There are few actors in British cinema quite as talented as Toby Jones – renowned for his diverse selection of roles and ability to step into any production, and regardless of the size of the role, have an impact. He’s certainly proven that to be the case, with two stand-out performances in Morgan and Anthropoid, which hits cinemas in the UK on the 2nd and 9th of September, respectively.
We had the pleasure of speaking to the prolific actor, and it came as no surprise that he was staying in a hotel at the time, working on yet another endeavour. But our attentions were on Morgan – Luke Scott’s directorial debut, and Anthropoid, a striking WW2 drama based on remarkable real life events. He discusses with us the joy in collaborating with Paul Giamatti in the former, and Sean Ellis in the latter. He also speaks about a screenplay he’s currently co-penning…
Ridley Scott is a producer on Morgan – how much of a bearing does that have on your decision to get involved? So often when you ask actors what attracts them to a project, it’s the screenplay, the co-stars, the director – but you rarely hear a producer cited. But was his name being involved in this project a big draw for you?
Well it certainly didn’t put me off. I’m not sure that was the main attraction, I’m not as much an aficionado of sci-fi as some people, so I was fascinated by this area of genetics and when I spoke to Luke about it and said I really enjoyed the story, he asked me to check out these websites and he pointed me to some sites where people are artificially making DNA and the whole thing suddenly seemed less a thriller and the warning element of it seemed much more prescient than I originally assumed. It felt much more relevant than a fantasy picture.
I can’t recall having seen you in many science fiction films before, and you are renowned for your versatility. Do you make a conscious decision to keep trying new things and taking on new roles in new genres, or do you just go purely dependant on the screenplay at hand?
Like most actors you’re pretty practical about it. It’s not so much looking for different genres, but just looking to expand in terms of the fact it’s more interesting to do something that contrasts with the last thing you’ve done, or the last few things you’ve done. Here was a case in point, yes I’ve played scientists before but never a contemporary one in such a relevant setting, and also he’s such a morally interesting character to play. So there’s that side of it, and also just the quality of the project, you look at Fox being behind it, and the rest of the cast involved, and the whole thing becomes very attractive because of all of that really.
There’s a wonderful scene, arguably the stand-out scene in the movie, with Paul Giamatti. He’s one of my favourite actors…
Mine too.
It must’ve been great having him on set for a short while – and observing the scene, not just as a character but an actor? As though you’re involved in it, you’re very much watching from the sidelines, on the other side of the glass.
Paul and I got on like a house on fire, but then the whole cast got on very well. But you’re right, it was, it was like a set-piece scene in the middle of the film, almost like a piece of theatre in a way. Paul, like me, has a very long past in theatre and you can see that in the skill in which he does it, it’s a sustained piece of dialogue, and yes he’s using different angles but you still have to do the whole thing as one piece as well.
I’ve often likened you to Paul in that you both share a quite remarkable ability to sometimes have smaller, supporting roles in films and yet make a huge impact in the time you do have. Is that a challenge? To come into a movie and perhaps shoot one or two scenes, and have that sort of impact?
It’s a very different thing if you’re not the lead character. If you’re the lead and you’re in the majority of the scenes, in a sense you are witnessing the story, you’re responsible for leading the viewer through the story, you are the viewer’s representative. If you’re a character who has fewer scenes then you’re often asked to bring a very strong colour into the film, but the danger is with these parts, and people have said to me before about being a character actor, I’ve always resisted that term because in a way that encourages a certain kind of acting. I think no person feels like a supporting person in their lives, so if you begin to think of yourself as a functional character that can affect the way you approach the role, you have to view yourself as the leading actor in your own life as that character, and defend that character within however many scenes you have, and give a taste of the film that character is in.
Moving on to Anthropoid, Sean’s last film Metro Manila was something special.
It’s terrific isn’t it?
How much of a bearing did that have on your decision to get involved?
A massive bearing, a really massive bearing. I loved hearing about the story of Anthropoid and I was ignorant of it, and we filmed in Prague which was very moving because it’s a core story that people know over there obviously, but more persuasive than all of that was watching Metro Manila and seeing how visceral Sean is, and the fact he operates his own camera. In the final third of Anthropoid you see that same quality of involvement and engagement with the movement of the story.
The whole final act at the church is breathtaking…
Yeah, it’s magnificent.
When watching that back are you able to get immersed in that scene like an audience member would – or is that tricky given your involvement in the project?
I am, because my memory is the worst. As soon as I finish a job it’s literally wiped from my mind. I don’t know why it is but increasingly I just forget everything I’ve done and I can watch it and go, God – that happens! Even films I’ve been the lead part in, I have no idea what’s coming next. It must be a practical thing where I delete it as soon as I’ve done it.
When in Prague, working with Czech actors and crew, did you get a real sense for how big a story this is over there?
Listen, the church in the final shoot-out is obviously an exact replica of the existing church in Prague, and when you go there you can see the bullet holes in the walls and you can go down into the cellar. It’s an exact replica, and you can see where they hung out for this period of time, defending themselves. It’s a remarkable experience to go there, and I went there on my own and it’s so astounding to think that they held out for so long, with no hope of victory really, no hope.
It’s impossible to quite comprehend what these people had to go through, but when acting in a film that’s set during WW2, do you think it does give you a slightly greater understanding of what it might’ve been like to have lived through that time?
Yes and no, I think. The interesting thing about historical stuff is that, with a fictional story, it’s often much easier to remember that these things haven’t happened before, that the future is unknown to the characters. Whereas when you’re looking at something that is based on fact, you have to work much harder, I think, to not play the history, not play the story in retrospect, as it were. These people were doing the best that they could in the present, like we all are, they were living in the present, they weren’t aware of becoming history, and that can often become a distraction when playing a part in a historical film.
In regards to the accent, when you hear people do English accents, it can often just be this generic, standardised dialect – but we know the difference between Geordie, Scouse, etc. So when doing Czech, how specific did it have to be? Was there a particular region you had to perfect?
Just before I started work on Anthropoid a couple of films came out and there was a lot of controversy about British/American actors using other accents but speaking in English and I spoke to Sean about this beforehand and he said he wasn’t worried about it because the Czech accent, when you hear Czech people speaking English, it’s a much lighter accent, there are specific sounds you can learn and we tried to learn them, but it’s a much lighter accent than some of the other Eastern European accents. There’s also a huge variety of Czech accents when they speak English, it’s not one accent, and that’s very reassuring.
There was one parallel I was able to draw between the roles in both Morgan and Anthropoid, which is both characters seem to be caught between their head and their heart, in a sense that, in Morgan he knows it’s probably right to deactivate the subject but has grown emotionally attached to Morgan, and in Anthropoid he admires the bravery of the assassins but is fully aware of the devastating consequences…
Yes. Well done – a very good point.
Is this just a type of role that appeals to you then, characters caught up in this emotional conflict?
It’s a sign of a good script when the struggle isn’t just with the leading character, and every character has an arc. Even if a character has two scenes. In Shakespeare, the archetypal writer that dramatists aspire to, even unnamed servants in two scenes will get a little journey to go on, and it’s a sign of a good script if you’re able to detect conflict even in the supporting characters.
Do you see both sides of the argument where the characters are concerned? And is it important that you can personally do that – or it it not necessary for you comprehend the motives of the character you play in real life?
Well it depends, you know, there are some films that require black and white, they’re much closer to the melodramatic roots of Hollywood, where you just need villains to be villainous and you heroes to be heroic. But most films will benefit from the grey area in between. But it’s hugely enjoyable sometimes to play completely foul, vile villains who don’t seem to have any redeeming characteristics at all. I wouldn’t say I’m averse to playing those characters, it’s just in these scripts it’s important the characters aren’t black or white.
Did you think about what you’d do in that situation – which side you’d be on? Or can that be distracting for an actor?
Well because the way we all learn history, we often learn about the Second World War it’s quite a common feature amongst people to put themselves in a situation of either being a German citizen caught up in the rise of Nazism, or a European caught up in the resistance against Nazism, and I think it’s very familiar with us still, even with kids growing up in the 21st century, to put yourselves in those shoes, and you question certain things. So if you’re in a film I think those questions are even more acute.
My final question is just to go back to my very first where we discussed Ridley Scott as producer, as I was wondering if you’d given any thought to getting involved in that side of the industry?
Oh definitely. I think that sometimes one has a similar role when you’re working on a low-budget film, and you get interested in the script. I did a film this year called Kaleidoscope that my brother directed, and you’re trying to help a very low budget film get made to the best standard it can be, and you hope that your presence in it will help attract other people. So there’s that side of it, but yeah I’m currently co-writing a script, one for TV and one film. Though whether those things see the light of day is another matter entirely. But for me it’s more writing I suppose than producing.
Morgan is released on September 2nd, and Anthropoid follows a week later on September 9th.
