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Straight out of morning rehearsals for The Country Wife, Toby Stephens is the model of relaxed charm. Far from being an imposing Royal Shakespeare Company actor or demanding Hollywood star, he is quite a pleasure to chat to. Perhaps his jovial mood is helped by his current role. “I love doing comedy,” he says of The Country Wife, “and I’m not really asked that often. This is one of funniest of all the Restoration comedies – people coming in one door, people going out the other… And it’s all about sex!”

It’s the latest in a line of roles that’s seen Toby carve an impressive career path. His credits with the RSC include the title roles in both Coriolanus and Hamlet, but he has also fluttered a few hearts as the brooding Mr Rochester in BBC’s Jane Eyre and (boo, hiss) played James Bond’s nemesis Gustav Graves in Die Another Day. “I really wasn’t planning on being in a Bond movie,” he says a little uneasily. “When I heard that they wanted me to do it I was completely shocked because, prior to that, I didn’t really have a track record on movies. But of course working on a Bond film is, for us in the UK, about as big as it gets.”

The big screen isn’t on his mind today, however, as Toby seems to be on something of a theatre roll. Earlier this year he starred at the Donmar Warehouse in the West End revival of Harold Pinter’s 1978 play Betrayal. Now it’s The Country Wife, written by William Wycherley and first performed in 1675. Toby is playing Horner, a highly sexed aristocrat with a penchant for young ladies. He fathers a false rumour – branding himself impotent – to allow him easy access to the women of London society. “The danger of the part is that he can be a bit sleazy,” Toby considers, “but I think there’s a joy about him. I think the Carry On films are actually a very good angle on it, someone like Sid James. He was seedy, but there was also a sort of exuberance about him.”

He is clearly passionate about the role, and also about the stage in general. “I think we’re living in a particularly vapid moment in history,” he says, turning his attentions to the worrying state of the West End. “The fact that you have a TV series to cast Joseph… It’s sort of appallingly ingenious on the part of Cameron Macintosh, but to me it’s just banal. Then again I’m a ‘serious’ actor and I’m probably being an old fart about it! If you ask me, I am disgusted that there are so few serious plays on. It’s not all doom and gloom though. I think the whole £10 a season at the National Theatre is great and it’s getting young people in.”

Looking back at his own youth, Toby feels there was never any doubt in which direction he would head. “When I was at school, I discovered fairly early on that I was rubbish academically – I wasn’t going to go to university or anything like that. The one thing that I could do was take other people’s words and give them a voice. That was something I found very liberating. I knew where my talent was and I couldn’t really do anything else… Well, I probably could have, but I’d have been miserable. It wasn’t like running away to the circus – it was something that was very practical because my mum did it day in, day out.”

Ah yes, his mum – Dame Maggie Smith. Not the easiest act to follow. “People assume that if you come from one of those acting families, then it’s somehow easier for you,” Toby continues. “I actually posit that it’s harder because you have all of that to carry as well. I’m extremely proud of them [his father was the late actor Robert Stephens], but it’s taken me a long time to create my own career rather than being seen in relation to them.”

Looking at his many acting guises, where he has moved smoothly from Jane Eyre elegance to Bond baddie, via some extremely taxing RSC roles, Toby has certainly achieved his independence. “Physically I have looked different from part to part,” he says on his roles. “For example, in Jane Eyre I had all these black hair extensions and they dyed me darker so most people don’t actually recognize me on the street.” Surely he has a hefty female following after that role? “I’m not mobbed or anything like that!” he laughs. “Rochester was such a great character. He’s a complex man who ostensibly seems to be a rather depressed, grumpy and brooding person, but he’s exposed to be this very damaged, sensitive and vulnerable man.”

So it seems as if he can wander the streets of east London in peace, something that he has had the pleasure of doing for some time. “I have lived in London for about 21 years,” Toby says on his capital living. “I have been north, west and east, but for me when we moved to the East End it was sort of like coming home. I love it there – it just feels right for me.” It’s also a home that’s now blessed with his first child, Elijah, and as you’d expect fatherhood has changed Toby. “What is great about having a kid is that it stops you being so self-obsessed,” he chuckles. “I think that it has grounded me. That’s a really good thing because one can lose perspective sometimes. It’s just really nice having somebody else to worry about and not just myself!”

He admits the life an actor with child is “tough”, but his role in The Country Wife will enable him some time to spend with Elijah. What the future holds, Toby can only guess. “I genuinely have no idea,” he says munching down his final mouthful of pasta. “If I ever read that actors know what they’re doing, they are either immensely successful movie stars or they are just lying! I could go and do a big movie, or maybe TV, or even do another play. Then again, I could just sit around on my buns for months on end not doing anything!” You get the impression that whatever is around the corner, Toby is going to have a smile on his face.