Bill Nighy has claimed he once turned down a job working in a club in France where they offered him 200 francs to sleep with older women when he was just 16 years-old.
The Surrey-born actor, 73, moved to Paris as a teenager after he finished school and applied to work in a fancy bar in the French capital.
He decided it wasn’t quite for him, however, when they explained that more would be expected of him than just waiting tables. He rejected the offer as he was a virgin at the time, and worried he lacked the required experience.
Nighy told The Sun: “I was offered a job at a club and it was explained that if I slept with women of a certain age, they’d give me 200 francs.
“I never did it because I’d never done it and would not know how.”
The veteran star, whose film credits include Love Actually, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, and more, also opened up about the pivotal moment he decided to ditch drugs and alcohol early on in his career.
He told the publication: “Had I continued to drink and take other drugs, I would not be having this conversation. That is the central fact of my life. I got help.
“There’s not a day that goes by when I don’t thank my lucky stars I do not have to drink.”
His words come ahead of this year’s Oscars on Sunday where Nighy is nominated in the Best Actor category for his role of Mr Williams in Living.
Nighy plays a civil servant who reassesses his life decisions after being diagnosed with a terminal illness and strikes up an unlikely friendship with a younger colleague who is played by Sex Education’s Aimee Lou Wood.
