Toby Stephens: ‘I lost my dad to cirrhosis. The only difference between us was that, tragically, he couldn’t stop drinking’

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The actor on missing his late mother, Maggie Smith, being mistaken for Damian Lewis, and looking ‘like a fridge’ Born in London, Toby Stephens, 57, is the son of actors Maggie Smith and Robert Stephens. He trained at Lamda and, in 1992, made his film debut in Orlando. In 2002 he played the Bond villain in Die Another Day. His television work includes One Day, The Split and Black Sails. On stage he has performed for the RSC and the National Theatre, and he is currently starring in Equus at London’s Menier Chocolate Factory, until 4 July, and then Theatre Royal Bath, from 14-25 July. He is married to the actor Anna‑Louise Plowman, with whom he has three children, and lives in London. What is your greatest fear? To be completely alone. Continue reading... from Film | The Guardian https://ift.tt/BhbEa2J via IFTTT
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Young Soul Rebels review – life-giving ode to diversity in silver jubilee London

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Part thriller, part drama, part comedy, Isaac Julien’s urban pastoral set in the aftermath of a homophobic murder still feels fresh, buoyant and likable

Isaac Julien’s feature from 1991 is rereleased after more than 30 years and it still feels fresh, buoyant, likable and emotionally open. It is a paean to diversity and intersectionality set in east London during the 1977 Queen’s silver jubilee, with some cheeky jibes about middle-class outlaws and “St Martins” art-school types (St Martins being Julien’s own alma mater). Young Soul Rebels takes the form of an urban pastoral, but is also a kind of romantic comedy, a coming-of-age drama about friendship and a thriller about a brutal homophobic murder – and there’s actually a clever plot twist about the victim’s tape-deck which another type of film might have made much more of, maybe in the manner of Francis Ford Coppola.

A young black man is murdered while cruising in a park and the news has different effects on his friends, Chris (Valentine Nonyela) and Caz (Mo Sesay) who run a pirate radio station called Soul Patrol. Chris is stunned but Caz is all the more determined to throw himself into his music and maybe get them both a job on the local white-owned radio station, Metropolitan, which has a huge patriotic crown in the lobby and a life-sized cutout of the Queen, waving. (I’m surprised no one’s done that for King Charles.) Chris is angry that Caz is not as grief-stricken as he is, and pulls away from him into a relationship with stroppy white punk Billibud (Jason Durr); meanwhile, biracial and bisexual Caz faces bigotry from his black friends and he retreats from Chris into a new relationship with a production assistant at the radio station: this is Tracy, in which role Sophie Okonedo made a terrifically warm debut.

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