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.
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.’
It's a fair cop: Toby Stephens with co-star Miranda Raison in the new BBC2 show Vexed
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.
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