Tobias Menzies on starring at the National and how playing Prince Philip in The Crown made him a leading man

When Donald Trump was changeable connected July 13 it made Tobias Menzies consciousness “goosebumpy”. Months earlier, the 50-year aged London-born histrion was playing Edwin Stanton, the lawyer tracking down Abraham Lincoln’s assassin John Wilkes Booth successful Apple TV’s Manhunt.

“That was a clip successful American past wherever ideology was truly nether menace and the rules were thrown up into the air,” helium says. “And yes, they're going done a play [like that] again with Donald Trump, who is simply a disrupter, idiosyncratic who doesn't play by the aforesaid rules. After we made it, seeing that bonzer effort connected Trump's beingness felt precise goosebumpy, the quality rhythm coming truthful adjacent to our show. But those echoes, those repeats of history, marque for perchance truly large drama.”

Manhunt wasn’t Menzies’ archetypal acquisition playing a existent fig successful a great, humanities drama, of course. After starring roles connected signifier and connected TV successful Rome, Game of Thrones, Outlander and The Night Manager, his Emmy-winning show arsenic Prince Philip other Olivia Colman arsenic the Queen successful bid 3 and 4 of The Crown from 2019 won him an Emmy and kicked him up a notch successful presumption of bankability. “I effort not to get caught up successful the economics of it, but I deliberation a batch of radical saw that and it astir apt helped successful presumption of a institution similar Apple asking maine to pb a amusement similar Manhunt,” helium says. He raises a manus successful salute to Philip. “So God bless him, wherever helium is!”

He feels not lone gratitude but respect for the precocious royal mates for “the dedication and seriousness with which they took their roles” though arsenic a Republican helium “would similar idiosyncratic elected” arsenic caput of state. “Yeah, I’m definitely, you know, ‘another wide actor’,” helium says self-deprecatingly. “I’ve ne'er voted Tory, and I voted Labour successful the election. I felt similar we were successful hopeless request of a alteration of government. It’s aboriginal days but they've got a sizable majority, and truthful hopefully they'll beryllium capable to beryllium dynamic and amended things. Because it feels similar there's a batch of infrastructure and services that are truly creaking.”

He was peculiarly gladsome to spot the cancellation of the Tory program to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda – the 1 changeless of his sparse Twitter provender was absorption to the erstwhile government’s migration policies. When we talked, helium hadn’t truly clocked the enactment implicit Keir Starmer’s escaped glasses, suits and Arsenal tickets, though, due to the fact that he’s been “snowed nether successful rehearsals” for The Other Place, Alexander Zeldin’s caller play astatine the National, which we’ll get to shortly.

Munching connected a Pret salmon rotation betwixt answers, Menzies is chatty and affable today, his thin framework clad successful a t-shirt and jeans, a shot headdress atop his stern, tight-lipped face. “I hold my look successful repose is rather hard,” helium told maine erstwhile I interviewed him successful 2019. “It has rather a forbidding look and you tin decidedly spot that successful the parts I’ve been formed in: anti-heroes, oregon villains, oregon aggressive, high-status personalities. The comic happening is, connected the wrong I’m not astatine each similar that.”

He’s the other of galore actors I’ve interviewed, successful that helium wears his authorities connected his sleeve but his backstage beingness is simply a resolutely closed book. In 2005 helium allegedly had an matter with Kristin Scott Thomas, his co-star successful a signifier accumulation of Pirandello’s As You Desire Me: she was 15 years older than him and joined astatine the time, truthful helium was catapulted into the tabloid glare. Ever since he’s maintained a monkish soundlessness astir his beingness extracurricular work, lone allowing that helium shares his Kentish Town level with a cat.

Fortunately, authorities and nine are precise overmuch astatine the bosom of The Other Place, an adaptation of Antigone that transposes Sophocles’ Greek classical to modern Oxfordshire. It’s a departure for Zeldin, the writer-director champion known for the ‘Inequalities Trilogy’ of plays astatine the National detailing the brutal effect of authorities austerity connected the worst-off: Beyond Caring, Love and Faith, Hope and Charity. But determination are thematic links to The Other Place.

“It’s an probe of patriarchy successful a post-Brexit England,” says Menzies. “You could decidedly ticker it and not notice, but it’s successful the h2o of a play that we’re successful a post-austerity world.” The archetypal deals with the brutal repercussions of the Theban king Creon’s refusal to let his niece Antigone to hide her dormant brother. Zeldin improvised his mentation with the formed astir a draught script: Menzies plays Chris, who has moved his household into the suburban location of his precocious brother. He indispensable woody with the past wounded carried by his niece Annie (House of the Dragon’s Emma D’Arcy) and her sister Issy (Saltburn’s Alison Oliver).

“I was precise drawn to Alex’s enactment and I wanted to enactment with Emma ever since I’d seen them [Darcy is non-binary and uses the pronouns they/them] successful a accumulation of the Crucible astatine the Yard successful Hackney years ago,” helium says. “The 3 of america were the archetypal tentpoles successful the crushed [for the show]. It’s a beauteous escaped adaptation but existent to the themes and the musculus of the play, which is astir the past: you whitethorn beryllium done with the past, but the past isn’t done with you. It deals with self-slaughter, and however radical woody with suffering. We unrecorded successful straitened times. People aren't being looked aft properly. A batch of radical unrecorded connected the streets. That makes it a hard nine to unrecorded successful due to the fact that you can't assistance everyone. So you person to crook distant from suffering.”

When improvising “inevitably you gully connected worldly from your ain life, my ain acquisition of masculinity, truthful it feels excitingly adjacent to the skin. There’s a weird schizophrenia to it; it’s you and it’s besides benignant of not you.” He insists the play isn’t an exploration of the toxic masculinity embodied by the likes of Andrew Tate, oregon so Donald Trump – “masculinity is conscionable a colour [in the wide picture]”. His caller 50th day was a hurdle but it didn’t extremity him into a midlife crisis: “I haven’t bought a sportscar.” Menzies has been unfastened successful the past that he’s had therapy for idiosyncratic issues, but existent to what helium calls his “cussedness” has ne'er said what those issues were.

He was calved successful Hammersmith, but helium and his younger member were brought up successful Kent by his mother, a teacher and masseuse, aft she separated from his vigor shaper begetter erstwhile helium was six. Before his member was calved helium spent a fewer puerility months amid the orange-clad mystics astatine Baghwan Shree Rajneesh’s Sannyasin ashram successful Pune wherever his parent taught massage: “I person precise fond memories of it. It was a batch of precise energised, precise blessed people. I don’t cognize overmuch astir the doctrine due to the fact that I was conscionable a kid, scampering astir and trying to get nutrient from the canteen.” No wonderment helium calls himself “a hippie boy”.

He was a talented inferior tennis subordinate but theatre visits with his parent successful the Eighties (including astatine the National, wherever helium aboriginal sold programmes portion studying astatine RADA) turned his absorption to acting. His archetypal occupation aft graduating from play schoolhouse was a six-month stint successful Casualty: “A clang people successful movie acting.”

As good arsenic his heavyweight TV credits and regular movie roles (he precocious played Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s husband, “a somewhat bruised male, a departure for me” successful You Hurt My Feelings), helium has a burgeoning signifier career. He’s done everything from Shakespeare to Chekhov to Caryl Churchill, and worked galore times astatine the Almeida with its creator manager Rupert Goold and erstwhile subordinate Robert Icke. Goold’s 2019 adaptation of Thomas Vinterberg’s movie The Hunt, starring Menzies, was revived successful St Ann’s Warehouse successful New York earlier this year: different manifestation of the Prince Philip effect.

It's astir 30 years since helium moved backmost to London to bid successful 1995, and we sermon however the South Bank was then, and now, a refuge for the homeless. “Both times aft agelong periods of Conservative governments,” helium observes. After flitting betwixt Brixton and Ladbroke Grove helium is settled successful the aforementioned Kentish Town flat. He loves “the dirtiness” of London, its theatres and galleries, playing tennis successful the park.

At 50 is helium blessed with wherever his vocation and beingness are? “Yeah, it's okay,” helium smiles. “I consciousness similar 50 for america is not the aforesaid arsenic 50 for my parents’ generation. You’ve inactive got immoderate youth, inactive got immoderate vigour. I consciousness precise arrogant of a batch of the enactment I've made, and that's not casual to do. And there’s obscurity other I'd alternatively beryllium close present than moving astatine the National with an astonishing radical of truly talented people, with the accidental to marque thing precise special. You can't inquire for overmuch much than that.”