Bill Nighy is starring as football coach, Mal, in new movie, The Beautiful Game. He takes his England team to the Homeless World Cup. Bill is a big Crystal Palace fan in real life and told us his big bugbears around football and what his all time favourite chant is.
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00:00 If you can score from there, you'll score from anywhere, it's up to you, Dwight York,
00:04 Dwight York.
00:05 Bill, lovely to see you.
00:07 And you.
00:07 I am a Tottenham supporter.
00:09 Lovely.
00:09 You are a Palace supporter.
00:11 I am.
00:11 Were you tempted to go for Roy's role?
00:14 Because obviously you now have experience.
00:17 I know, I know. I sat by the phone for some time and then I realised they're not going
00:21 to call. But I know Roy quite well and he was a great, great, great... His achievement
00:28 at Palace was phenomenal.
00:30 Isn't it difficult when you love a team and they're not doing so well, but you're really
00:34 good mates with the manager? Do you ever want to pick up the phone and say, "Listen, don't
00:38 put him there."
00:39 The thing about Crystal Palace is that we are in heaven because we're in mid-table heaven
00:45 and we're in the premiership and I'm quite old. So I remember when we were never in the
00:50 premiership or we were then called the yo-yo side, which meant that we only ever went up
00:54 for one season and then came directly back down. So parachute money was our destiny.
00:59 But now we languish in the premiership. So when you say not doing very well, we're in
01:06 the premiership.
01:07 Yes. But are you a Holmesdale fanatic? Are you one of those?
01:10 No, I'm a TV guy now. I'm an absolute TV guy. I want to be near the kettle. I want punditry
01:17 at half-time. I want action replay immediately. I don't want to go to the game. I do occasionally.
01:23 I do a bit of work down Palace, but I'm mostly at home. I like to watch it on my own. You
01:28 have to be very careful about who you watch football with. You don't want any shouting
01:32 or screaming or any of that sort of out of town business. You want to get down and really
01:37 pay attention.
01:38 I was about to ask you your favourite chant as I came in the room. I chanted mine.
01:42 My favourite chant. We have a song at Palace which is actually called We Only Hate Brighton.
01:49 That's the name of the song, but no one can remember why. No one knows. Somebody said
01:56 it's something to do with Alan Mullery, but nobody can confirm that.
01:59 But that's great. You've got a nice little-
02:02 I used to like Dwight York. There was one about Dwight York. Dwight York, Dwight York,
02:05 if you can score from there, you'll score from anywhere. It's up to you, Dwight York,
02:10 Dwight York. That was quite one.
02:12 Can we perhaps get a mic? We could release that maybe?
02:15 Yeah, why not?
02:16 Mine is Tottenham at the Bernabeu, Arsenal watching Emma Dale.
02:21 Oh, that's very, very good.
02:22 Yeah, you've got to say it with an accent, I think.
02:24 No, that's brilliant. That's brilliant.
02:26 But that is obviously not the case at the moment because we haven't done very well.
02:30 But anyway, this film, when you got a phone call about being in a film called The Beautiful
02:33 Game, was that not just the best news ever?
02:36 Yeah, and that it was written by Frank Cottrell-Boyce, who's one of my favourite writers. I've worked
02:39 with him before. He's funny. He can actually tell jokes, and he's also a very serious man.
02:46 And he knows about the Homeless World Cup, which I didn't, because he works with them
02:50 in real life. And everything about the script was great. It works, it's affecting, it's
02:54 touching, and it's very funny.
02:56 Do you think you'd make a good football manager?
02:58 No. I think I'd make a terrible football manager. Well, I don't know. Maybe now I'd be alright.
03:04 It's like I wouldn't make a very good director. I might get too frustrated, but I have no
03:10 ambitions to be a director. But I probably looked the part. I think I looked the part.
03:15 I got the suit right, but apart from that, I haven't got a lot going on.
03:19 Can you chew gum?
03:20 I hate when they chew gum.
03:23 They look so stressed.
03:24 I cannot bear when they chew gum. I can't bear chewing gum. I can't bear the smell of
03:29 it. I can't bear the way that it- I can't bear the reasons that people have it, presumably,
03:35 which is to look, I don't know, cool or something. It's really not cool in my view.
03:40 I love the bit in this film where the peace offering is a huge piece of fish. I'm just
03:46 wondering, have you ever given a nice peace offering before that perhaps is something
03:50 different? Not flowers, not chocolates?
03:53 I've been given so many things, and I can't remember. I was once given an ashtray from
03:58 Marbella, a woman at the stage door, with a note saying, "After we're married, we're
04:05 going to have some changes." But that's all I remember. It was quite spooky at the time.
04:10 I can't think of any other. There have been many, but I can't think of them now. I was
04:16 just given a Crystal Palace tie by a previous journalist, which is not weird or anything,
04:22 but it just happened today.
04:25 And I love the celebrations in this film. There's a couple from different countries.
04:28 If you were to score a goal, do you have something in mind that you'd do? Jürgen Klinsmann,
04:33 perhaps?
04:34 No, I don't think I've ever scored a goal. I don't think I have anything in mind. I like
04:40 the ones where they - I quite like the throwing darts one. There was a bit of a throwing dart
04:47 controversy, wasn't there? Because who does it belong to? It belongs to James Madison
04:52 at Tottenham Hotspur, and yet Mopé nicked it when they were playing.
04:58 Yeah, and then we ended up winning, and so he was like, "Oh!"
05:02 I love the current side. I love Kulishevsky. I love James Madison. I think you've got a
05:08 great side. Sorry I didn't mention everybody else.
05:11 We'll have you in open arms at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
05:13 Well, I'd love to come. Everybody loves Spurs.
05:16 Thank you. There you go. I'll put that on my T-shirt.
05:18 [MUSIC PLAYING]