Tobias Menzies

Overview

Born
March 7, 1974 · London, England, UK
Height
6′ 1″ (1.85 m)

Biography

Family

Children
Parents

Trivia

He was educated in the Steiner system, which includes movement, singing and musical instruments every day.
Was an expert swordsman.
The name "Menzies" is Scottish and according to Tobias, was originally pronounced "Mingis.".
His mother was a follower of the infamous "love guru," Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. She took Tobias and his baby brother, Luke, to India where they lived six months at a time in an ashram.
Tennis, not acting was Tobias's first love. He wanted to be a professional tennis player, not an actor, and still unwinds with tennis.

Quotes

On being drawn into acting after frequently attending theater productions with his mother as a teen - The world seemed bigger, richer, watching things unfold in those rooms. In drama, you see other versions of life: 'Oh, that's what it would be like to be that!' Something obviously was stirring in me.
When I started acting, I found a place and a release which I didn't find in my own life.
Regarding working with Keira Knightley in the play, The Children's Hour - Being around that level of fame has been quite an eye-opener. We went to a girls' school during rehearsals to work with a drama group. There were 150 children in the playground and they started screaming. I'm sure it wasn't me! There was a volume and intensity about it that was so peculiar, it was animal. Keira deals with that pretty well. Would I want that? Absolutely not. Then again, do you want recognition that allows you to do the work you want to do? Of course.
On the auditioning process - It's 90 percent humiliation, isn't it? Just going in and kind of crashing and burning and also doing things that you look back and go, Why on earth was I being seen for that? I was just so wrong. I remember auditioning for Moulin Rouge! (2001), the part that Ewan McGregor played. I was so young, I was literally just out of college. But they were just doing that sort of mass casting, just ring up everyone and put them on tape. And I had to sing and dance and it was just ridiculous. What was I doing in that room? Terrible! I tried so hard, it was so terrible!
[On his Outlander (2014) rape scene with Sam Heughan] It was about trying to get the tone right. I was keen for it to be as psychological as possible. I just didn't want it to feel sensational. If you're going to have Jack rape Jamie, you have to really earn that, really get to a place where that scene is within the realm of the story. Sam and I didn't talk a lot [while shooting those scenes]. We would sort of kept to ourselves between shots. But again, one of the good things is how we had been working together for a year so we had a fair amount of trust.