Bill on Nigh(y)

The British actor Bill Nighy.

Last Sunday night, after the dinner dishes had been washed and all the household chores were finished for the day, and I finally had a quiet moment, I sat down on the couch with the intent to vegetate and watch a little mindless television before I went to bed.  I channel surfed through the dozens of cable channels at my disposal providing the usual vapid, short attention span programming so common in America.  I eventually made my way through all the crap and landed upon the premiere of a new show, produced by the BBC and broadcast in America on PBS, called Page Eight.

What caught my attention and made me stop on this particular show?  The face of British character actor Bill Nighy.  While driving in my car earlier in the week, I had heard him interviewed on NPR about the show and his long career.  He seemed like a good, thoughtful bloke, just as he does on the screen.

I first noticed Nighy in his role as an aging rocker in the 1997 film Still Crazy.  Although he was a working actor for decades on the stage and in television in the U.K., most American moviegoers probably first noticed him in his hilarious role - also of an aging rocker - in Love Actually and most recently as Davy Jones, Johnny Depp's nemesis, in the hugely successful Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

Nighy as the villainous Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

Page Eight was engaging and well-written, and had a fine cast that included Judy Davis, Ralph Fiennes, Michael Gambon and Rachel Weisz, among others, but it wasn't brilliant.  Very little happened in the way of plot or action; there was nary a chase, car crash or even gun shot in the entire two hours.  Nighy played an agent for the British intelligence agency MI5, but this wasn't an American-style spy movie.  This was British all the way: quiet, moody, cerebral and starring Bill Nighy.

I got sucked in and somewhere in the back of my head was the thought that I would watch the show as long as Bill Nighy was onscreen.  I just couldn't turn away or take my eyes off him when he was on camera.  Turns out, he was in every scene in the damn show.  Unwittingly, I wound up killing the rest of my evening watching the show.  Getting up two hours later and turning off the TV, I thought to myself, "That show was alright - although the ending was lazy and unsatisfying - but damn, that Bill Nighy is one interesting actor."

The next day I woke up thinking about the show and why it was still in my head, and the only reason I could grasp was Nighy.  He was mesmerizing.  He didn't actually do anything.  As a matter of fact, it was often what he didn't do that was so interesting.  He didn't have great or hilarious dialogue.  He never screamed, yelled or cried.  He was just spot-on in every bloody scene in the entire show.  He made it look effortless and easy.  And that, to me, is always a sign of a great actor.

I don't think there's a middle-aged actor alive today who does lonely, detached, disillusioned and awkward better than Bill Nighy.

Page Eight reminded me of another hidden Nighy gem, that also starred the wonderful Kelly MacDonald, entitled The Girl in the Cafe (in my mind, if you can't make an interesting little picture with Bill Nighy and Kelly MacDonald as your leads, then you might as well get out of the picture-making business).  It got a little preachy and heavy-handed at times, but that film was so Un-American, moody and just...different that I was charmed.  I believe Nighy was in every shot and his chemistry with MacDonald was incredible.

The Girl in the Cafe was nominated for seven Emmy awards in 2006, winning three - including best TV movie and MacDonald for Best Supporting Actress in a TV movie, but Nighy was not even nominated.  He made it look too easy.  That can't possibly be acting.  It's too effortless.  

Billy Nighy and Kelly MacDonald in The Girl in the Cafe.

Of late, he's also been a fashionable choice as a villain and/or character actor in such films as Shaun of the Dead, Vigilance and the British Equity Employment Act (also known as the Harry Potter series).  He makes it look so simple to be an aging British rocker that you can't help but think he must be a bit like an aging British rocker.  Not much range there.  And then you see him as an awkward, shy, lovelorn British bureaucrat and you think, well, that suited him so well that he must be like that.  And THEN you see him play the hideous Davy Jones in Pirates of the Caribbean and then it starts to dawn on you that this guy is one bloody brilliant actor.  He just makes it look so easy.

Something I enjoy about watching Nighy work is that I don't know a damn thing about him.  I have no idea if he bears any resemblance to his film roles in real life or not (although presumably he doesn't have sea animals protruding from his face), and that, to me, is a perfect way to see an actor.  I can project anything on him I wish and it works.  I can't do that with Crowe, Cruise, Damon, DiCaprio or most other Hollywood leading men.   They all carry too much public baggage.

The other thing I love about Nighy is that he's fully aware of how powerful reticence and silence can be.  He makes the pauses and awkwardness work for him in a way that's authentic and genuine.  You don't see the acting.  He just appears as if he walked off the street and accidentally stumbled on a movie set.  And that's really, really tough to effectively pull off.

As I was doing some research on Nighy before I wrote this post, I was looking for a scene from Girl in the Cafe on YouTube to link here (the opening from that film is below).  The entire movie is on YouTube in 10 minute segments (but that's a dreadful way to watch an entire movie) and I thought I'd look at the first segment to watch him again.  And dammit if I didn't find myself sitting there all the way through the third segment - an eternity in YouTube time - because Nighy's understated, subtle performance just completely drew me into the film.  He's just so seamless.

Nighy said in the radio interview on NPR last week that they were planning to produce a couple more of the Page Eight movies.  If they do, I suspect I will be there.  Not because it's brilliantly directed or written, but because it's a good role for Bill Nighy.  You can keep your theatrical, well-known actors who garner all the nominations and awards as they pile on the pounds and make-up, scream and yell and get all the attention.  I'll take Bill Nighy and his ability to make it appear as if he's not doing anything every day.   Because the most difficult thing for any actor to do is nothing.