Toby Stephens

Toby Stephens is a great actor, who had graduated from London Academy of Music and Dramatic Act. Technically, as an actor, he has no peer. He is flawless. No other actor( American and British) of his age can touch him. This Hollywood actor is the son of Dame Maggie Smith and the late Sir Robert Stephens. Robert Stephens died when he was 64 in the year 1995 after liver and kidney transplants.

Toby's mother and her second husband gave Toby and his brother Christopher a tranquil upbringing in rural Sussex. Robert was educated at Aldro School and Seaford College at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. His mother found the break-up of her marriage to Robert very painful because she had always loved him, but his father (Robert Stephens) drinking and all the other issues had made her mother position untenable. Toby Stephens feels if his mothers’ relationship had not broken up, he and his brother could not even get proper upbringing.

However, it was good for him and his brother that things worked out the way that they did. Toby Stephens still reveres his mother and says her acting continued to inspire him even now. His first film role was Othello in 1992.He also played a memorable role in BBC Play, which was an adaptation of Jane Eyre (2006) which was based on Charlotte Bronte’s novel. Toby Stephens got to play the role of Edward Fairfax Rochester.

The actor finds American scripts are much better than British scripts. But he is not of the opinion of copying America in every department of filmmaking. He thinks America nowadays makes same movies over gangsters and violence only. In Bollywood, he played the role of a British commanding officer, William Gordon, in the film, ‘The Rising: Ballad of Mangal Pandey’(2005), portraying events in the Indian rebellion of 1857. In 2006, he appeared in British TV film Sharpe's Challenge where he narrated the role of a British East India Company officer.

It is said that when Mangal Pandey was released in England, the movie buffs liked Toby Stephens role in Bollywood, and he got the role of Major William Dodd. Even today, Hollywood audiences feel that Toby Stephens as James Bond who can match the personality and screen presence of Daniel Cragg.