After decades onstage, Bill Nighy rocketed to international fame when he starred as singer Billy Mack in Love Actually, earning a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Major roles swiftly followed, with the 76-year-old starring as Viktor in the Underworld film series and the villainous Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. Bill has also appeared in Doctor Who, Hot Fuzz, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, About Time and Living, earning an Oscar nomination for the latter role.
In 1982, the actor found love with fellow actress Diana Quick, and although the pair never married, they remained an item for over two decades, before splitting in 2008.
Two years into their relationship, the couple welcomed their daughter Mary, and although both of her parents tried warning her away from becoming an actress, she paid no heed to their advice, becoming a star in her own right.
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Bill’s famous daughter Mary
Although Mary is now a famous actress, speaking with the Guardian in 2023, she revealed that her parents advised her against joining the industry, in part due to Diana’s negative experiences at the beginning of her own career.
Mary told the publication: “It took my breath away, the objectification of her body. She was very matter-of-fact telling me all this. I felt like crying, I couldn’t bear it. That’s my privilege, in a way, of being a younger generation.”
Mary made her acting debut in 1998, appearing in the radio drama The Young Ambassadors. Her screen debut came five years later when she appeared as Princess Mary in The Lost Prince, which explored the life of Prince John, who died aged just 13 back in 1919.
The star has also appeared in Rosemary & Thyme, Spooks, The Fine Art of Love: Mine Ha-Ha, Tormented and Marie-Antoinette, the latter of which she starred in alongside Tom Hardy.
© Alamy Stock PhotoMary has since transitioned into becoming a director, with her debut feature film, Alice, Darling, being released in 2022. The film dealt with coercive control within relationships and starred the likes of Anna Kendrick, Kaniehtiio Horn, Charlie Carrick and Wunmi Mosaku.
Speaking about her father’s breakout success, Mary told The Guardian: “He’d worked for so many years, with so many good people, and was really owning it by the time it all came together.” And when the actress learnt that he had read every review of her debut film, she joked: “He kept that quiet. I didn’t know that!”
© Getty Images for RBCReflecting on her youth in a 2013 interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Bill revealed: “When she was growing up she’d say, ‘You wanted a boy, didn’t you?’ I’d say, ‘No!’ And I really didn’t – I actively didn’t want a boy!
“I thought, let’s fill the house with women as far as I was concerned. But she thought I was keeping something from her. She would occasionally sit down in front of a football game with me and say, ‘Do we like the red ones or the blue ones?'”
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