Toby Stephens: Actors & SKIN

Although born to two famous parents, Maggie Smith and Sir. Robert Stephens, English actor Toby Stephens didn't rely just on his parents and his good looks.   Stephens honed his acting skills by studying at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.   Stephens began acting in 1992 in both television and film, along with roles on radio dramas and a long line of theatre roles.

Stephens is also uniquely tied to the James Bond franchise as one of the few actors to play both a primary Bond villain and James Bond himself.   He played the diamond-smuggling, adrenaline-obsessed billionaire Gustav Graves in the 2002 film Die Another Day opposite Pierce Brosnan.  Although he never played the famous spy on screen, Stephens is the official voice of James Bond for the BBC Radio 4 adaptations of Ian Fleming's novels. 

One of my biggest TV crushes remains Nick Nelson from Heartstopper.  Actor Kit Connor is another English ginger, and I love me a ginger.  Stephens reminds me a bit of an older Connor, and should play his father in a future piece.  In many of Stephen's nude scenes we get a hint of ginger with a flash of pubes.  

The true story of a group of Cambridge University Students who are recruited to spy for the Soviet Union in the early 1930s.

It's interesting that both of the nude scenes I'm featuring here did not occur in films, but in dramatic television projects on British network television. In 2003, Stephens starred alongside Tom Hollander and  Rupert Penry-Jones in the four-part British drama Cambridge Spies.  Based on the true story of four Cambridge University students who are recruited in 1934 to spy for the Soviet Union. Cambridge Spies was first broadcast on BBC Two in May 2003.

The Camomile Lawn

The stories of five young cousins, their family and friends as their paths cross and cross again.

Like so many actors, Toby Stephens had his biggest on-screen exposure in his first professional television role. The Camomile Lawn is a television adaptation of the 1984 book of the same name by Mary Wesley.  Set just before and during the Second World War, with an aftermath that takes place in the mid 1980s, the action begins at the Cornish country house of Helena Cuthbertson.  The title is drawn from a camomile lawn between the house and the sea cliffs on which some significant events take place.  If you check out the clip below, at the very end, there's a 'blink or you will miss it' full frontal.