Bill Nighy has told The Brendan O'Connor Show on RTÉ Radio 1 that he is "very proud" to carry an Irish passport as he joined the programme to discuss his new drama, the Ireland-filmed 500 Miles, in which he plays an Irish grandfather.
"I do identify as Irish because when Brexit happened, like a million other British or English people, I applied for citizenship," the Love Actually star recounted.
"Both my grandparents on my mother's side were born in Ireland, and therefore I qualify. So, I am now an Irish citizen; I am a half-Irishman, or whatever you want to call it.
"I travelled here today on my shiny, relatively new Irish passport, which I'm very proud of. And I cruise through security - everyone welcomes the Irish."
Watch: The trailer for 500 Miles
"Did they say welcome home when you arrived in Dublin?" asked the host.
"I thought there'd be a brass band or something, but no, there was nothing," Nighy sighed. "There were no flags."
"Once the news of this gets out, we'll be claiming you. And then we'll get offended when anyone calls you British and everything!" laughed O'Connor.
"But it is odd because you are seen in many ways - through acting, if nothing else, but I think in yourself as well - as the classic kind of English dude," continued the presenter. "Did you inherit any Irish traits from your mother, do you think?"
"I don't think so," said Nighy.
"I don't know what Irish traits are, really, as opposed to anybody else. But I am sometimes described as somehow a quintessential Englishman, which I have not striven for that profile! I don't quite know how that happened. It must be because, as you suggest, parts I've played."
Nighy's latest role as an Irish grandfather sees him star opposite Clare Dunne, Michael Socha, and young actors Roman Griffin Davis and Dexter Sol Ansell in a film billed as "a poetic, life-affirming road movie and celebration of the human spirit".
Directed by BAFTA winner Morgan Matthews (Atomic People, The Last Survivors) and written by Malcolm Campbell (Bad Sisters, Ackley Bridge, What Richard Did), 500 Miles is an adaptation of the Mark Lowery book Charlie and Me: 421 Miles from Home.
"500 Miles came to me a while back and it was not a complicated decision to make," Nighy told the programme.
"It was a lovely script and a great cast. And it was an opportunity to come to Ireland, and we shot in a beautiful summer - I think it was summer, it was certainly beautiful! - and it was on the Wicklow coast.
"The story, I won't want to tell you too much about it because it's difficult to talk about without spoiling it. But Morgan Matthews, the director, who's a very up-and-coming young director in England - that reassured me, and I thought I was in good hands."
When asked by O'Connor if this was his first time playing an Irish character, Nighy replied: "It's not my first time, actually."
"On English television, years ago, you might be just about old enough to remember, they did a series of plays called Play for Today," he continued. "It would be an hour-long single play every week - something you wouldn't be able to get away with now because the marketeers would deny you that opportunity.
"They also did a short season of six Plays for Tomorrow, and I did a play in probably the seventies (1983), which was set in 2016 (the drama was called Easter 2016). I played Irish in an otherwise completely Irish cast, which was no pressure!"
500 Miles opens in Irish cinemas on Friday, 15 May.
The Brendan O'Connor Show, Saturdays and Sundays, RTÉ Radio 1, 11am
