Toby Stephens

Born: 21 April 1969
Where: London, England

The versatile stage actor has portrayed roles ranging from Shakespeare's Othello in Orlando to Bond villain Gustav Graves.

The second son of Sir Robert Stephens and Dame Maggie Smith, he studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art before working as a stagehand at Chichester Theatre.

Stephens began to land key roles in stage and screen productions, making an early impression with British TV audiences opposite Jennifer Ehle in The Camomile Lawn in 1992.

The same year he made his big screen debut as Othello in Sally Potter's 1992 romantic drama Orlando with Tilda Swinton.

He subsequently joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, becoming the youngest actor to undertake the lead in the Bard's Coriolanus.

Daring to step into the shadow of Marlon Brando, he tackled the role of Stanley Kowalski opposite Jessica Lange in the 1996 Peter Hall-staged London production of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Although his next couple of films - Twelth Night and Sunset Heights - didn't fare too well at the box office, Stephens earned mostly good reviews for his work.

These included playing an early 20th-century photographer in Photographing Fairies or Victorian gentlemen in Cousin Bette and Onegin.

After making his Broadway debut playing twins in Ring Around the Moon in 1999, the actor was tapped to portray the young incarnation of director-star Clint Eastwood's astronaut in Space Cowboys.

Director Neil LaBute cast him to play a self-serving academic in Possession, before he landed a part as the villainous Gustav Graves in the 20th Bond film Die Another Day.

Subsequent TV work ranged from spy Kim Philby in Cambridge Spies to Casanova in London.

Recent work includes the role of Captain William Gordon in Ketan Mehta's critically acclaimed Indian historical drama The Rising.