Director Pablo Trapero shouldn’t take the English actor’s screen fright personally. "I am committed to never laying eyes on myself performing,” Nighy tells THR.

Talking to Bill Nighy about his star turn as a frail and at times broken novelist in & Sons is rather hampered by the British actor not having seen director Pablo Trapero’s father-and-son drama on a screen of any size ahead of its world premiere on Sunday at the Toronto Film Festival.

TIFF 2025: Director Pablo Trapero and co-writer Sarah Polley craft a film that steadily grows on you

Family, already a complicated, often painful part of our lives, is made into something even more challenging in the dynamic, deceptively intriguing drama “& Sons.” Directed by Pablo Tropero from a script he wrote with Sarah Polley that adapts the novel of the same name by David Gilbert, the film is a flawed yet fascinating film — although any review requires withholding a key piece of information about the plot to preserve the genuine experience of discovery that it provides.