Actor Bill Nighy said he stole the complete works of William Shakespeare from a library to prepare for his drama school audition.

The Oscar-nominated star said he applied for the Guildford School of Acting to impress a girl but had to prepare two pieces for the audition – one from a modern playwright and the other from Shakespeare.

Along with his older friend, they “stole the complete works of Shakespeare, and we stole the complete works of George Bernard Shaw which we thought was sort of modern,” Nighy told BBC Radio 4’s This Cultural Life.

“We could have borrowed it like everybody else, but for some reason, we were sort of developing a criminal mentality,” the 74-year-old said.

Nighy said he inadvertently learned two female parts for the audition while “down the pub” with his friend.

He performed the role of Eliza Doolittle from Shaw’s play Pygmalion, and the part of Cesario in Twelfth Night – not realising the part was female character Viola disguised in male clothing.

Despite the audition panel looking “a bit confused” by his interpretation of the brief, Nighy said he was invited back “with more suitable material”.

He was later accepted into the drama school.

Nighy said the girl he was trying to impress had originally written a letter to the drama school to gain an audition.

“She could have said astronaut and I would have given it a shot,” he admitted.

During his career, which saw him nominated for an Oscar last year for his role in Living, Nighy has performed two Shakespeare plays professionally.

The first was The Taming Of The Shrew at the Gateway Theatre in Chester, and the second was King Lear with Sir Anthony Hopkins at the National Theatre in London.

He told BBC Radio 4: “I retired from Shakespeare sometime after that… nobody took a blind bit of notice, but I just thought, ‘I can’t go through this any more because I don’t have any particular interest in the delivery of Shakespeare’.

“I understand he’s the greatest poet the world has ever known, but the performance of it, I will leave to other people.”