{"id":257635,"date":"2025-07-12T01:12:21","date_gmt":"2025-07-12T01:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/257635\/"},"modified":"2025-07-12T01:12:21","modified_gmt":"2025-07-12T01:12:21","slug":"tobias-menzies-the-crown-opened-doors-for-me-but-it-wasnt-exactly-crazy-either-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/257635\/","title":{"rendered":"Tobias Menzies: \u2018The Crown opened doors for me, but it wasn\u2019t exactly crazy either\u2019 | Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s 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<\/a>, Brutus in Rome and the violent Jack Randall in Outlander; off-screen, there\u2019s no trace of those characters. Although he maintains the actors\u2019 instinctive suspicion of the press, Menzies is all about humility and politeness. Dressed in a floral shirt, he meets us in a caf\u00e9 in his neighborhood on a rare sunny morning in the British capital.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe weather is too good to go to the theater,\u201d 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. <\/p>\n

\"TobiasTobias Menzies photographed in London wearing a vintage Yves Saint Laurent jacket and Jacques Marie Mage glasses. Charlie Gray\"TobiasIn his 25-year-long career, Menzies has worked in television, film and theater.Charlie Gray<\/p>\n

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.<\/a> Directed by Joseph Kosinski who did Top Gun: Maverick, the film has been shot on real circuits during Grand Prix intervals. \u201cWe 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,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

As for working with Brad Pitt<\/a> with so many people around, he explains, \u201cWe experienced real reactions over which we did not have much control,\u201d he says with a smile that implies that there is a story behind it. \u201cI didn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/a> \u201cDoors have probably opened for me, but it hasn\u2019t 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TobiasMuch has been written about Menzies\u2019 face and how he uses it as a work tool.Charlie Gray\"TobiasThe actor has just returned from Budapest from the filming of Ruben \u00d6stlund\u2019s new movie with Keanu Reeves.Charlie Gray (Charlie Gray)<\/p>\n

The fact is that Menzies can still have a coffee in his neighborhood without anyone disturbing him. \u201cWhen 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\u2019s why I am often asked if we know each other from work. I\u2019d like to say, \u2018See you on Monday!\u2019 but I have to give a more boring answer and admit that I\u2019m an actor. Then they get either embarrassed or angry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Menzies\u2019 trajectory is curious given that he grew up without a TV. \u201cAt the age of six I was obsessed, I was practically an addict, and my mother decided to get rid of it. I don\u2019t share the cultural references of the children\u2019s programs of that era. Instead, I grew up climbing trees and riding bicycles.\u201d <\/p>\n

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<\/a> \u2013 his mother was a fan.<\/p>\n

A keen tennis player, he was not interested in being an actor until he left school. \u201cI admired physical theatre groups like Complicit\u00e9 and I wanted to train at Jacques Lecoq\u2019s mime school in Paris, but I couldn\u2019t 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.\u201d He is still preparing productions with friends: \u201cDance videos, installations… I\u2019m always doing things,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Much has been written about Menzies\u2019 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<\/a> for the first time. After seeing Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin, Menzies\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

As someone who knows Shakespeare well, has worked with Olivia Colman and Judi Dench and shared an apartment with Helena Bonham-Carter<\/a>, Menzies may know the answer. \u201cWell, Bardem is a brilliant actor, and he is Spanish,\u201d he says. \u201cI think the secret of a good performance is not to reveal everything, that there are things that stay inside. That\u2019s 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,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n

\u201cOn the other hand, there is the fact that you study in school and that the language is an advantage in the industry,\u201d he adds. \u201cYou 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TobiasMenzies can still have a coffee in his neighborhood without anyone disturbing him. Charlie Gray<\/p>\n

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<\/a> by Ruben \u00d6stlund who made The Triangle of Sadness. \u201cIt\u2019s another crazy movie. It\u2019s been very exciting. It will premiere at Cannes next year. Apart from that, I\u2019ll have to start looking for work here,\u201d he says. He doesn\u2019t seem too concerned.<\/p>\n

Production: David Bradshaw<\/p>\n

Makeup and hair: Chad Maxwell (A Frame)<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a> to get more English-language news coverage from EL PA\u00cdS USA Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"He has a face that seems drawn by hand, with visible wrinkles and marked features. It is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7708],"tags":[15923,85170,5105,7710,519,448,6880,1876],"class_list":{"0":"post-257635","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-royals","8":"tag-brad-pitt","9":"tag-javier-bardem","10":"tag-royal","11":"tag-royal-families","12":"tag-royal-family","13":"tag-royals","14":"tag-the-crown","15":"tag-top-gun"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114837608680391755","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}