Bill Nighy (
Pirates of the Caribbean:
Dead Mans Chest, Pirates of the Caribbean:
At Worlds End) was tapped to play
Leonard Saber. You have a choice in trying to describe what G-FORCE is. You either go into a very long explanation which gets very technical, and they are more mystified. Or you say Im in a guinea pig movie, which is the quick way. Then, of course, they think youre going to be a guinea pig, or the voice of a guinea pig, and I have to explain that no, in fact, I play an industrialist named Leonard Saber whos bent on world domination. Then it becomes clearer.
BILL NIGHY (Leonard Saber) was born in
Caterham, Surrey, in 1949 and trained for the stage at the
Guildford School of Acting. He made his professional stage debut at Newburys
Watermill Theatre and subsequently gained experience at regional theaters like the
Edinburgh Traverse, the Chester Gateway and the
Liverpool Everyman. It was in
Liverpool that he formed a touring theater company with
Julie Walters and
Peter Postlewaite, which played at a variety of venues. He made his first appearance in
London in Comings and Goings at the
Hampstead Theatre in
November 1978.
Nighys long association with the work of
David Hare began in the early
1980s when he was cast in
Dreams of
Leaving, a
BBC film written and directed by Sir
David. They next worked together on
Map of the World, which
Hare both wrote and staged at the
National Theatre in London. When Hare was asked by
Peter Hall, the Nationals artistic director, to form a company of actors,
Nighy became a founding member of the ensemble that also included
Anthony Hopkins.
Hares first production for the new company was Pravda, a merciless satire on the
British newspaper industry, which he co-wrote with
Howard Brenton.
Hopkins played the role of ruthless media tycoon
Lambert Le Roux with Nighy cast as his equally unscrupulous associate. The two actors were again reunited for Hares production of
Shakespeares King Lear with Nighy playing
Edgar and Hopkins in the title role.
A decade later, he starred in Hares
Skylight, which won him a Barclays
Theatre Award and which played very successfully for a season at the
Vaudeville Theatre in the
West End of London.
Nighy has regularly appeared at the National Theatre in a succession of new plays by leading British writers. In
1993, he starred as an ambitious academic in Tom Stoppards
Arcadia in a production by
Trevor Nunn.
Seven years later he won enormous critical acclaim for his performance as psychiatrist
Dr. Robert Smith in
Blue/Orange, written by
Joe Penhall and directed by
Roger Michell. It was a performance that also brought him a
Best Actor nomination in the prestigious
Olivier Awards.
Other theater credits include two revivals of plays by
Harold Pinter:
Betrayal at the
Almeida Theatre and
A Kind of Alaska at the
Donmar Warehouse Theatre. Nighy was also seen as
Trigorin in a National Theatre production of Chekhovs
The Seagull opposite
Judi Dench as Arkadina. Nighy had previously worked with
Dame Judi on
Absolute Hell (BBC), and they were reunited for the critically acclaimed
2007 feature film
Notes on a Scandal, also starring
Cate Blanchett and directed by
Richard Eyre.
In 2007, Nighy starred on
Broadway to exuberant critical acclaim in David Hares
The Vertical Hour, starring alongside
Julianne Moore.
Nighys long list of television credits includes virtually every major drama series on
British TV,
but it was his work on
The Mens Room (BBC) in
1991 that brought him particular attention. More recently, he won a
BAFTA Best Actor Award and a
Royal Television Society Best Actor Award for his performance as a newspaper editor in the series
State of Play, and he has starred in two television films for writer/director
Stephen Poliakoff in
The Lost Prince, for which he won a
Golden Satellite Award for Best Actor in a Supporting
Role, and the critically acclaimed
Gideons Daughter.
Nighys portrayal of
Lawrence, a middle-aged
Treasury official rejuvenated by love in
The Girl in the Café, won him a
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a miniseries and widespread praise from critics.
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- published: 23 Jul 2009
- views: 11480