Bill Nighy talks about France and Brexit

You are very well known in France; festival organisers have been trying to get you to come for years...

Although I’ve been to France many times this is my first visit to Dinard and I hope not my last.

I have been invited several times and have never managed to come as one is always working. It is a beautiful place. In fact I’d love to come back when there isn’t a film festival!

I’m only here for a short time as I have to get back to work. It’s a shame as I have a wonderful room with a balcony and everybody who wishes is invited to come up and savour the view.

A very generous gesture. Had you been here longer you would have had crowds on your balcony. When did your love for France start?

I must admit it is a very small balcony; but, as for France, well my relationship began in my head.

In my early teens I read all the books I could lay my hands on about writers who had spent time in Paris in the 1920s, which is traditional for an Englishman of my vintage. I read Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, F.Scott Fitzgerald.

I ran away to Paris when I was 15 to write the great English novel - and wrote nothing. I came back and flunked school – I’d gone away instead of doing exams and was asked to leave.

I then worked a bit and ran away again to Paris and Marseille as I was on my way to Persia (shows how old I am) where I panicked and came home.

For my first night in France I slept under the Arc de Triomphe. It was surrounded by scaffolding as they were cleaning it. As I had nowhere to stay I crept under the tarpaulins. The next morning I woke up to four lanes of screaming traffic. Luckily the police didn’t find me.

I adore Paris and the south. I was recently in Arles which was lovely.

The Brexit result was a shock to many in the UK film industry worried about European funding for films. What is your view?

Brexit is extremely unfortunate; not only for the film industry but for all British people and indeed for Europe. I clearly voted to remain. It’s deeply regrettable the vote went the way it did.

As anything is possible I could imagine there is still a way back. Just take a look at the world around us!

What is more they have no plan, it’s chaotic and everyone was taken by surprise – including the people who voted for Brexit. Did you know the most Googled question the morning after the vote in the UK was ‘What is the EU?’ That would mostly be people who had voted to leave asking themselves what had they voted to leave.

That is really all you need to know. They were manipulated.

You sound pretty unhappy about Brexit right now. But would it be fair to say you have mostly played upbeat cinema roles?

Well i don’t get offered villains much. I guess I have an honest face. I don’t resist playing them; it’s simply what comes my way. It’s true I have not played many unless you consider being a vampire as being a villain. And of course I was once a squid; a rather meaty role. People say it’s fun to be bad, but it’s also quite interesting being good.

This was the 28th year of the Dinard film festival and 40 films were shown, although just six were in competition. The Hitchcock d’Or major prize went to Francis Lee for his debut as director in God’s Own Country.