He gained acclaim for his roles in David Hare's Pravda in 1985, Harold Pinter's Betrayal in 1991, Tom Stoppard's Arcadia in 1993, and Anton Chekhov's The Seagull in 1994.

His other films include Shaun of the Dead (2004), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), The Constant Gardener (2005), Notes on a Scandal (2006), Hot Fuzz (2007), Valkyrie (2008), Wild Target (2010), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 (2010), The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012), About Time (2013), Emma (2020), and Living (2022), the last of which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

[2] His father managed a car garage after working in the family chimney sweeping business;[3] his mother was a psychiatric nurse of Irish descent born in Glasgow, Scotland.

[citation needed] As a child Nighy was known by many to be insecure and shy; as a teenager he became an avid reader, particularly enjoying the works of Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

[13] During his time at the Everyman he worked alongside fellow actors Julie Walters and Pete Postlethwaite, and writers Ken Campbell and Willy Russell.

He was also a member of the travelling theatre group Van Load, which included one of Nighy's most frequent collaborators, writer and director David Hare.

After Nighy made his debut, he steadily gained acclaim with his performances in David Hare's Pravda in 1985, William Shakespeare's King Lear in 1986 and Anton Chekov's The Seagull in 1994.

At the National Theatre, he acted in productions alongside Anthony Hopkins, Judi Dench, Harriet Walter, Rufus Sewell and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

As Bernard Nightingale, an unscrupulous university don, in Tom Stoppard's Arcadia (1993), he engaged in witty exchanges with Felicity Kendal, who played Hannah Jarvis, an author.

[16] He received some recognition by American audiences for his acclaimed character portrayal of fifty-year-old rock star Ray Simms in the 1998 film Still Crazy.

Since 1999, Nighy has played Simon Brett's fictional amateur sleuth Charles Paris at least 17 times on BBC Radio 4.

[20] He also starred in the one-off BBC One comedy-drama The Girl in the Café alongside Kelly MacDonald for which he received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film.

Nighy played the lead character, Gideon, a successful events organiser who begins to lose touch with the world around him.

Also in 2006, Nighy made his Broadway debut alongside Julianne Moore in the David Hare play The Vertical Hour, directed by Sam Mendes at the Music Box Theatre.

[22] David Rooney of Variety gave the production a mixed review, writing that "Stuffed with stimulating insights, it's never dull but ultimately feels as messy and unresolved as the conflict behind its central debate.

"[23] In 2006, Nighy played the principal villain, Davy Jones, in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest with his face entirely obscured by computer-generated makeup.

[27] In 2012, he starred in the British romantic comedy The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel acting opposite Judi Dench, Dev Patel, Tom Wilkinson, and Maggie Smith.

[28] Nighy along with the ensemble received a nomination for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture.

[30] In 2013, he played a role in Darkside, Tom Stoppard's radio drama based on Pink Floyd's album The Dark Side of the Moon.

[32][33] During this time Nighy played MI5 agent Johnny Worricker in a trilogy of films written and directed by David Hare; Page Eight (2011), Turks & Caicos (2014), and Salting the Battlefield (2014).

Nighy acted in these films alongside Rachel Weisz, Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, and Michael Gambon.

[43] In that year he was in several films, including the British war comedy Dad's Army, the animated feature Norm of the North and the horror-mystery The Limehouse Golem.

Most of the actors from the original film appeared, including Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth and Keira Knightley.

[52] In October 2020, it was announced that Nighy would play the leading role in Living, an English-language adaptation of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 Japanese drama Ikiru, to be directed by Oliver Hermanus from a screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro.

[75] Nighy is a patron of the Milton Rooms, a new arts centre in Malton, North Yorkshire, along with Imelda Staunton, Jools Holland and Kathy Burke.

[80] He has also spoken of his role in Pride, a film extolling the mutual support between the National Union of Miners and gay rights groups in the UK in the 1980s, as one of his most cherished.