Bill Nighy on his IVF origin story Joy: “This was an opportunity to put a bomb under the male tendency to bewilderingly underestimate women”

From stoned rabbit to Scottish octopus, vampire to the voice of a goose, policeman to zombie stepdad, Bill Nighy’s storied career has seen him play a diverse mix of parts. His performance as a cancer-stricken town planner in Living (2022) – a wistful remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1952 classic Ikiru – garnered a best actor Oscar nomination. 

His latest role sees him tackle another refined older gent under pressure, the pioneering obstetrician Patrick Steptoe. In Ben Taylor’s drama Joy, Nighy’s Steptoe works tirelessly from the late 1960s for more than a decade with nurse and embryologist Jean Purdy (Thomasin McKenzie) and scientist Robert Edwards (James Norton) to create the first test-tube baby using in vitro fertilisation (IVF). It makes for a sad but ultimately uplifting drama. In real life, some 12 million people had been born by 2023 using the methods the trio devised.

Speaking the day after the world premiere of Joy at the BFI London Film Festival in October, Nighy is on keen, expansive form when he sits down to discuss his role, his stance on researching his characters, and how perspectives on gender have changed for the better. 

What did you think of the role when you first heard about it?

Bill Nighy: The part came via producer Amanda Posey. She’s somebody I very much admire and trust. I knew it was a serious thing because she was involved.

A large part of the appeal was the fact that Jean Purdy, the female scientist played by the exemplary Thomasin McKenzie, had been completely airbrushed from the story because she was a woman. I’m always eager for those kind of opportunities. I made another film with Amanda called Their Finest (2016), in which Gemma Arterton played one of the first ever female screenwriters in the 1940s, when the male screenwriters would refer to anything a woman said in a film – and this is a quote, exactly the term they used – as “the slop”. That’s what women talking was called. Anyway, this was another opportunity to put a bomb under the male tendency to bewilderingly underestimate women because of gender.

You’re glad things have moved on from those days, then?

Yeah. I think we still have lots of work to do, including on ourselves. I heard somebody use the phrase, “adjust your programming”. In my life, in the nearly 75 years you’ve had to really adjust your programming, because I was brought up in a pretty average – normal, for those days – household with attitudes that were of that time, including ideas about sex and gender, and I’ve had to reprogramme violently.

Did you have familiarity with the work of Patrick Steptoe before you got the role?

No, but I remember Louise Brown [the first person to be born after conception via IVF] being born 47 years ago, and I remember there was a degree of controversy. I didn’t realise until I read the script how fierce the opposition was from the newspapers, the church, their families, the medical association, everybody. It took some determination to persevere over 10 years, a whole decade of failing while being attacked and given no thanks for it, until Louise Brown was born. Then everybody shut up.

In the film that religious opposition is represented by Jean’s mother Gladys, played by Joanna Scanlan. Times have moved on, but to what degree do you sympathise with her position?

They were all manipulated by the media. The way it was presented to people was they said that it was Godless. They were called Doctor Frankenstein. [It was said that] the children would be born with abnormalities – if not actually deformed, there would be mutations which would be dangerous to the human race as a whole. That was how it was presented in order to sell newspapers, so they can be forgiven for being alarmed. As for the religious outlook, I don’t know, I’m not religious. But I don’t think there is anything in the Bible that says, “Thou shalt not fertilise an embryo outside the body.”

Did you do much research into Patrick’s life to try and get an understanding of him?

No. I’ve got to an age where I’m allowed to answer that question honestly, which is if you ask me how much research I’ve done, I’ll tell you absolutely none whatsoever. It’s like when people say, “How did you get into character?” I used to try and answer that question just to be sociable, but actually, I am now old enough to be able to say, “You know what? I’ve never knowingly been in character in my life. I’ve heard great things about it, but it’s outside of my experience.” I understand character, but I don’t understand the ‘in’ bit. I don’t know where people go – where do they go ‘in’? It’s work, you go to work, you have to be self-conscious, and you have to be able to observe yourself. You don’t want to go ‘in’ anywhere.

Also, Jack Thorne, and his wife Rachel, who wrote the script, my God. He said last night that this was the greatest research programme he’d ever been involved in because he and his wife have an IVF son, and the director also has two IVF children, and Amanda Posey has an IVF child. So there was that element, which, obviously, informed the general atmosphere. He’d done masses of research, and everything I needed to know in order to perform this role was in the script.

What similarities do you see between Patrick and yourself?

I’d love to think that [I have some similarities] – because he had some courage, Patrick Steptoe. There were three surgeons at that hospital, and when abortion was legalised, two of them refused to do any of them and Patrick Steptoe did all of them. That’s a very remarkable decision to make. I would love to think that I would have the courage to be like him.

Whenever it’s that period, I think about my dad. My dad was very decent, like most people’s dads, a very straightforward and right-thinking bloke who tried to behave accordingly. That’s not peculiar to the 1960s or the 1950s. But there is an atmosphere, that period. Apparently, everyone has nostalgia for a period 70 years before they were born.

Apparently, 16th-century monks in 1640 used to write saying, “It was great in 1600. It was marvellous in 1599. Look, the whole place has gone to pieces. Do you remember when it was good?” Politicians manipulate people by saying, “We’re going to make America great again,” or in England, “We’re going to make England exceptional again.” Tell it to the women. Ask the women how they feel about that. Ask any of the different ethnicities how they feel about that. Ask gay people how they feel about that.

Civilisation only just got started. Women got the vote in 1920-something, homosexuality was legal in 1967. We really got serious when George Floyd was brutally tortured and murdered. Race became a real… I mean, it’s always been an issue, obviously, a priority, but it became a very hot issue. It’s just getting started.

The film makes it clear the combined work of Patrick, alongside Robert Edwards and Jean Purdy, really made IVF the success that it has become. What do you think about Jean’s contribution being ignored until 2015 when it was Patrick’s son, Andrew, who unveiled the plaque naming all of them?

As I said before, it’s one of the things that drew me to it, because I think we really need to unplug that before anyone’s going to start having a good time. There’s all these systems in place which seem to be in place unconsciously to make sure that no one really has a good time, and sexism is one of them.

They say that, at one point, India functioned something like 25% under its potential because of its attitudes to women. It’s not that long ago, maybe 100 years, maybe a bit more, where men, professional, educated, so-called educated men, would tell you that it was pointless educating a woman because her brain was not substantial enough to retain all that information. That was a widely held opinion, and that’s not very long ago. That’s probably my grandparents’ time. We’re just getting started.

You said recently that having children is like science fiction. To what extent would you subscribe to that expression one hears occasionally – “Every child is a miracle”?

I do think that it’s an extraordinary thing. Two people do this thing and then they make a human being. I mean, come on. It is like science fiction. I was present at my daughter’s birth, and nothing prepares you for it. Everybody’s an expert before the event. They always tell you about this, that and the other. You’re never going to sleep for 20 years, blah, blah, blah.

It’s like everyone’s an expert on training a dog. Everyone suddenly becomes incredibly informative about training a dog. But nothing prepares you for the moment when they hand you this real, live thing. It’s like a crash course in perspective. Suddenly, you think, “Oh, I see, it’s not about me, it’s about this. Those days are gone.” Yeah, miracle will do. The human brain and body and organs and tissue are miraculous.

Joy had its world premiere at the 68th BFI London Film Festival. It’s in selected cinemas and on Netflix from 15 November.