Billy Connolly
Billy Connolly
William "Billy" Connolly, CBEis a Scottish comedian, musician, presenter and actor. He is sometimes known, especially in his native Scotland, by the nickname "The Big Yin". His first trade, in the early 1960s, was as a welderin the Glasgow shipyards, but he gave it up towards the end of the decade to pursue a career as a folk singer, firstly in the Humblebums alongside friend Gerry Rafferty until 1971, and subsequently as a solo artist. In the early 1970s, he...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth24 November 1942
CityAnderston, Scotland
I love Los Angeles. It reinvents itself every two days.
When I read 'Be real, don't get caught acting,' I thought, 'How the hell do you do that?'.
Ally MacLeod thinks that tactics are a new kind of mint.
I started to draw desert islands. They were just rough, shapes in the middle of the page. Then I began drawing shapes within those shapes and I was amazed how quickly the islands got better. It took off from there.
Heckling is an act of cowardice. If you want to speak, get up in front of the microphone and speak, don't sit in the dark hiding. It's easy to hide and shout and waste people's time.
I loved Japan. I used to read a lot about it when I was a child. And I always wanted to go. And it was delightful. I absolutely loved it. What a smashing place.
I don't understand art-speak. My pictures are big doodles. I'm amazed what people come up with when they look at them. There's one of a figure with two heads that somebody thought must be a comment on the state of matrimony. None of it is a comment on anything.
I don't have wild dogs chasing people with scripts away from my door. I get my share. I've done okay. But I usually do independent stuff because that's mostly what I'm offered.
I still do my comedy and my performance stuff and my acting so it's not all-consuming. But I do find myself drawing more and more these days.
I have been made redundant before and it is a terrible blow; redundant is a rotten word because it makes you think you are useless.
When you involved in an accident and someone asks "are you alright?" Yes fine thanks, I'll just pick up my limbs and be off.
Chic Murray once told me he fell in the street, and a woman said to him, Did you fall? He said, No, I'm tryin' to break a bar of chocolate in my back pocket.
If you don't know how to meditate at least try to spend some time every day just sitting.
Don't work out, work in.