Toby Stephens talks about getting away from Bond villain roles
Toby Stephens found himself being best man twice while filming his latest role - reports The Scotsman.
In front of the camera he was the unhinged Peter - the titular best man
at the wedding of Richard Coyle's Michael in new ITV thriller The Best
Man.
He gives a bitter speech, one that leaves viewers in no doubt he is not
exactly happy about his best friend's marriage to Kate, played by
Keeley Hawes.
And yet the 36-year-old actor found that best man speech less difficult
than the one he had to make in real life, at the wedding of his elder
brother, actor Chris Larkin.
"I think people always expect actors to be really great at getting up
and doing things like that," says Stephens. "But the thing is, while I
am very comfortable at assuming a character and speaking lines that
have been written for me, I'm not used to getting up as myself and
speaking in public.
"I see it as a very clear divide because in one I'm doing it
professionally - it's my job and my craft and I have somebody to hide
behind - but doing it as a real person is just as terrifying for me as
it is anyone else. It's easier pretending."
Being best man is not the only thing Stephens has in common with his
character. Both went to public school, although Stephens is pleased to
say he didn't enter into an obsessive friendship like the one Peter and
Michael embark on.
"It wasn't anything like that, no," he laughs. "But I think everyone
has nostalgic feelings for school, especially later on in life. The
irony is one spends so much of being at school desperate to become a
grown up.
"You think there's going to be some sort of halcyon period where you
never have to go to classes. Then when you grow up that period of time
seems rather lovely. I think in a way Peter is an extreme version of
that.
"He wants it always to remain as it was back in that time, he doesn't
want things to develop in a way that makes things change. He becomes
severely controlling in trying to maintain this idyllic friendship, as
he sees it."
Stephens himself has only a couple of friends from his school days,
mostly because he led an itinerant lifestyle while his mother, the
actress Dame Maggie Smith, moved around the world for work.
"I found it quite easy making friends and then moving on, so I was
never particularly sentimental about that," says Stephens. "And I think
that sometimes one forces those relationships, after a while you do
grow naturally apart.
"I don't have to work at the couple of friendships I do have from
school. And I was never particularly sentimental about that time. I
keep getting emails from people who were at school with me years ago,
and I kind of think it's a bit weird."
The son of Dame Maggie and 60s acting legend Sir Robert Stephens,
Stephens was brought up by his mother and her second husband,
playwright Beverley Cross, after his father left when he was four. The
thespian background seems to have made it inevitable he would follow
the same path.
"Like everyone I went through various career fantasies," says Stephens.
"But in the end I realised that acting was something I felt I had a
skill for. And having that background helped me in that I grew up with
a very realistic sense that it was a career.
"It's not some sort of bogus, airy-fairy, spiritual journey or
whatever, it's something you do to make a buck. And I'm very grateful
for being brought up with that because I think I've had a very
realistic attitude towards it."
Stephens quickly made an impact on the acting world after leaving drama
school in 1992, by starring in Channel 4's raunchy adaptation of Mary
Wesley's The Camomile Lawn. He followed it up with a much-lauded turn
as Coriolanus for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
But, as his father did before him, Stephens began drinking too much.
His career suffered, as did his relationship with his fiancee of four
years, Alison Fogg.
And again as his father had done, he turned his back on theatre and
went to Hollywood to pursue a career in film. It was there he was
finally able to kick his drinking problem.
"I'd seen my dad die of it (in 1995)," says Stephens, "and I felt I was
going the same way really. I was a heavy, heavy drinker and it's very
difficult getting jobs as romantic leads when you look like a tomato
and reek of beer and wine. I just thought it was better to stop."
Stephens has now been sober for six years and is married to New
Zealand-born actress Anna-Louise Plowman. Despite going to the same
drama school, they only met properly when they were both working in New
York.
But Stephens disliked working in America ("I hated it, absolutely hated
it," he says. "I think one's expectations are much more extreme when
you're younger,") and after finally landing a big role there - Bond
villain Gustav Graves in 2002's Die Another Day - he came back to the
UK.
"Doing a James Bond film opened certain doors, I think, but it wasn't
really the direction I wanted to go in," says Stephens. "I did not want
to end up playing baddies in big-budget movies for the rest of my
career.
"So I've spent the last two years doing very different things. I did a
film in India, then I came back here and did Hamlet for a year,
deliberately trying to get away from that. It's sort of been like
starting again."
Things are going well. Next up are a couple of films, one with Thora
Birch and another with Jonny Lee Miller. There's also the pivotal role
of Rochester in the BBC's upcoming adaptation of Jane Eyre. And he has
just finished a new Sharpe film with Sean Bean for ITV.
"We filmed that in India as well," says Stephens. "My wife and my
mother came out for a spell so I had about 12 days off where we went
around Rajasthan.
"I tried to do as much travelling as I could within the schedule
because most of the time we were in Jaipur and there's only so much you
can do there.
"I was a bit desperate to get out to other places."
