He has a face that seems drawn by hand, with visible wrinkles and marked features. It is a face that tells a story. Perhaps that’s why London actor Tobias Menzies, 51, usually plays tough guys, antiheroes, complicated men. Among some of his best-known roles are his sarcastic Duke of Edinburgh in The Crown, Brutus in Rome and the violent Jack Randall in Outlander; off-screen, there’s no trace of those characters. Although he maintains the actors’ instinctive suspicion of the press, Menzies is all about humility and politeness. Dressed in a floral shirt, he meets us in a café in his neighborhood on a rare sunny morning in the British capital.
“The weather is too good to go to the theater,” he says when asked if he has seen anything interesting lately. On days like this, he prefers to spend time swimming in the pools on Hampstead Heath near his home, a kind of wild urban park in north London.
Tobias Menzies photographed in London wearing a vintage Yves Saint Laurent jacket and Jacques Marie Mage glasses. Charlie Gray
In his 25-year-long career, Menzies has worked in television, film and theater.Charlie Gray
The truth is that he is on a break, having just finished an intense season of filming in London and New York. And he has just released F1, in which he stars alongside Javier Bardem and Brad Pitt. Directed by Joseph Kosinski who did Top Gun: Maverick, the film has been shot on real circuits during Grand Prix intervals. “We filmed in the pits, the tracks and in restricted access areas such as the paddock, but we had a very small window and we had to move right away because the races were starting,” he explains.
As for working with Brad Pitt with so many people around, he explains, “We experienced real reactions over which we did not have much control,” he says with a smile that implies that there is a story behind it. “I didn’t know anything about F1 and everything that surrounds that circus seemed incredible to me, very strange. Obviously, there is a lot of money at stake. That atmosphere has a very particular energy, which this film tries to capture.”
In his 25-year-long career, Menzies has worked in television, film and theater, in major productions such as Casino Royale and Game of Thrones as well as in smaller projects such as a contemporary version of the Greek tragedy Antigone. But it was The Crown that pushed him into the limelight. The actor, who confesses to being anti-monarchy, has experienced a professional boost thanks to this portrait of the British royal family. “Doors have probably opened for me, but it hasn’t been exactly crazy either. What it amounts to is that I do fewer castings and have more job offers. I try not to think about it too much.”
Much has been written about Menzies’ face and how he uses it as a work tool.Charlie Gray
The actor has just returned from Budapest from the filming of Ruben Östlund’s new movie with Keanu Reeves.Charlie Gray (Charlie Gray)
The fact is that Menzies can still have a coffee in his neighborhood without anyone disturbing him. “When I do television, viewers see me while they are at home, with their laptop in bed, so they associate my face with their own lives. I think that’s why I am often asked if we know each other from work. I’d like to say, ‘See you on Monday!’ but I have to give a more boring answer and admit that I’m an actor. Then they get either embarrassed or angry.”
Menzies’ trajectory is curious given that he grew up without a TV. “At the age of six I was obsessed, I was practically an addict, and my mother decided to get rid of it. I don’t share the cultural references of the children’s programs of that era. Instead, I grew up climbing trees and riding bicycles.”
As a child he moved with his mother, a drama and literature teacher, from London to the county of Kent, where he and his brother lived a hippie childhood in the countryside, attending an alternative school. He also lived for a time in India with his mother, in the ashram of the sinister Osho Bhagwan Rajneesh – his mother was a fan.
A keen tennis player, he was not interested in being an actor until he left school. “I admired physical theatre groups like Complicité and I wanted to train at Jacques Lecoq’s mime school in Paris, but I couldn’t afford it. There was no money in my family. I got a scholarship for RADA and accepted it with the intention of creating my own company. But when I got there, I discovered that I enjoyed acting.” He is still preparing productions with friends: “Dance videos, installations… I’m always doing things,” he says.
Much has been written about Menzies’ face and how he uses it as a work tool. A clear example is the episode of The Crown in which his Duke of Edinburgh experiences an existential crisis while American astronauts set foot on the Moon for the first time. After seeing Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin, Menzies’ Duke of Edinburgh goes from contained emotion to disappointment in a subtle but devastating way. For that episode alone he deserved his Emmy. It is a sample of the level of acting that is common among British actors and which begs the question of why so many of them are so good.
As someone who knows Shakespeare well, has worked with Olivia Colman and Judi Dench and shared an apartment with Helena Bonham-Carter, Menzies may know the answer. “Well, Bardem is a brilliant actor, and he is Spanish,” he says. “I think the secret of a good performance is not to reveal everything, that there are things that stay inside. That’s how most people live and that builds a good drama. A character attracts you because you receive something, but not everything. Perhaps that reserve is something that comes more naturally to the British,” he says.
“On the other hand, there is the fact that you study in school and that the language is an advantage in the industry,” he adds. “You have to be realistic, look at it from a Marxist perspective, and follow the money trail. There are many European actors who do not speak English as their mother tongue and that limits their opportunities in American blockbusters.”
Menzies can still have a coffee in his neighborhood without anyone disturbing him. Charlie Gray
Despite his age, Menzies still has a promising future ahead of him. He has just returned from Budapest from filming the new production with Keanu Reeves by Ruben Östlund who made The Triangle of Sadness. “It’s another crazy movie. It’s been very exciting. It will premiere at Cannes next year. Apart from that, I’ll have to start looking for work here,” he says. He doesn’t seem too concerned.
Production: David Bradshaw
Makeup and hair: Chad Maxwell (A Frame)
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