Bill Nighy Back On The Big Screen

Bill Nighy is an actor that has moved easily between television and movies, the big budget blockbuster to the smaller more independent film. And in a career that has spanned over thirty years he has picked up a Golden Globe and Bafta along the way.

This week sees him return to the big screen in Wild Target alongside Emily Blunt and Rupert Grint.

Nighy kicked off his acting career in 1977 on the theatre stage in the production of Illuminatus! before going on to appear at the National.

Movies weren't far behind as he made his big screen debut in 1981 in Eye of the Needle, based on the novel by Ken Follet and starring Donald Sutherland.

Throughout the eighties and early nineties Nighy juggled television programmes, including The Men's Room, radio shows, theatre and movies.

His big theatre role came in 1993 when he appeared in Arcadia. But it is post 2000 where Nighy's television and film career has really taken off.

After the likes of Still Crazy and Blow Dry he returned to television in 2003 to appear in both The Lost Prince and State of Play.

The drama followed a newspaper's investigation into the death of a young woman, and centres around the relationship between the leading journalist and his old friend, the woman's employer. It was a massive critical hit and has gone on to be adapted into a movie.

The big screen beckoned for Nighy and the big blockbuster role as he appeared in Underworld in the role of Vampire Elder Viktor with Kate Beckinsale and Michael Sheen, a role he reprised in Underworld: Evolution in 2006.

Awards followed for the actor as he picked up the Best Supporting Actor Bafta for his performance in Love Actually before going on to win a Bafta Television Award for State of Play.

More Big budget movie work came his way as he landed roles in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy before moving onto The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise appearing as Davy Jones in Dead Man's Chest and At World's End.

But he returned to television to star in Stephen Poliakoff's Gideon's Daughter and The Girl in the Cafe, the former landed him a Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a mini-series or TV movie.

Last year saw him return to the Underworld franchise in Rise of the Lycans as well as starring alongside Tom Cruise in Valkyrie.

2009 was  a very busy year for the actor with, G-Force, Astro Boy and The Boat That Rock all receiving a release.

Wild Target is his first movie of 2010, although we have already seen him on the small screen in Doctor Who, and he stars as Victor Maynard is a middle-aged, solitary assassin, who lives to please his formidable mother, despite his own peerless reputation for lethal efficiency.

His professional routine is interrupted when he finds himself drawn to one of his intended victims, Rose. He spares her life, unexpectedly acquiring in the process a young apprentice, Tony.

Believing Victor to be a private detective, his two new companions tag along, while he attempts to thwart the murderous attentions of his unhappy client.

Also on the horizon this year for the actor includes Harry Potter and the Deathly hallows Part 1 before lending his voice to The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and Rango.

Wild Target is released 18th June.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw