(Roslyn Sulcas’s article appeared in The New York Times, 2/2; via Pam Green.)
LONDON — After Bill Nighy saw David Hare’s play “Skylight” in 1995, he telephoned the playwright to tell him he had never had a better night in the theater. “I was exhilarated,” Mr. Nighy recalled. “It was everything I loved and admired, and I picked up the phone and said, ‘David! I’ve just seen “Skylark.’ ”
Mr. Nighy, tall, elegant and handsomely grizzled, gave the kind of patent-worthy self-deprecatory grimace that will be familiar to fans of his films “Love Actually” and “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.” “So that went well,” he said.
Mr. Hare evidently didn’t hold the slip of the tongue against him. Twenty years later, Mr. Nighy, 65, is playing Tom Sergeant, the lead male role in “Skylight,” for the third time in 18 years, in a production directed by Stephen Daldry that will begin a 13-week Broadway run at the John Golden Theater on March 13.