Toby Stephens

Toby Stephens was born on 21 April 1969 in London, the younger son of actors Dame Maggie Smith and Sir Robert Stephens. He received his early education at Aldro School and Seaford College in West Sussex before training at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. His Broadway appearance in Ring Round the Moon in 1999 earned him a Theatre World Award that same year.

Stephens launched his screen career in 1992 with a role in Sally Potter's film Orlando, playing Othello, and also appeared that year in the television production The Camomile Lawn. Shortly after completing his studies at LAMDA, he took on the title role in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Coriolanus, and during that same RSC season played Claudio in Measure for Measure. His stage work also includes the role of Stanley Kowalski in a West End production of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, Hamlet in 2004, and Orsino in Trevor Nunn's 1996 film adaptation of Twelfth Night. He played the lead in the film Photographing Fairies and appeared on Broadway in Ring Round the Moon.

In 2002, Stephens portrayed Bond villain Gustav Graves in the James Bond film Die Another Day, a performance that earned him a Saturn Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. At 33 at the time of the film's release, he was the youngest actor to have played a Bond villain. The following year he appeared in the BBC miniseries Cambridge Spies, depicting British double agent Kim Philby alongside Tom Hollander, Samuel West, and Rupert Penry-Jones. In 2005, he played a British Army captain in the Indian film The Rising: Ballad of Mangal Pandey, set against the events of the Indian rebellion of 1857, and returned to India the following year to portray a renegade British East India Company officer in Sharpe's Challenge.

In late 2006, Stephens starred as Edward Fairfax Rochester in the BBC television adaptation of Jane Eyre, which aired in the United States on PBS in early 2007. That same period saw him play General George Armstrong Custer in the BBC production The Wild West. In 2007, he appeared in a revival of Harold Pinter's Betrayal directed by Roger Michell, playing the role of Jerry, and later that year starred as Horner in Jonathan Kent's revival of William Wycherley's The Country Wife, the inaugural production of the Theatre Royal Haymarket Company. In mid-2009, he returned to the London stage in the Donmar Warehouse production of Ibsen's A Doll's House alongside Gillian Anderson and Christopher Eccleston.

In May 2008, Stephens played James Bond in a BBC Radio 4 production of Ian Fleming's Dr. No, produced as part of the centenary celebration of Fleming's birth, and has since appeared in radio adaptations of other Bond novels. That October, he appeared at the London Palladium in a benefit tribute to Ian Fleming, reading from Fleming's Bond novels in the role of Bond. In early 2009, he played Prince John in season three of the BBC series Robin Hood, and in 2010 appeared in two episodes of the television series Strike Back. Also in 2010, he starred in the television film The Blue Geranium, based on Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, and appeared as Georges Danton in Danton's Death at the Royal National Theatre, marking his debut there. That same year he received strong notices for his performance as Henry in a revival of Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing at the Old Vic, his debut at that theatre.

From 2014 to 2017, Stephens starred as Captain James Flint in the Starz series Black Sails, a prequel to Treasure Island set during the Golden Age of Piracy. In 2016, he was cast as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in the film The Journey. Between 2018 and 2021, he played John Robinson in the Netflix science fiction series Lost in Space, a remake of the 1965 television series. In 2021, he appeared as Damian Cray in the second season of Alex Rider. He subsequently took on the role of the Greek god Poseidon in the Disney+ series Percy Jackson and the Olympians. In 2025, it was announced that Stephens would portray Captain Hook and Mr. Darling in the RSC's London revival of Ella Hickson's 2013 play Wendy & Peter Pan, alongside Lolita Chakrabarti and Alexander Molony.

Stephens married New Zealand-born actress Anna-Louise Plowman in 2001. Their son was born in 2007.