Bill Nighy’s voice is unmistakable, even over a crackly line from London. The 71-year-old actor doesn’t do Zoom, so an old-fashioned phone line seems to suit him.star has just emerged from a months-long lockdown and is happily back at work, filming Kazuo Ishiguro’s adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 classicBill Nighy stars as sheep farmer Spencer in Buckley’s Chance, while Mason Burch plays grandson Ridley.
It’s been a year and a half since he stood in front of a camera, he says. One of the last things he shot was, playing Spencer, a sheep farmer whose American grandson and daughter-in-law move in after the death of his son. Spencer is not a million miles from Nighy’s usual characters — a bit stern, a bit mumbly and well-dressed in button-down shirts and a vest — and he pulls out a low-key Australian accent: less Meryl Streep, more gentleman farmer.