't think of anything beyond the theater. When I was younger, you didn't have the traffic you have now between England and America in terms of movies, beyond people like Michael Caine, Albert Finney, Peter O'Toole and Richard Harris. The fact that I'm now working in New York, which is in the top five things an English actor would dream of, and the fact that I'm here with David... I'm very grateful.
That's never been a concern. It's never occurred to me [to feel competitive]. When we were first together, she made all the money and I made absolutely nothing. There were a couple of times when I had to drive a minicab, and I'm the worst driver in the world. Both of us have only been grateful for wherever the money was coming from, especially in the early days when we were starting a family. I was just happy that somebody was making money because otherwise we'd have been in serious trouble. She's been my staunchest and longest supporter and encourager. And she still has a very distinguished and wonderful career in England, you know. She's currently having a great success playing Mother Courage over there. Whenever I think I've got problems, I think of her, because Mother Courage is like playing Hamlet.
Not really. I can't remember now, it was so long ago. [laughs] It never came up. People didn't really get married when we were young. Marriage is sort of back now, isn't it? I don't worship in any particular establishment, and the legality of it is not a concern, so it was never an imperative for us.
There were a couple of times when I think my daughter got wind that there was such a thing as weddings and that we hadn't had one. She figured that she might lobby for that just in terms of getting a new frock and some cake and a day out. Children like weddings! But nothing major.
I wouldn't go that far [laughs]. I haven't discouraged her. It's an honorable profession. Her first wish was to be "an international vet," which I was very happy with. That's when she was about nine.
Neither did I. I think it was just a desire to go to other places and help animals everywhere [laughs]. She's a wonderful girl and I'm very proud of her.
I could see myself doing anything. I must say I understand now why English actors come home from America full of excitement and enthusiasm, because it is a wonderful place to work and there is sense of positivity about it which you don't always experience at home. But I am attached to my country. I love London and I'm passionate about England. I wouldn't really want to live anyplace else.
Am I aware that people have said stuff of that kind? Yes. Do I experience it personally? I couldn't tell you how much I don't. I look in the mirror and remember what I'm supposed to look like. I remember what the prototype was. Now all I see are graphic indications of decline [laughs]. I'm not knocking the idea, but it's not something I can identify with. I just try not to look in the mirror too much these days.