Two actors

Bill Nighy seems to be the darling of the critics. In a play by David Hare last week Bill Nighy played the part of a government official who is targeted for making a statement about the prime minister that could prove damning. Talk about playing the part smoothly! He wandered though the play like a man half asleep. Yet one TV critic wrote about how wonderful Nighy is and that when he, the critic, grows old he hoped he would grow old like Bill Nighy - old but young in character, old but still attractive to the ladies, old but with a good head of hair, old but able to wear a suit well. And so on. Nobody says how limited Nighy is; how he makes every part he plays into a Bill Nighy; how he languidly strolls around tiredly mouthing his lines as if he's afraid they might do some damage if he shouts them.
Compare him with Dominic West who was also recently in a play (serial, rather), The Hour, and who then appeared in a play (2 parter) about Fred West, the infamous murderer. In the first play Dominic West was your handsome, smooth, upper crust middle aged gentleman who had a beautiful wife but loved a female colleague. In the second he had transformed himself into a louse, a man with no morals but with a banter that made him almost likeable (something the Daily Mail complained about and they do have a point I suppose). Here was the Dominic West face but in two different guises: one, your cool ex-public school guy as handsome as Cary Grant; the other, a guy you might listen to but whose presence you'd get away from as fast as you could.
This was a masterly performance which Bill Nighy, likeable as he is, would not, could not play. I'm afraid that what he has become is a "character actor" capable of cameo roles while Dominic West is becoming something of a great actor.