Toby Jones: 'Good luck with that, I hope it all works out for you. Tha...

Best ever was filming in Barcelona last year, and I had a couple of scenes with De Niro. He's a very shy man. Speaks so quietly that people tend to bend down and adopt the same tone, almost the same voice, whenever they talk to him - watching, you'd think someone's offering to carry out a hit for him when they're just offering him a cup of coffee.

Toby Jones

coffee couple men

It's always very strange to have your life dramatized because it never happens like that. Things will be different.

Toby Jones

strange different happens

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

running children thinking

I'm very interested in people, so if a character happens to be real, there's that much more to look at.

Toby Jones

real character people

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

six-months two father

Hitchcock is a big ask. I am playing someone significantly older than me and someone significantly bigger than me. The stuff I find very interesting is why certain physical things have come about. How can he be light on his feet when he is so big? How can his weight vary so much? Where does this rather beautiful voice come from?

Toby Jones

voice light beautiful

Hitchcock's got a very interesting voice; it's a very controlled, measured rhythm that's quite slow and, in that sense, also felt quite controlling in its pace. He retained something from his childhood, that London sound, as well as adopting some of the L.A. sounds... All of this helps you create the character.

Toby Jones

voice character interesting

I'm very fortunate that I get asked to do very different kinds of roles and I realize how much I enjoy that. I enjoy the challenge of transformation. There are actors who play one character, or a certain kind of character, the whole of their lives. I really relish the opportunity to have the challenge to totally transform.

Toby Jones

play opportunity character

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

real challenges memories

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

guy littles men

There is this miraculous thing I heard Hugh Grant talking about - the thing about screen acting is that you can read people's thoughts. You are trying to register something inside and usually the eyes in cinema are where you will register that.

Toby Jones

eye talking people

I know, for a fact, that I'm a very different person on my own than I am with someone else. We are different with each other. These things are constantly adjusted. And that's true of humans. That's not just true of famous people.

Toby Jones

different humans people

There are things that I would avoid, so I have the choice to say no, when I feel I'm repeating myself too much. But then there could be a reason to do that with a good director. So I think actors have to have a loose philosophy.

Toby Jones

choices philosophy thinking

One key element to Hitchcock is the drooping jowl. That was crucial because his silhouette is crucial. There is something about his silhouette that became his brand.

Toby Jones

silhouettes elements keys

When I told people I was going to be doing the movie and the voice of Dobby, they were kind of awestruck, the people who knew about Harry Potter. I felt rather guilty that I didn't really understand the scale of the job I was about to take on. Now, I am well aware of what I'm doing, and actually, it feels a very serious acting responsibility.

Toby Jones

voice responsibility jobs

We're interested by public personas and private personas, otherwise we wouldn't put on with actors rambling on with the same kind of stuff, over and over again, saying variations of the same thing. I'm always amazed by how fascinated people still are by actors because it's the same version of events that actors describe, all the time.

Toby Jones

rambling events people

The thing about Hitchcock which is quite extraordinary for a director of that time, he had a very strong sense of his own image and publicizing himself. Just a very strong sense of himself as the character of Hitchcock.

Toby Jones

strong character directors

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

want character drama

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

availability tables home

I'd love most of the movies I make to be four hours long.

Toby Jones

hours four long

'Good luck with that, I hope it all works out for you. That sounds like a really bad idea to me. That's my first response to that, (Producers later said) 'Well we have found these actors' and that's when I go 'Ah alright, hang on I want to be part of it'.