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 decided to stop drinking while it was still my idea.
,000 people in Hampden Park. Of course they're all Scottish. Because no one else goes there. The English have an unwritten rule: they only go to places they might get back from.
Well, the film's not only pricking the pomposity of the Church, it's pricking the pomposity, and sometimes you would think fraudulence, of the insurance companies. I had never read anything like this until I was doing the film, but Mark [Joffe, the director] and people showed me stuff where, like a flood, it mattered where the water came from. If you're flooded from above, you get the money; if you're flooded from below, you don't. What's that about?
I'm a huge film star... but you have to hurry to the movies, because I usually die in the first 15 f--ing minutes. I'm the only guy I know who died in a f--ing Muppet movie.
I've been a poser for f--ing years. I say, pose your arse off. You know, have a laugh.
A lot of people are too easily offended. Religious people, for instance. They've been offending other people for centuries.
I hate those earnest TV documentaries that are the world according to people with glasses who know better than you.
My advice to you, if you want to lose a bit of weight: don't eat anything that comes in a bucket. Buckets are the kitchen utensils of the farmyard.
I don't believe in angels, no. But I do have a wee parking angel. It's on my dashboard and you wind it up. The wings flap and it's supposed to give you a parking space. It's worked so far.
I was brought up as a Catholic. I've got A-level guilt.
I think my securities far outweigh my insecurities. I am not nearly as afraid of myself and my imagination as I used to be.
Oh aye...my Father would thrash me every now and then. He'd talk while he did it too! He'd hit me and shout, 'Have ye had enough?' Had enough? Whit kind of question is that? 'Why, Father, would another kick in the balls be out of the question???'
On George W Bush: That man sits at that desk in the White House with the button that can end the world. My father's younger than him and we don't give him the controls for the television.
Now the country is in a terrible state and you've blamed it on a number of things - unemployment rate, the value of the pound, and all that. It's actually because the national anthem is boring.