UK actor Toby Stephens has enjoyed his own triumphs on screen – best known for his role as James Bond’s youngest ever villain Gustav Graves opposite Pierce Brosnan in Die Another Day (2002).
And the career of his mother, Dame Maggie Smith who died in 2023, is celebrated as one of the 20th century’s great legacies – on theatre, stage and screen, although two roles came to define her to younger generations, those of Professor McGonagall in the Harry Potter series, and the acerbic Dowager Duchess in the long-running TV series Downton Abbey.
Now Stephens has shared why, despite their individual successes, mother and son made the decision very early on not to unite on screen. He explained to The Times of London:
“We both thought it would be a bit naff. I’d have loved to — but it would have been such a thing.”
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Stephens admitted he had fought against barbs of nepotism early in his career, as the son of Smith and director Robert Stephens. He said:
““Definitely, within the profession, there was an element of ‘well, this is happening because of who your parents are… It was crippling for a while. It was: how do I walk the line between not just talking about it endlessly, or not seeming like I’m being obtuse by not talking about it at all? I think it caused my mum some embarrassment, even though she knew I had to do my own thing.”
He added:
“But then you get to a point where you go, I mean, I’m just so proud of her. I’d done enough to know that’s not why I’m working.”
More recently, Stephens has appeared in Amazon’s teenage spy series Alex Rider, where he played billionaire villain Damian Cray.
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