Bill Nighy says his pay “quintupled” after ‘Love Actually’
Bill Nighy has revealed that his salary “quintupled” after he appeared in Love Actually.
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The actor played rock legend Billy Mack in Richard Curtis’ 2003 festive romantic comedy alongside the likes of Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman and Keira Knightley.
The following year, he won a Bafta for his role, which he said “changed everything for me” in a new interview with The i.
He said: “The biggest developments were that what I was paid for a job quintupled and I never had to audition again. If you asked any actor what their top five things to wish for, one of them would be, ‘Please don’t let me have to audition any more.’”
After Love Actually, every meeting he went to he never had to audition. “I realised: they were trying to get me to do the job. I didn’t have to sing for my supper,” he added.
Meanwhile, co-star Thomas Brodie-Sangster recently said that his classmates tried to “bully” him while he was filming Love Actually, but he was able to rise above it.
The actor was 13-years-old on the set of the Christmas romcom in which he played Sam, who falls for his classmate Joanna (Olivia Olson), while his stepfather (Liam Neeson) falls for the mother (Claudia Schiffer) of one of his other friends.
The ensemble film has become a beloved festive film, although last year Curtis admitted that if he were to make it now, he would cast someone older than Keira Knightley in the role of Juliet, and also called out the use of fat jokes in the film.
Elsewhere, Nighy was recently made the bookies’ favourite to play Lord Voldemort in HBO‘s upcoming Harry Potter TV series.
The post Bill Nighy says his pay “quintupled” after ‘Love Actually’ appeared first on NME.
Damian Jones
NME