PERFORMANCE / ART

RUSSELL TOVEY COMBINES BOTH IN A LIFE THAT ENCOMPASSES STAGES, SCREENS AND STOKE NEWINGTON FASHION SHOOTS. AIDED AND ABETTED BY HIS CANINE PARTNER IN CRIME ROCKY, HE TELLS PHILIP GOODFELLOW ABOUT MAMET, MIRREN, AND MACAULAY CULKIN

Photography by Lee Malone / Styling by Dee Moran

Jumper: Dunhill / Gold signet ring: Stephen Einhorn — Jumper: **Dunhill** / Gold signet ring: **Stephen Einhorn**

When Russell Tovey was a kid, he would dream that he was Macaulay Culkin’s best friend. Other times, he would dream he was on the hunt for One-Eyed Willy. Such dreams were the product of constantly watching movies, as was walking around talking in an American accent. “It was so exotic and exciting,” Russell recalls. “I was really influenced by movies, which is what they’re there for: to inspire people and let them in to an exciting potential life.” This obsession with films would come to be rivalled by an obsession with theatre, Russell reading plays by the likes of Hare, Mamet, Marber, Bennett and Pinter as if they were novels. When he was 18, a part in a play at Chichester Festival Theatre would result in him being introduced to one of these theatrical luminaries when Debra Gillett, who was also in the play and had taken Russell under her wing, introduced him to her husband, Patrick Marber, which led to him being cast in Marber’s play Howard Katz.

T-Shirt: NN07 @ mrporter.com Trousers: AMI Paris / Watch: Russell’s own — T-Shirt: **NN07** @ **mrporter.com** Trousers: **AMI Paris** / Watch: Russell’s own

Not long after that, Russell signed with the agent he is still with today and everything started to fall into place. “That was when it felt like I was suddenly aware of plotting a career and it being a serious thing. I hadn’t really thought about it before then because I was just a kid really.” More theatre followed, including various productions at the National Theatre under Nick Hytner, but it was the part of Peter Rudge in Alan Bennett’s much loved play The History Boys, which Russell later reprised in the film version, that would become agame changer. “The History Boys changed everything, forall of us boys. After that, it’s all been ebbs and flows, but theatre changed my life. I made the transition from kid to adult through theatre.”

Coat: Hermès / Jumper (just seen): AMI Paris — Coat: **Hermès** / Jumper (just seen): **AMI Paris**

Since then, Russell has played a wide array of characters across stage and screen, more recently gravitating towards family drama such as Flesh and Blood, an ITV series due to air next year in which he plays a father of two alongside Imelda Staunton. But it was his turn as Daniel Lyons in the affecting BBC drama Years and Years, broadcast earlier this year, which well and truly pushed him back into the spotlight. The highly politicised series follows the lives of a British family across 15 years from the present day into the future and was created by Russell T Davies, who Tovey had previously worked with on Doctor Who and had remained close to. “He’s so supportive,” says Russell, “He watches everything and messages you afterwards – just lovely. I was sort of waiting for the day when something would come round again, then this script came up. I read the Daniel Lyons character and thought: ‘I have to do this; there’s no doubt in my mind this is what I have to do.’ I knew who this guy was. It was an easy yes.”

Coat and boots: Hermès / Jumper: AMI Paris / Trousers: Valentino x Undercover — Coat and boots: **Hermès** / Jumper: **AMI Paris** / Trousers: **Valentino x Undercover**

Though his general approach is to give a project his all and have no expectations for its success, Russell describes the response to Years and Years as “incredible” and puts much of its popularity down to the current political landscape. “Eight years ago, you’d watch the news, yawn and turn it off, and now it’s like… you can’t live in the world right now and not have an idea of what the fuck is going on. Everybody’s in the same boat; we’ve all been brainwashed with Brexit and Trump and everything. We are living in such an historical time that they’ll teach about it in schools 100 years from now. The way the internet and social media are, with everyone connected, we’re in an industrial revolution but we’re not aware we’re in it, just kind of sleepwalking through it all. I think the only way you really react to the world is on a domestic level, through friends and family, and you only see the effects of what’s happening politically through the people around you. What Years and Years does… it’s just a family drama set in the current world looking into the future. That’s how you can really connect with what’s happening.”

Coat: Valentino x Undercover / Jumper: Dunhill — Coat: **Valentino x Undercover** / Jumper: **Dunhill**

Russell will shortly be seen on the big screen alongside none other than Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Helen Mirren – “Dame Heaven” as Tovey affectionately calls her – in The Good Liar, a thriller directed by Bill Condon based on the novel by Nicholas Searle, in which he plays the grandson of Mirren’s character, Betty, who has fallen for McKellen’s charming con man. “There are amazing twists and turns in it,” says Russell. “It was so much fun. I’ve seen it and I’m really proud of it. I’ve done movies before, but this feels like the most mainstream movie I’ve done. Again, I have no expectations, but I’m intrigued to see how it’s received and whether people actually go and see it. For me, with TV, you know it’s definitely going to be put out somewhere, it’s definitely going to be seen, whereas with movies sometimes you can put all this effort in and nobody goes to see it or the distribution isn’t good or the advertising isn’t good. There’s more risk with movies. The flipside of that, is though, if a movie hits, it’s a real shift.”

Jumper: AMI Paris / All jewellery: Russell’s own — Jumper: **AMI Paris** / All jewellery: Russell’s own

Outside acting, one of Russell’s main passions is art. Having always been an avid collector of things, as well as being a very visual person, Tovey found himself naturally drawn towards art and it has become incredibly important to him over the years. This passion has manifested itself in a podcast, Talk Art, which he co-hosts with friend and gallerist Robert Diament. “It’s the most amazing thing,” says Russell, clearly in love with the topic. “We do the podcast in such a non-elitist, non-academic way that it makes it accessible to people. It’s effortless for us, because that’s who we are and it feels like that’s our asset. So much art stuff you read, it’s so stuffy or academic or highbrow and if you don’t know the references you’re kind of pushed out. It’s just about not being put off by that, demystifying it and making it easy and friendly and exciting. Art is for everyone is the motto.”

Jumper: AMI Paris / Trousers: Valentino x Underground — Jumper: **AMI Paris** / Trousers: **Valentino** x **Underground**

With various projects wrapped and awaiting release and others just getting under way – Russell starts shooting a new TV drama this month, before heading over to New York at the start of next year for a run on Broadway in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? – the actor is clearly more in demand than ever. With his 40th birthday not all that far over the horizon, how does he feel about reaching such a landmark age? “It doesn’t make sense to me. Two years away from 40? That’s just really fucking weird. I thought that about turning 30, though, and my thirties have been brilliant. Life’s great, so it’s just about diversifying, keeping it fresh and keeping it going. I’m excited about the future; I’m not fearful at all. Things are really good.”