Bill Nighy Quotes

I sure don't miss going out on auditions!

It's an enormous relief to go to work and be an actor and not be worried about writing.

Suddenly I was the man who got the part that every actor in the English language was trying to get. I was really scared. I had talked the talk, and now I had to walk the walk. For three days, I couldn't answer the phone.

I think I'm still trying to find my feet as an actor. And I know it ain't brain surgery, but it confuses me and it comes between me and my sleep a lot.

The film world is a crazy place to be. You sit around all day waiting for the phone to ring. Are people talking about you or aren't they?

I think if I'd have been an actor who didn't care, I'd have less gray hair, and I'd be a lot less tired.

When you are an actor or trying to be a working actor in L.A., most people have commercial agents, and then they have legitimate agents, and you just end up going on a thousand auditions.

Usually, when you're an actress, you have to audition 20 times.

Going to auditions is always so nerve-wracking. I don't think they ever get any easier.

I think fear is one of the natural states of most actors, to be honest.

I don't want to be in Terminator. I don't want to go to Hollywood.

If I am not right for something there are many talented actors out there that will get it.

For every successful actor or actress, there are countless numbers who don't make it. The name of the game is rejection. You go to an audition and you're told you're too tall or you're too Irish or your nose is not quite right. You're rejected for your education, you're rejected for this or that and it's really tough.

Actors get bored.

I'm an actor and it happened to go my way that day.

I moved here to California when I was 13 to pursue my acting career.

The only still center of my life is Macbeth. To go back to doing this bloody, crazed, insane mass-murderer is a huge relief after trying to get my cell phone replaced.

Acting is something I'm interested in, and I'll keep going to auditions, but modelling is my main job.

Danny Elfman, the composer, tells me the only time he thinks I'm happy is when I'm on the scoring stage, and I see the pressure's on him and it's a little off me.

For me, I just am so grateful to be an actor.

I get tetchy with myself when I forget. I also get tetchy when directors ask you for take after take after take after take for no apparent reason. I've heard Maggie Smith gets tetchy for the same reason.

When I moved out to L.A., I went on 156 auditions before I booked a single thing.

I am an actor, and that's the most important thing to me. I cannot imagine a life where I would be anything else but an actor, so putting all my energy into a shot comes naturally to me.

You should know that there are heroes here who are unduly worried about each role they portray.

Sometimes what happens is you're not getting wickets; you're going for runs. You just want to get away.