Toby Jones Quotes

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Toby Jones

Profession : Actor

Birth : September 7, 1966

You're playing a character in a drama who happens to be based on someone who existed. It's never going to 'be' that person, but it's based on someone well-known, and you want to create enough of that person for it not to be a distraction.

Toby Jones

They know you're not Alfred Hitchcock, but you need to be enough Alfred Hitchcock for them not to be bothered by it. That's a reassuring thing.

Toby Jones

The script for 'Infamous' was so poised between tragedy and comedy. It's a dream part. One reads those scripts with a sense of melancholia. When you read a script that good... I remember thinking, 'Oh, this script is too good. They'll never give it to me.'

Toby Jones

I went to meet Joe Johnston, the director, and he's charming. I've been very lucky. Most of the directors I've worked with are charming. But Joe's a particularly charming man, and he showed me lots of designs and, rather memorably, welcomed me to the Marvel Universe.

Toby Jones

Often jobs are un-turndownable even before you read the script. You go, 'Well, I have to do that.'

Toby Jones

I do always feel very proud and flattered by being asked to be a part of American productions playing American characters.

Toby Jones

It's hard to imagine anyone interested in film not being a fan of Alfred Hitchcock because he's such a key influence on the entire history of cinema - it's hard to escape his shadow.

Toby Jones

It's one of those jobs where you go, 'Oh no, I've got to play Alfred Hitchcock. I have to play him even though I know what this is going to involve.'

Toby Jones

I don't know if it's harder but when you're playing a real person you want to honor their memory - even if they're a criminal or someone that the public loathed. That can be challenging.

Toby Jones

But I think the children of actors share a certain pragmatic approach. One is denied some of that 'running away with the circus' element of being an actor.

Toby Jones

Certainly for my father, there were great times, good times, not-so-good times. He might be shooting a Fellini film for six months, then not working for two months. I'm used to that dynamic.

Toby Jones

I get plenty of time to re-engage with the world I'm trying to depict, so I'm not always living in these parallel worlds.

Toby Jones

I had to change the shape of my own voice. It was quite hard to pull off and so once I had it, I stayed in Hitchcock's voice all day on set.

Toby Jones

If you ever have the good fortune to meet Tippi Hedren, she's an amazing woman. You can't quite believe she is the age she is.

Toby Jones

I still don't feel I know Hitchcock at all. I find that the more one looks, the more elusive he becomes. But my admiration for Hitchcock the filmmaker remains undiminished. He is a giant of the cinema and the darkness in him informs his cinematic language. You can't separate one from the other.

Toby Jones

I would absolutely like to play more leading roles. There's no philosophy - well, the only philosophy, I suppose, is to try and do different things.

Toby Jones

There's not a huge pile of scripts at home. It's what happens to be on the table at that moment with your availability. And then you have no control over when these things come out.

Toby Jones

I often get sent scripts about little men in big situations. There's a comic element to it, which is forces stacked against this little guy, and how is he going to defeat them?

Toby Jones

I didn't sound anything like Capote at the screen test. It was more like Bob Dylan. In his early years. With the flu.

Toby Jones

I think it will be, as always, interesting to compare different portrayals of Hitchcock. I'm very honored that I'm playing the same part as Anthony Hopkins.

Toby Jones