Toby Stephens: Being born into the theatre was a mixed blessing - Telegraph Toby Stephens: Being born into the theatre was a mixed blessing Actor Toby Stephens tells Tim Walker why having famous parents isn't always easy. Toby Stephens, above, is preparing for a role in Ibsen's 'A Doll's House' at the Donmar Warehouse Photo: MARTIN POPE By Tim Walker 7:00AM BST 21 May 2009 It amuses Toby Stephens to see himself occasionally mooted as a successor to Daniel Craig as James Bond. "God knows, I could use the money, but it won't happen," the 40-year-old actor says. "They had enough problems with a blond Bond. The idea of someone with reddish hair getting the part would cause insurrection." The son of Dame Maggie Smith and the late Sir Robert Stephens has a nice line in self-deprecation. He has, however, notched up some fine performances over the years: Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre for the BBC, the title role in an RSC production of Coriolanus, and, more recently, King John in Robin Hood.

His one brush with Bond – as the baddy in Die Another Day with Pierce Brosnan – was, he says now, something of an aberration. "I have no idea how I got the part. I remember meeting Lee Tamahori, the director, and asking him about my character, as they had only sent me three pages of script. He said, 'Well, in a nutshell, you are playing a Korean who has been genetically modified into being a westerner', and I must say he lost me somewhere in that sentence. I had a lot of fun making that film, but honestly it wasn't where I came from or what I was a part of, and I subsequently just got on with what I had been doing before." Stephens is about to open in a production of Ibsen's A Doll's House at the Donmar Warehouse in Covent Garden, and it is clearly his stage work – along with his family – that mean the most to him. Anna-Louise, his New Zealand-born actress wife of the past eight years, has just presented him with an 8lb 4oz baby girl whom they have called Tallulah. They already have a boy named Eli, who was born in 2007.

Toby says Dame Maggie took a sharp intake of breath at the name of her granddaughter. "She thought of Tallulah Bankhead, a Hollywood actress of some repute. 'I love the name, of course, but you must understand she was a very naughty woman,' she told me. 'She was addicted to cocaine and had, among other things, a huge lesbian following.' " Related Articles Maggie Smith's actor son Toby Stephens pleads for 'class-blind’ casting 03 Oct 2012 One can imagine his mother delivering the lines with her customary relish, but then she is – as Sir Robert once was – a larger-than-life character. There was a time when Toby resented all the questions about his parents, who starred together in the 1969 film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. But now he understands the fascination that they both continue to garner, and it makes him feel proud. Sir Robert was still married to his second wife when he met Maggie while working at the National Theatre in the mid-Sixties, and, after a torrid affair, they became man and wife in 1967, 10 days after the birth of their first son, Christopher.

Toby eschews the glamorous life that they lived, and one suspects there is a somewhat studious normality about his family life in north London. He says he seldom, if ever, goes to showbusiness parties. He has clearly learnt the lessons from his parents' stormy eight-year union: the rows, the ceaseless media attention and his father's drinking and philandering. Ten years ago, Stephens realised he had inherited his father's addiction to alcohol, and, as it was beginning to take its toll on his work on stage, he decided never to drink again. Sir Robert died at the age of 64 in 1995 after liver and kidney transplants, but would have been furious if anyone had ever suggested he was an alcoholic. "Of course he was an alcoholic in the same way that I am, in that he had no control over his drinking. If I were to have one drink now, I would want another and it would be agony if I couldn't. I simply decided to spare myself that by not allowing myself the first glass. People go on about me inheriting my father's demons and so on, but I think where the booze is concerned it is actually a boring biochemical thing that has been passed on to me.

"I associate my alcoholism with diabetes as both Robert and his sister had that disease. I have a friend who has been through the same thing. A lot of alcoholics who give up drinking then become addicted to cakes, chocolate, dessert. I really do believe it stems from the same imbalance within us." He reckons it's low self-esteem that gets a lot of people into acting, the chance to escape into other characters and the quick fix of applause, and that was almost certainly a factor in his father's addiction to sex. He has not, however, inherited his wandering eye. He was linked to one or two women in his younger days, including Alison Fogg, a language graduate to whom he was engaged, but he concedes his drinking wrecked their relationship. When in New York he was reunited with Anna-Louise at an audition – they had been at Lamda together – he was dry and therefore able to appreciate her. "We have had a settled relationship from the start. I like that as I like a settled family life now. I think I am more like my mother in that respect.

I have enough insecurity in my career – I never know what I will be doing next or how I will be – that I honestly don't need any more of it." Toby's mother and her second husband, the playwright Beverley Cross, gave him and Christopher (also an actor, with the stage name Chris Larkin) a tranquil upbringing in rural Sussex. He was educated at Aldro School and Seaford College before the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. It is Cross that Stephens calls his father rather than Sir Robert, whom he always refers to by his Christian name. "Dad was a calming influence on all of us. My mother found the break-up of her marriage to Robert very painful because she still loved him very much, but really his drinking and all the other issues had made her position untenable. God knows what kind of an upbringing I would have had if my mother's relationship with Robert hadn't broken up when it did, but I think it was good for me and my brother that things worked out the way that they did." He clearly reveres his mother and says her acting continues to inspire him even if, at 74, she does complain to him that she is only ever asked to play "old boots".

Last year was difficult for them both with her breast-cancer scare. A tumour was removed, and she completed a course of chemotherapy. "It knocked her for six but she has overcome that, thank God, and she is now back on form. If I have strength, then I certainly got it from her. I think the grandchildren have given us a new bond: she sees me going through, with my wife, what she had to go through for me." Inevitably, he sometimes bumps into women that Sir Robert took to his bed – it is a long and rather illustrious list that includes, among others, Vanessa Redgrave and Lady Antonia Fraser. But Stephens is not judgmental. Lady Antonia he sees quite often, because she moves in similar circles to him. "I like her, very much. I think it would be quite wrong to let my opinion of her be informed by what has happened in the past. People's lives are very complicated and always changing. Robert was not exactly an innocent party in that situation, in any case." He adds that his mother is "very good friends" with Sir Robert's second wife, Tarn, and that he is very close to his half-sister Lucy and her husband Mark.

"It's funny to think of all these disparate people that Robert has brought together – I think it's rather a wonderful legacy, in a way." Tim Walker is the theatre critic of 'The Sunday Telegraph' 'A Doll's House' is on until July 18. To book tickets, visit Toby Stephens - Biography - IMDb Toby Stephens Jump to: Overview (2) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trivia (21) | Personal Quotes (16) Overview (2) 5' 11" (1.8 m) Mini Bio (1) Toby Stephens began his acting career while a stagehand at the Chichester Festival Theatre, in end-of-season productions mounted by the crew. In his brief professional career, he has already won the Sir John Gielgud Prize for Best Actor and the Ian Charleson Award for his performance in the title role of "Coriolanus" at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1994. His other work at the RSC includes "Measure for Measure", "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "Antony and Cleopatra", "Wallenstein", "All's Well That Ends Well" and "Unfinished Business".

Stephens also starred in Peter Hall 's production of "Tartuffe" at the Aldwych Theatre and has just finished filming The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1996). His television appearances include A View from the Bridge (2012) and The Camomile Lawn (1992). He made his screen debut in Sally Potter 's Orlando (1992). - IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous Spouse (1) ( 15 September 2001 - present) (3 children) Trivia (21) Younger brother of Chris Larkin . Attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. In 1999, appeared on Broadway in "Ring Round the Moon". Has the uncanny ability to master the American accent which, along with his smile and look, helped set him apart from the other actors reading for the part of Jay Gatsby and ultimately helped him land the role (a role he said he had the most fun playing and would do the part again in a heartbeat). Was considered for the role of "Robin" in Batman Forever (1995). Has turned down Hollywood many times; he concentrates mainly on theater.

After his parents' divorce when he was four years old, Stephens and his brother (actor Chris Larkin ) grew up traveling back and forth across the Atlantic with their mother for her numerous acting engagements. Older stepbrother of Quinn Hawkins . Father to Eli Alistair (b. May 2007), Tallulah (b. May 2009) and Kura (b. September 2010), with wife Anna-Louise Plowman . His family has been involved in three of Britain's most successful literary and film franchises. Toby played a James Bond villain in Die Another Day (2002), and later went on to play Bond himself on the radio. His father, Robert Stephens , played Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings on the radio. His mother, Maggie Smith , plays Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter films. He and his mother, Maggie Smith , have both worked with Ian McKellen . Smith appeared with him in Richard III (1995), while Stephens worked with him in a BBC Radio adaptation of "Goldfinger". McKellen also played "Smith" when he hosted Saturday Night Live (1975).

In addition, both McKellen and Robert Stephens have appeared in adaptations of "The Lord of the Rings". In 1992, he and Tara Fitzgerald co-starred in the television miniseries "The Camomile Lawn." In 1996, they again co-starred in the adaptation of Anne Brontë 's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1996). Both appeared again in Charlotte Brontë 's Jane Eyre (2006), but did not share screen time. Performing in Harold Pinter 's play "Betrayal" at the Donmar Warehouse, London as the character of "Jerry". [June 2007] Playing "Horner" in William Wycherley 's "The Country Wife" at Theatre Royal Haymarket in London. [October 2007] Soon to play "Georges Danton" in Georg Buchner 's "Danton's Death" at the National Theatre, London.

[2010] Plays in 'Henrik Ibsen''s "Doll's House" in Donmar Warehouse Theatre until 18th July 2009 alongside 'Gillian Anderson', Tara Fitzgerald and Christopher Eccleston . [June 2009] Performing as "Hamlet" in William Shakespeare 's "Hamlet" with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford upon Avon. [July 2004] Playing "Henry" in Tom Stoppard 's "The Real Thing" at The Old Vic, London. [April 2010] Was delivered via Caesarean section due to being in the breech position. Personal Quotes (16) Some men are into Hollywood glamor stuff and some are not. I've learnt an enormous amount from my children. Mostly that my agenda isn't the most important thing in the world. For a while, I was trying to squeeze them into my life. And it was such torment! It makes you realize how selfish you are. Growing up, I went to many schools, and I had to fit in to many different types of environments with totally different social groups. It helps me out as I move from job to job.

That's the privilege of being a grandparent - they can indulge the children while parents have to be the bad guy. Grandparents can also be subversive and naughty with them. My parents' parents were regular working-class people. I ended up speaking in a certain way, and one gets sidelined into doing certain parts. I think that is really quite narrow-minded. I'm fair-skinned, so beaches are a bit boring for me. I'm either smeared in lotion or under a shade. However, I do love the sea - diving, swimming and snorkeling. I blub all the time, in the most weird situations - not in the ones that should make me cry. Music makes me very emotional. I love Scotland, mainly for its landscape. I like walking, and it's a great place to go hiking. Screen is satisfying because it's so technical and mysterious. It's like playing roulette: you get a script, you think it's either great or naff, but you have no idea how it will really turn out. On stage, you are your own editor - and you get brief moments of grace, where suddenly you feel free. I think all parts come with baggage unless it is a brand new play.

If one was daunted by that, you would never do anything. If I was to meet Lou Reed or Bob Dylan , I would be totally helpless. Writers and musicians make me feel completely starstruck. I love traveling with my laptop because I get a bit nervous if I can't access my e-mails. Actors don't listen to each other. You're so obsessed with what you're saying or doing that the other person could be talking in Swahili and you wouldn't know. I would love to be in a Jimmy McGovern drama on TV, but there is no way he would ever ask me unless it would be to play a lawyer or something. I am a Londoner and I love my home. There are many things about this country which drive me crazy, but when I am in America, I feel wrong there. The Humpback Trail on New Zealand's South Island is really beautiful. It is a 70 km walk over about four days and is fairly arduous. You go through prehistoric forest and up to the top of Humpback Mountain, where there are amazing views down to the Tasman Sea.

See also Toby Stephens on why he'll NEVER star in Downton Abbey with mother Maggie Smith | Daily Mail Online comments Blame James Bond. He may have introduced the world to Toby Stephens as arch baddie Sir Gustav Graves, but the 007 film Die Another Day is also the reason he has been away from the small screen for some time. ‘When it comes to casting, there doesn’t always seem to be much imagination,’ he says. ‘It’s a quick grab thing — you want someone who fits the part and because of Bond they knew I could do it. For a while I was happy to play cads, bounders and posh aristocrats, but it wasn’t really me. And it was such a small fraction of what I am able to do that it felt like death.’ Having won an army of lusting fans as Jane Eyre’s caddish lover Rochester and the evil Prince John in Robin Hood, he preferred to stretch his acting muscles on stage and in movies, so it has taken something completely different to lure him back to the box.

It's a fair cop: Toby Stephens with co-star Miranda Raison in the new BBC2 show Vexed Toby Stephen's mother Maggie Smith as Violet in the hit TV series Downton Abbey As the hero of BBC2 comedy Vexed, his character, detective Jack Armstrong, is hard-bitten, misogynistic, and very, very silly — and Toby, 43, is delighted to finally play someone who isn’t posh or evil. ‘Jack is much more like me than any of the other characters I have played. I am very laid-back and I have a lot of his faults, which is why I identify with him. He’s lazy, he gets it wrong, he is a bit cack-handed; there is no malice to him. Doing this stuff is the most fun I have ever had.’ In fact, this is his second outing as Jack — Vexed, an ironic take on cop shows running from The Sweeney to Ashes To Ashes, was a three-part series in 2010 but the original production company ran into financial difficulties and the follow-up has only just come out.

Toby is thrilled that it takes the mickey out of what he believes is ‘such an over-egged genre’. Not one to mince his words, he is straightforward and open about everything from his alcoholism to his illustrious background. Dame Maggie Smith with her son Toby Stephens at the Barbican to toast his London debut as Coriolanus The son of Downton Abbey’s indomitable Dame Maggie Smith and her first husband, actor Sir Robert Stephens, he virtually grew up on the stage. His parents divorced when he was four and his formative years were spent criss-crossing the Atlantic — to wherever his mother was working. It could be this transient childhood which makes him as engaging as he is. ‘Growing up I went to many schools and I had to fit in to many different types of environments with totally different social groups,’ he recalls. ‘It helps me out as I move from job to job.’ An intense and admittedly obsessive young man, he left his drama school Lamda (the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art) knowing some jealous souls hoped he would fail. But he showed early promise, became a member of the RSC, and won the Sir John Gielgud and Ian Charleson Awards for his acting.

However, he admits he wasn’t always happy. And so he drank. He would go on 24-hour benders; he looked bloated and forgot his lines. But seeing the damage other alcoholics around him were doing to themselves, and feeling increasingly like ‘I was imploding’, one day he decided to give up. He hasn’t touched a drop in 12 years. ‘There is all this romantic nonsense about Burton and O’Toole and hell raisers like that,’ he says. ‘Nowadays the industry doesn’t have the money to employ people who are going to mess around and turn up not knowing their lines, all over the place. ‘People think they are amazing because they did all this work while they were drunk — but just imagine how good they could have been if they weren’t. ‘Giving up alcohol is the best choice I have ever made. If I had carried on drinking, I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t have my kids. I feel incredibly lucky.’ Toby has an understated lifestyle with his actress wife Anna-Louise Plowman and their three children, Eli, five, Tallulah, three, and two-year-old Kura.

Toby Stephens as Rochester with his co-star Ruth Wilson as Jane Eyre in a film adaptation of the classic novel by Charlotte Bronte Die Another Day: Toby Stephens with his co-stars Madonna, portraying a fencing instructor, Pierce Brosnan as James Bond and Rosamund Pike as Miranda Frost The James Bond cast: Toby Stephens with his fellow co-stars of Die Another Day, Rosamund Pike, Pierce Brosnan, Halle Berry and Rick Yune They met at Lamda but got together when they both went up for the same voiceover part in New York. At more than 6ft, she is 3in taller than Toby, who says: ‘I look like her pet dwarf when she’s got heels on’. They live in East London and share the childcare between them — taking it in turns to work. Having three children in such quick succession was a happy accident and Toby admits he finds it exhausting. ‘After a day looking after all three of them I’m in pieces,’ he says.

‘You go through the entire range of emotions — they drive you crazy, then you think they are the most gorgeous things in the world, then you are laughing, then you are on your knees crying.’ Dame Maggie, who is famously sharp-tongued, is the perfect granny, says Toby. ‘She loves, really loves, being around them. She was stern with me but around them she is a real softie. That’s the privilege of being a grandparent — they can indulge the children while parents have to be the bad guy. Grandparents can also be subversive and naughty with them. And she certainly is.’ The Queen's Sister: Toby Stephens as Andrew and Lucy Cohu as Princess Margaret Robin Hood: Toby Stephens as Prince John and Lara Pulver as Isabella The two are obviously close, but he says he has no intention of working on Downton. ‘I have a policy with my mum — we both kind of think that the family acting thing is a bit naff,’ he says. ‘I cringe when I see that someone obviously thought, “Hey, we’re both actors, why don’t we do something together?” ’ Toby has a busy year ahead.

He is promoting a new movie; All Things To All Men, a film with Gabriel Byrne and Rufus Sewell in which he plays a bank robber, then he will start filming The Machine, about a sentient android. In October, he returns to the stage where he started his working life, starring in Private Lives in Chichester. Although he has worked in the U.S. he says: ‘I am a Londoner and I love my home. There are many things about this country which drive me crazy, but when I am in America I feel wrong there. Bright sunshine all day is fine for a week or two, but I’m a redhead and it’s not great for me. ‘What I’ve got here is all good stuff. I used to be so worried about not getting this job or not taking that job, but having the kids has put everything into perspective. I’ve got to keep the wagon going.’ Vexed is on BBC2 at 9pm on Wednesday.

Toby Stephens interview: 'Downton wouldn't be right for me' - Telegraph Film Toby Stephens interview: 'Downton wouldn't be right for me' Toby Stephens, the actor son of Dame Maggie Smith and Sir Robert Stephens, on alcoholism, piracy, and the trouble with famous parents 'Deadwood meets The Wire': Toby Stephens stars as Captain Flint in Black Sails Photo: Starz Follow Toby Stephens's ginger beard sparkles in the Californian sunlight. His Titian hair is longish and glossy, and - in his simple black T-shirt and jeans - he appears slim but not slight. We're sitting having breakfast among movie moguls and other assorted power-brokers on a Hollywood hotel patio, and Stephens has more charisma in a single freckle than all of them combined. It's been said he has the physiognomy of his father Sir Robert Stephens and the eyes of his mother Dame Maggie Smith . They are pale, penetrating and icy blue. But there's an ease and warmth that flows from him.

Stephens is currently appearing in the lead role of a big-budget TV series, Black Sails, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay for US channel Starz; in an unprecedented move it was commissioned for a second series before an episode had been aired. He's also in The Machine, a mesmerising and heartbreaking grown-up British sci-fi film that has been described as "Blade Runner on a budget". He plays a single-minded scientist whose life goes awry when he meets a brilliant woman who has made an android that appears to have emotions. To say what happens next would be giving the story away, but there are echoes of Frankenstein and Metropolis. Stephens is doing well; arguably better than he's ever done. Far from bringing him privilege, his famous heritage seems to have brought more complications and closed as many doors as it has opened. He says it has taken him until now, at 44, to feel he knows who he is and be comfortable in his own skin. Yet there's an insecurity that lurks. "I'm a pessimist, so I'm never going to be disappointed," he says.

As an actor he has received rave reviews, notably in 2006 when he was a brilliant, brooding Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre. You felt that was when his career was going to take off - more starring roles across stage, screen andTV. But it didn't really happen. He shrugs: "Things can go wrong." Related Articles Dame Maggie Smith: I've never watched Downton Abbey 15 Feb 2013 He did get to play a Bond villain in Die Another Day (2002), but he later described the film - in which his character was revealed to be a genetically modified North Korean - as "the apotheosis of ridiculousness". For a long time, he says, he suffered from feeling he could only play cad, bounder, bad boy or posh bloke. "And sometimes you get a script and you think, 'Oh, that's a good script', and it comes out rubbish. The other thing which I've also experienced is you have three children and a mortgage and you go 'I've got to work' and you do whatever comes along to pay the bills.

You can't polish a turd you know." 'You do whatever comes along to pay the bills': Toby Stephens (Hugo Glendinning) He is married to the New Zealand-born actress Anna-Louise Plowman and they have three children (Eli, six, Tallulah, four, and Kura, three). Stephens knew Anna-Louise at drama school, but they didn't get together until they met for an audition for voice-over work in New York. "They weren't sure if they wanted a woman's voice or a man's voice and I said if I get it I'll take you out for dinner, if you get it you can take me out. I got it and I took her out and that was that." Last year he starred in a hugely successful run of Noël Coward's Private Lives at the Gielgud Theatre, in London. His parents performed in that same play, as did Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. "That play is really about people who chime together," he tells me. A few years ago the director, his good friend Jonathan Kent, wanted him to star in it with Cate Blanchett .They met when Blanchett was feeling unwell.

"There was absolutely no chemistry at all. Nothing against her but it just wasn't going to happen. When I met with Anna Chancellor I knew she was a kindred spirit. We got one another." But one play was all he could manage last year because of the huge demand of Black Sails and The Machine. Stephens calls the former, "Deadwood meets The Wire. It's not just the blood and boobs it's billed as. It's more about the mechanism of piracy rather than the fantasy of it.Whatever we've seen before has been a mythologised version and what was really good was we got halfway through filming season one and it got such a great reaction at Comic-Con it got recommissioned. Which is just as well as they've built three full-sized ships, a water tank and a shanty town on the coast of Cape Town." Black Sails is a prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island, and Stephens plays Captain Flint, the pirate who buried the eponymous treasure. He is "the most feared pirate," says Stephens. "A brilliant man who amassed a huge amount of treasure, but when we meet him he is on the ropes financially and his crew are very disgruntled.

He has the capacity for incredible violence and anger, but if you were a pirate you had to be feared otherwise it wouldn't work." The shoot was six months in South Africa, a long time to be away from his family. "It was tough, there's no dodging it. But at the same time it was such a unique job and a great opportunity. There is a point where FaceTime becomes not enough and there are only so many conversations you can have with your kids pulling faces at themselves." 'Blade Runner on a budget': Toby Stephens in The Machine Did he intend to have children in such quick succession? "No, it just happened that way. If we'd planned better there would have been more time in between them. Hard, but great fun. Anna-Louise works and that was always very much understood. I want her to have a career. I want to be able to share responsibilities for the children. In this world women need to work, they need to keep their minds." He got called to audition for Black Sails while he was in the middle of making The Machine. "We had no budget, we were working horrendous days and I was in every scene.

I said, 'There's no way I'm going to have time to put myself on tape for this. I'm not interested in a pirate show.' My agent was saying, 'No, it's not a normal pirate show, it's brilliant.' Anyway, she wore me down and then it was agony, the agony actors have when they fall in love with a character and you think, 'S---, this is cool, I'm probably not going to get this,' and this was one of the few times I actually did." It is blisteringly hot on the terrace, thanks to a fierce patio heater. Neither of us think to turn it down because we assume it can only be on full-blast or completely dead.This, it transpires, is an apt metaphor for Stephens himself. He has a moon tattoo on his arm. It's a naively drawn little moon and the subject of some regret. "I was in my twenties and I got very drunk," he says. "I don't remember much about it but I remember waking up and thinking what the f---have you done? I remember it was a guy on the Portobello Road who was covered in tattoos and wore a balaclava.

I wish I'd chosen something that was a bit more baroque, but it was a drunken decision and I haven't had a drink for 13 years now." He says this matter-of-factly rather than evangelically. He never went to Alcoholics Anonymous. Removing alcohol from his life is something he did entirely on his own. I ask him about a story I've read concerning the actress Diana Rigg. He and Rigg were doing a play together and he was so drunk he fell asleep in his dressing room, leaving his costar waiting for him on stage. It was a matinee of Racine's Britannicus. "She did forgive me, begrudgingly," he grins. "It wasn't easy. I thought she'd be more sympathetic." Kindred spirits: Stephens with Anna Chancellor in Private Lives (Alastair Muir) That was not the turning point. There are a number of other pivotal moments. "I think it's one of those things that builds over a period of time and I hit the point where it was the right time for me to stop. I have a switch, it's off or on. I don't have anything in between. There are lots of people who say go on, you can have just one.

No I can't, it's either on or off. "There was a moment of clarity where I got a theatre job in NewYork. They put me in a nice apartment. I bought this bottle of vodka on the plane coming over. I remember looking out of the window at New York and going 'I am going to f---this up so badly if I carry on the way I am. I am going to stop for two weeks and get myself together.' I went through two weeks of not drinking, which was not easy. It was then I realised how sick I was. Nights where I normally drank I couldn't sleep, I was too wired and felt awful. "But after two weeks I felt so good that I didn't want to go back to the life I was living. I remember reading a book and going to sleep and how nice that had been. I remember thinking, 'When I wake up tomorrow I am not going to feel like s---,' and that was when the switch went: 'My life is better like this'. Now I don't even think of it.

I used to get a waft of wine and I'd think, 'Oh I'd really love a glass of wine,' but I don't even get that any more." Why didn't he go to AA? "I think AA is good for people if they want it but I think there is an addiction to talking about your addiction." Stephens is not a luvvie type who enjoys the catharsis of confession and he doesn't like talking about his parents' complicated lives. And he especially dislikes the shadow they cast over him. Growing up he barely knew his father. His parents divorced when he was four and he and his brother lived with his mother who soon after married playwright Beverley Cross. Much of his childhood was spent in Canada where Dame Maggie was acting. Despite this, genetics have left their mark. Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens, with their sons Toby and Christopher, in 1972 (REX) "He's definitely in there, Robert," he sighs. He called his stepfather dad and his biological father Robert. He finally got to know him as an adult when they were both working for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

"It was good meeting him when I did and getting to know him because then I didn't have this baggage of being angry with him. I had a fantastic stepfather so I didn't resent him in any way, although I was unnerved by him. He was not an easy man although he was incredibly charming, gregarious and fun. "He was diagnosed with something that at the time they called hyper mania which is now called bipolar. People have euphoric phases and massive crashes. It's a form of depression. He used to suffer from this quite badly. When I found this out it changed my view of him because, prior to that, I'd thought of him as just a boozer and a womaniser and then suddenly I realised he just wasn't in control; it was a chemical in his body. "I got to know him when he was having a renaissance at the RSC with King Lear and I was doing Coriolanus at the same time. I feel he was conflicted. "He was proud of me and at the same time incredibly frustrated it wasn't him, so it was odd. Then I saw him get very, very ill with alcohol.

That was hard on everyone, not just me." Robert Stephens developed gall bladder cancer and was treated with radiotherapy, which killed the new kidney they had given him. After a "long, demeaning illness", he died in 1995. "And it was all self-inflicted," says his son. "All those years of abuse. You have done this to yourself." That should make anyone give up drink. "Exactly. That was one of those things where you see how destructive it is. It's not just affecting one person, it's affecting everyone around them. It took me a while to figure it out, for it to percolate through my consciousness before I made my decision. I had flirted with sobriety. I had stopped for a year while he was ill to say to him, 'Look if I can do this you can do this.' It didn't work. He was still drinking and smoking. When he died I went, 'Oh f---it, I'm going to drink again.'" It was a temporary relapse and a tough time in his life. His stepfather, Cross, also died around the same time. "He was a lovely man, very stable. He really looked after my mum and was just great.

My mother and him had been lovers before she metmy father. My parents split when I was four. My mother just went, quite rightly so, I've got two children that I'm responsible for and your life is in total chaos and our life is in total chaos." He and his mother are extremely close. What they went through together bonded them. (Charmingly, when Stephens disrobed on stage for Coriolanus, his mother was reportedly heard during the interval exclaiming that she hadn't seen him naked since he was five.) He says if he gets any time off after Black Sails this year he won't do another play, although perhaps he'll direct a short film he's written. It is an area he would like to pursue. "I'm going to see what happens. I want to settle myself at the moment and I'm quite happy to just be with my family." So the rumour that he was going to make an appearance in Downton Abbey to star with his mother isn't true? His pale face suddenly looks even whiter. READ: Maggie Smith: Hollywood treats us like 5-year-olds "No. Downton has an amazing following but it wouldn't be right for me.

On the whole I don't watch television. I've seen a couple of episodes of it, but not deliberately. When you have kids you don't really watchTVany more and when I do I binge-watch box sets of Breaking Bad." I tell him how much I enjoyed his mother's scenes with Shirley MacLaine . "I didn't see them, sadly," he replies. "I would like to work with my mum but it would have to be something else. It would perhaps be one scene. And also it's not that I'm running away from it, but at this stage I want people to know me. I don't like what happens when you get mulched together." I tell him a friend of mine with famous parents once said: "Having famous parents is like communism. Sounds a great idea but it never works." "Exactly, and I've struggled with that for a lot of my life, so I try to go, 'This is my mum, this is me.' We are on totally separate paths and we are separate entities. We are not from some acting dynasty or anything. I don't want a dynasty.

It just so happens that I'm an actor." He tells me that one of the producers of Black Sails got chatting one night and asked him about his childhood and why he was in Canada. "He said, 'Your mum was an actress? Who?' And when I told him he said, 'You're f------ joking. That's surreal.' And I thought that was great. What's nice for me is that she is in my genetic make-up. I embrace that, I love that. But that's just part of me." The Machine is in cinemas and on VoD on March 21 and on DVD on March 31; themachinemovie.com ; Private Lives will be screened in UK cinemas on February 6. See cinemalive.com Birthplace: Middlesex Hospital, London, England, UK The son of Dame Maggie Smith and the late Sir Robert Stephens, Toby Stephens was to the theatrical manor born. An accomplished actor in his own right, Stephens, who bears a distinct resemblance to his mother, was born in April of 1969.

After his parents' divorce when he was four years old, Stephens and his brother (actor Chris Larkin) grew up traveling back and forth across the Atlantic with their mother for her numerous acting engagements. After training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, Stephens began his professional career as a stagehand at the Chichester Theatre Festival. He had his film debut with a bit part in Sally Potter's 1992 adaptation of Orlando, but it was on the stage that he first made a name for himself. At the age of 25, Stephens won a Sir John Gielgud Best Actor Award and an Ian Charleson Award for his title role in the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1994 production of Coriolanus. He went on to perform in a number of plays with the RSC, including Measure for Measure, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Antony and Cleopatra. In 1996, Stephens attracted the attention of an international film audience with his role as the melancholy Duke Orsino in Trevor Nunn's lush adaptation of Twelfth Night.

That same year, he starred alongside Rupert Graves and Tara Fitzgerald in the acclaimed television adaptation of Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, further earning a reputation as a man who could actually make frock coats look sexy. More period attire -- this time early 1900s -- followed in 1997, when Stephens starred as a jaded, grieving photographer who captures a supernatural phenomenon with his camera in Photographing Fairies. That same year, he could again be seen doffing a frock coat for his role in Cousin Bette. The film featured him as Jessica Lange's nephew; coincidentally, he had played Stanley Kowalski to her Blanche DuBois a year earlier in Peter Hall's London production of A Streetcar Named Desire. In 1999, Stephens again stepped back a few eras -- this time to the opulent St. Petersburg of the Empire Period -- to play Vladimir Lensky, hot-blooded best friend of Ralph Fiennes' Evgeny Onegin in Martha Fiennes' adaptation of Onegin.

In addition to his screen work, he continued to perform on the stage, winning particular acclaim for his work opposite Diana Rigg in both Phedre and Britannicus in London and New York. Photos Edward Rochester George Pritchard William Dodd David Connelly Gentleman Farmer No Score Yet Maggie Smith | Downton Abbey Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Episode 1.01 to 2015 Christmas Special Dame Margaret Smith (born as Margaret Natalie Smith on 28th December 1934; Ilford, England) known professionally as Maggie Smith, is the actress who plays Violet Crawley in Downton Abbey . Smith made her stage debut in 1952 and has had an extensive, varied career in stage, film and television spanning over sixty years. Smith has appeared in over 50 films and is one of Britain's most recognisable actresses. Apart from her role as Violet she is probably best known for her roles in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and Gosford Park as well as her role as Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter film series.

She won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the film California Suite, as well as two Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe [1] for her performance as Violet Crawley. Smith has previously worked with Julian Fellowes on the film Gosford Park, often viewed as a predecessor of Downton Abbey. She is the mother of actor Toby Stephens, who is currently portraying the lead role of Captain Flint on the Starz production Black Sails. Maggie Smith’s famous son won’t watch ‘Downton Abbey’ – EW.com Pinterest Who doesn’t love to watch Dame Maggie Smith’s Emmy-winning Dowager Countess and her cunning bons mots? Her own son! Actor Toby Stephens told reporters at the Television Critics Association press tour on Friday that he doesn’t enjoy watching Downton Abbey. The former Bond villain and lead in Starz’s upcoming pirate drama Black Sails was asked whether he’d prefer to be on a sleepy drama like the ITV/PBS hit rather than his action-heavy new show. “Any day of the week, I’d prefer to be on the show I am now,” Stephens said. “I appreciate Downton Abbey for what it is.

I don’t regularly tune in. It’s not really a show I enjoy — It’s just not really what I enjoy watching. Playing this kind of thing for me is like going on an exotic vacation because we don’t do this kind of stuff in the UK. … I’ve seen [UK shows], I’ve done it, I don’t want to do it for the rest of my life. This is fantastic story and production values, that’s what I want to be involved in.” In other words: Forget that low-budget British-y stuff, bring on more Michael Bay! Show Full Article

Question: Who is the mother of the actor Toby Stephens ?
Answer: (Dame) MAGGIE SMITH