ONE of Britain’s best loved character actors, Bill Nighy, returns to Liverpool this summer to become a man of letters.
The one-time member of the Everyman repertory company who shot to global fame in Love Actually, will take the main role in Hurricane Films’ Triple Word Score, scripted by Frank Cottrell Boyce.
The film, which will be shot around Liverpool and West Lancs, is a directorial first for musician and film academic Carl Hunter who worked with Cottrell Boyce on the asylum-seeker-allottment movie Grow Your Own.
The “supernatural comedy-drama” revolves around Scrabble and is described as “a journey of mystery, self-discovery and hope”.
It follows the story of a father (Nighy) searching for his missing son, with whom he shared a passion for the board game.
Sol and Roy from HurricaneHope Street-based Hurricane Films is owned and run by producers Sol Papadopoulos and Roy Boulter who are best known for their collaborations with director Terence Davies, first on his celebrated 2008 documentary, Of Time and The City, followed last year by the Scottish saga Sunset Song, which starred Agynesse Deyn.
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The critically acclaimed triumverate have been at it again this year, wowing film festivals around the world with A Quiet Passion, a biopic of the American poet Emily Dickinson and starring Sex And The City’s Cynthia Nixon.
Triple Word Score comes hot on the Manolo Blahnik’s of all that in a first-look finance deal cemented at Cannes by Hurricane’s long-time executive producing allies, Andrea Gibson and Mary MacLeod.
“This is the culmination of several years groundwork - and the development of a creative relationship that has blossomed over several projects,” Hurricane Films’ Papadopoulos said.
Director Hunter and Hurricane’s Roy Boulter also go way back - and can still be found playing bass and drums with Liverpool band The Farm. These days Hunter is a senior lecturer in film and media at Edge Hill University.
Surrey-born Nighy, 66, listed by GQ as one of the Best Dressed Over 50s Men of 2015, is one of Britain’s busiest actors with dozens of award winning roles to his name in TV, film and theatre.
He is familiar in recent years for his portrayal of villian Davy Jones in Pirates of The Caribbean, Rufus Scrimgeour in Harry Potter andThe Deathly Hallows, Part I, and washed up rock star Billy Mack in Love Actually.
Those with long memories, however, will remember an association with Liverpool going back to 1973 when Nighy was a member of the Everyman company for two years appearing in Brian Friel’s Derry drama Freedom Of The City and Chris Bond’s Under New Management.
It was in London that he made his name, starring in Ken Campbell and Chris Langham’s Illuminatus! when it transferred to the National Theatre in 1977.
Related Reading: Ken Campbell, Illuminatus and Other Liverpool Romps
The same Robert Anton Wilson adaptation, from the Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool, had premiered a year earlier at The Liverpool School Of Language, Music, Dream and Pun in Mathew Street.
Alas, it went ahead without Nighy: the actor had suffered the proverbial broken leg.
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