Bill Nighy about Valkyrie

The Telegraph has an article about Valkyrie, the much talked about movie with Bill Nighy, also starring Tom Cruise.

“It’s like old-home week,” says Nighy, who is making his sixth film with Hollander and who worked on the Pirates of the Caribbean movies with Schofield and McNally.

“It’s a serious film about a serious subject, but we’re all having fun and a good laugh. Put an English actor in a German uniform and he immediately wants to do something comic, like acting very camp or giving a ‘Heil Hitler’ salute. Don’t tell Bryan Singer,” he adds conspiratorially, “but I want to get through this movie without once giving a Nazi salute. That’s my secret plan. It also denotes rank. Only the desperate go around shooting their arm up in the air all the time. If you’ve got any class, keep your arm down, in my view.”

But Nighy, 58 (57 !), who portrays General Freidrich Olbricht, becomes serious when discussing the protests and Cruise. “I’ve seen no protests,” he said. “We’ve been made very welcome, and it’s a wonderful story from the German point of view. The Second World War obviously has very deeply disturbing elements for the German people, but this is one of the stories that is free of any of that because it’s a story of pure German courage and honourable men who were trying to rescue Germany from disgrace. So everyone I’ve encountered has been very encouraging.”

Read the whole article on the Telegraph website.

Valkyrie is planned to be released in the summer of 2008.