Bill Nighy: Lawrence

The Girl in the Café

Lawrence

Lawrence: I think we get into the habit of always compromising, and therefore we are always compromised. We work and work all our lives and we don't get what we're working for. And I think if we were the men we all dreamed we'd be when we were all young, we'd be doing deals on all the other things and going home to explain our little failures to our own countrymen, but we wouldn't compromise the actual lives of people we will never meet, just because we'd never have to explain to them face-to-face why we didn't think it was worth fighting to stop them from dying.

Lawrence: Don't think because I'm not saying much that I wouldn't like to say a lot.

Lawrence: I've been pretending to be dead since 1am. But unfortunately I'm still alive.

Lawrence: We have a pair of unfortunate situations here. A man who has nothing in his life except his work, that is unfortunate. And then by a stroke of bizarre chance, he finds someone who makes that not true for a day or two. But then, suddenly, it seems as though the price that has to be paid for that ray of light is some kind of... disgrace. It doesn't seem quite fair.

Lawrence: It's not what you think... I know she, as it were, walked behind me in her bra... but there's actually nothing happening between us.
George: Why would it worry you if I thought there was?
Lawrence: I don't know. I suppose I fear you'd think less of her if she were with me.

Gina: When I can't sleep I pretend that I'm an extra in a film and I'm being paid for pretending to be dead... and there's a close-up camera on me... so I have to relax every muscle in my face... and finally I fall asleep.
Lawrence: I'll try it out.
Gina: Good. Pretend you're dead. It's my trick in life.

Gina: I do now know four things about Reykjavik - Bjork comes from here...
Lawrence: Spassky played Fisher here...
Gina: Zips shrink here and it is possible in Reykjavik to have a night of something quite close to love.

Lawrence: Why did you do it?
Gina: On the off-chance.
Lawrence: What off-chance"?
Gina: On the off-chance it could make a difference, and because I've got nothing to lose.
Lawrence: Except me.
Gina: I'll try to take comfort from the fact that I was trying to do what you wanted me to do even though you didn't want me to do it.
Lawrence: Gina, shall I - Shall I come home with you?
Gina: No, The nice bit's over. The rest is just disappointment and my past catching up with me again.

Lawrence: Some of the dullest people in the world are in this room. There are gold medalists in the Boredom Olympics here. Anything you say will be more interesting than anything they've ever said.

Lawrence: You're not fat... it's a well-established scientific fact that zips shrink in Iceland.

[Lawrence and Gina are discussing shopping at Marks and Spencer]
Lawrence: I'm told it's the place for dating. I'm told people go there to shop, and they get casually talking about, you know, Spaghetti a la Carbonara and suddenly love flowers by the counter for people with under five items.