The U.K.’s Busiest Actor Turns to Richard Burton Biopic

Toby Jones wonders if the film and TV industry is becoming more risk-averse.

“It does feel like that at the moment, with the price of IP,” the veteran actor tells The Hollywood Reporter about an absence of original storytelling. “Is it just harder for those new voices to come through? Or will they come through thanks to new technologies? Or maybe people will just make films like [Sean Baker] — with their phone.”

If there’s anyone to pay attention to on this subject, it’s Jones. You’ve most likely seen him in one of his 70-something movies across his decades-spanning career: maybe his voice work as Dobby in the beloved Harry Potter franchise or as evil scientist Arnim Zola of Marvel’s Captain America: The First Avenger.

Perhaps you know him from Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, as Truman Capote in biopic Infamous or as Claudius Templesmith in The Hunger Games. If you’re in the U.K., Jones might be most familiar to you as forklift driver Lance of BBC TV hit Detectorists or as the lead in ITV’s outcry-sparking Mr Bates vs The Post Office (so impactful in Britain that it prompted the government to exonerate hundreds of sub-postmasters wrongly convicted of theft — the true cause was a faulty IT system — in a scandal that gripped the country).

The list goes on. There isn’t much Jones hasn’t done, yet the actor radiates humility. “I’m very, very grateful for the variety,” he says. “I have found a way to earn a living in this industry. [But] my job is not to pronounce. Scripts as diverse as possible — that’s what you want. A rich culture, diverse content, diverse people doing it. That’s what nourishes culture.”

Jones is at a stage in his career where he can afford to be picky about the roles he takes on. But it’s a game of gambling, he says, and rolling the dice is a decision scarcely ever up to him. “Actors, broadly speaking, can only be who other people think they are,” he muses. “I might feel like James Bond. I might think that I could play James Bond. I might have [said], ‘Look, give me a go at James Bond.’ It won’t matter, and there’s nothing you can do about that.”

Jones was born to actors Jennifer and Freddie Jones in west London in 1966, soon falling into the world he’d watched his parents work in. “When I went to university, because of my parents, I always thought ‘I’m definitely not going to go into that,’” he confesses to THR. “But it’s a very seductive world. How fascinating to be working with literature, to be working with words! I’m really into it.”

His first acting role came in 1992 in Sally Potter’s Orlando before a slate of more significant parts in the mid-2000s. More than 30 years in the industry means Jones has been witness to some of its biggest and boldest changes. The most consequential? The tech. “Cameras are better, it’s all shot on digital and not film. … [But] I do feel quite passionately that actors really depend on being able to relate to each other in a space,” he begins. “And yet, there’s more and more concentration on screens whether it’s actors getting sent bits of text … or they have to record their auditions on their phone. You just [think], ‘Wow, what can you learn about that otherwise than just someone’s appearance?’ You’re not really learning how someone will respond to direction.”

Another major evolution is how actors do press, Jones adds. “The pressure on actors to be doing interviews, to be selling themselves as individuals — rather than just doing what they do — has slightly maybe parodied what the actor does. [People think], ‘How hard can it be?’ Well, I can tell you that when you’re acting with people who know what they’re doing, it’s easy. But you occasionally come across people who just haven’t had very much experience for whatever reason, and they may not realize what’s required. And that does make it challenging.”

Lastly, it’s also about speed. The time pressure applies to everyone — not just those in the film and TV biz, says Jones — but his profession is one that necessitates a little patience. “Everything is speeding up,” he says. “What doesn’t speed up is the basic thing I’m talking about. … You might need to invest some time working out how a scene might be improved, it might require a bit of open-ended research.”

He adds: “But then there’s some things that just will never speed up. Actors, in my experience, know their lines. Historically, we’re told they don’t know their lines. But they are efficient. They are there for work. They’re on time.”

Jones’ next venture is Mr Burton, an upcoming movie about the early life of Welsh actor Richard Burton, who was born Richard Jenkins, the son of an alcoholic miner. Jones plays English teacher Philip Burton, the man who recognized and cultivated Rich’s talent and was later nearly an adoptive father to the star.

“I didn’t know the story of how Richard Jenkins became Richard Burton,” Jones says about taking on the role. “This is the gentle, relationship movie that you wonder how much you can get funding for it these days. It’s quite a quiet film, but it’s a film about inspiration and about the kinds of inspiration a teacher can give you.”

He continues: “Yes, it is a love story on some level. And we follow their relationship with the kind of dynamics of it being a love story and the emergence of someone who, to a lot of people, will be completely unknown, which is Richard Burton.”

Many young fans, THR puts to Jones, might only know him as the actor twice married to Elizabeth Taylor. “Which is extraordinary,” he responds. “Someone who was one of the most famous people on the planet from the late ’60s through to the early ’80s. I mean, he was almost the archetypal modern celebrity.”

This is a movie that looks at Port Talbot, a small town in Wales, that became a portal of social mobility for Burton. Lesley Manville (The Crown) and Harry Lawtey (Industry, Folie à Deux) feature alongside Jones, the latter as an early variant of the Hollywood star. According to Jones, Lawtey’s task was a particularly difficult one. “He has to do one of the hardest things you can which is act [as though you are] learning to act, being someone who’s interested and intrigued by acting and gradually become an actor under my tutor. This famous voice, which Burton was famous for. … Harry had to immerse himself in that whole world. In a way, my job was much simpler. I had to coax him out of himself and inspire him on that journey, both as an actor but also as a character.”

Was the tutor-tutee dynamic between their characters reflected in Jones and Lawtey’s off-camera relationship as well? “I wasn’t his teacher in any way whatsoever,” the actor responds. “But it was more that we have different levels of experience. One of the great things about being an actor is there’s always stuff to learn from young actors. You’re learning from their instinctive, spontaneous choices. As you become older, as an actor, you’re in danger of protecting yourself.”

There is no doubt that Jones will keep finding new characters to sink his teeth into. For now, it’s Captain America (“young people”), Detectorists (“traders and craftspeople”) and Mr Bates that gets him stopped in the streets.

As far as dream project goes, the star reveals to THR he was in conversation with David Lynch before the auteur’s death in January aged 78. “The last five years, I had several conversations with him and it’s a great sadness to me that the projects we were talking about will never happen,” Jones says. “He was, I suppose, one of my heroes as a director, but I’m very grateful for the communication we had.”

For now, Jones will keep rolling the dice. The urge, it seems, is in his nature: “What I realize is that whether it’s a curse or whether it’s the way I am, I’m interested in people and how people function. I wish it was a more noble thing, but it’s just what I find myself preoccupied with.”

Mr Burton is in U.K. cinemas from April 4. A U.S. release date is yet to be confirmed.