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Toby's the best man for the job
TOBY STEPHENS found himself being best man twice
while filming his latest role.
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."
• The Best Man, STV, Monday, 9pm
This article: http://living.scotsman.com/tv.cfm?id=425762006
Last updated: 17-Mar-06 14:49 GMT
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