Dame Maggie Smith’s son says he’s inherited this 1 passion from her | Celebrity News | Showbiz & TV

The outpouring of affection for Dame Maggie Smith following her passing at the age of 89 last year surprised absolutely no one. Claims of national treasurehood from the likes of King Charles and the Prime Minister, however, might have caused the Grand Dame herself to arch one of those famous eyebrows, according to her son.

“She was incredible but she never really coveted fame,” explains actor Toby Stephens thoughtfully. “I don’t think she saw herself in that light at all. She certainly never took it for granted or sought it out – really it was just her work.”

A star of stage and screen for an extraordinary seven decades, Dame Maggie’s death robbed us of one of our most singular talents. Having made her name in theatre in the early Fifties, she became one of Britain’s most prolific and recognisable actors in everything from Harry Potter to Downton Abbey, working almost until the end.

“She was a very private person who didn’t put herself out there,” continues Toby. “So it’s very moving that people connected with her and respected her so much.”

Growing up the son of theatre royalty (his father was the actor Robert Stephens), he warmly recalls his famous mother’s love of reading and books which she passed on to Toby and his older brother Chris. It’s a gift that has kept on giving.

“Reading and books were a huge part of my mum’s life. Both my mum and my step-dad (playwright and screenwriter Beverley Cross) read voraciously,” he smiles. “So it’s always been part of my life. And now more than ever, because our attention spans are so scattered by technology, it’s really important.”

Which explains in part why the 56-year-old, whose roles have included Bond villain Gustav Graves opposite Pierce Brosnan in Die Another Day, Mr Rochester in the BBC’s Jane Eyre and, most recently, lawyer Archie Moore in The Split, as well as Poseidon in the Disney+ series Percy Jackson and the Olympians, is so passionate about Give A Book.

The inspirational charity promotes the pleasure of reading in hard-to-reach places like prisons, mother and baby units and among disadvantaged children. Give A Book was the Daily Express Christmas charity two years ago – generous readers funded a new school library near Birmingham – and this week is one of the beneficiaries of Big Give’s Christmas Challenge, an online match-funding campaign which doubles donations and is now the UK’s biggest fundraiser for good causes.

“It’s a great charity because it’s trying to get reading into prisons,” explains Toby, a Give A Book ambassador alongside the likes of Simon Callow, Freddie Fox, Kit de Waal and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who knows all about life behind bars, having been locked up by the despotic Iranian regime for six years on trumped up charges.

“Obviously prisons are a very hot topic at the moment – the fact we have very limited space for lots of people and how we manage an ageing system,” continues Toby.

“You’ve got all of these inmates crammed into ancient Victorian buildings or crumbling infrastructure, stuck in their cells for long periods of time because of overcrowding. So how do you give them some sort of inner life? How do you give them some escapism? Books are an amazing way of showing that we’re all connected, that our experiences are shared. Reading
is mentally expanding, it’s about learning, escapism and sheer joy.”

Studies have shown that the UK prison population is disproportionately made up of people with neurological conditions including brain injury, ADHD, autism and learning disabilities, while illiteracy is rampant. Ministry of Justice data shows 57% of adult prisoners have literacy levels below those expected of an 11-year-old.

And yet, as Toby rightly points out, few skills have a bigger impact on a person’s life chances than being able to read. Indeed, improved literacy skills have been widely linked to reduced risks of reoffending among former inmates.

“Part of the purpose of prison is reformative,” says Toby. “Reading, alone or as a group activity, can help inmates express themselves better and expand themselves.”

The charity is doing its best to improve literacy behind bars, with more than 75 prison reading groups now operating in 50 jails.

Last year, it also handed out nearly 7,500 books to “first nighters” – newly-arrived inmates. As founder and executive director Victoria Gray explains, the first night can be the most vulnerable time in a prisoner’s existence and having a book can be a source of comfort and a distraction.

It was through Victoria and her late husband, the playwright and Smoking Diaries author Simon Gray, that Toby came to be involved, having starred in the latter’s play, Japes, in 2001, and later in his radio play Missing Dates. Three years after Simon’s death at 71 in 2008, Victoria launched the charity. Since then, it has gone from strength to strength. “Simon was a massive influence on me and a really close friend,” says Toby. “He was the most adorable man and such a unique individual; funny and wise, irreverent… I absolutely adored spending time with him and Victoria.”

The actor, who lives in London with his actress wife Anna-Louise Plowman and their three children, has just finished playing Captain Hook in Wendy and Peter Pan at the Barbican, central London.

Like his mother, his early reputation was forged on stage. He rose swiftly up the ranks at the Royal Shakespeare Company before his breakout role as Coriolanus in the eponymous tragedy in 1994. Ten years later, he returned to play Hamlet. By then, having appeared in Photographing Fairies, Space Cowboys and, most famously, Die Another Day, he was a bona fide film star.

“I was lucky,” he admits modestly. “I went to the RSC with Peter Hall in All’s Well That Ends Well. When they were casting Coriolanus, they offered it around to various middle-aged, established actors of high calibre – the ones they normally offer it to – and they all found it unappealing, because he’s a sort of proto-fascist.

“Then they had this brainstorm, ‘Why don’t we cast him young?’ So I was called in to audition and it was just one of those great breaks for me. But also a huge learning curve because I was still pretty young.”

Since then he’s rarely stopped working. With the second season of Percy Jackson released on Disney+ next week, Toby is looking forward to returning to the US in the spring to film season three.

“What’s lovely is that it brings Greek mythology to a modern audience in a thrilling children’s series, in the books and on television,” he explains. “It’s about a boy who is isolated and bullied at school who discovers he’s a demigod and his father is Poseidon. It’s lovely to see fans of the books having grown up and now enjoying the TV adaptation – that shows the power of reading.”

Like many though, Toby is concerned that young people are reading less. “I’ve valued books all my life and I think the way we now absorb information is becoming so superficial,” he admits. Smartphones are often blamed by parents for their child’s loss of interest in books and reading, I suggest.

Toby concurs: “My son, who’s 18, used to be a voracious reader. He loved reading but I’ve noticed he very rarely picks up a book these days. I hope he’ll find it again later. Whereas my youngest is 15 and she still reads voraciously.

“But if you imagine you were their age and you had that f***ing thing – a smartphone – you’d be just as distracted. They are part of our lives but I hope we can find balance. It seems fairly obvious there’s a connection between the rise in anxiety, depression and all that kind of stuff in kids, and the fact their lives are so much consumed by these things.” Reading, by comparison, is therapeutic, calming and mindful, he believes. “That’s why it’s such a great idea having reading groups and books in prisons. Even if you’re getting to a very narrow group of people, you’re still affecting them.

“You’re opening up horizons for people who, through their own poor choices, the aperture of their lives has become narrower and narrower and narrower. It’s very moving to see them have a new outlet and an inner-life in those situations.”

Amid a growing cost-of-living crisis, The Big Give is a brilliant way to donate to charities like Give A Book. “It doubles donations so your hard-earned money goes even further to change people’s lives,” says Toby.

Toby smiles when I ask if, having starred in the 007 franchise, he might speculate who will be the next James Bond. It’s a role linked to almost every male British actor of a certain age. But having played a villain early in his career probably ruled him out. “I’ve got no idea but I’m so glad I got to be in one of those movies,” he says. “It was a huge thing for me, just an amazing adventure.”

He’s enjoyed seeing the most recent Bond, Daniel Craig, spread his wings post-007 in the Knives Out franchise playing quirky private detective Benoit Blanc.

“007 is the most fantastic role to play but I think it does hamper you for a while because you’re just James Bond. They don’t necessarily want nuance, and I think Daniel took the role as far as he could. What’s great is seeing him now being able to reinvent himself and do this kind of slightly Baroque character.”

Would he have taken the role of the secret agent with a licence to kill if offered?

“Of course I would, you’d be mad to turn something like that down,” he chuckles. “But I’m really glad I was in the franchise and playing a baddie.” Gustav Graves might have ended his life sucked into a jet engine after losing a fight with Brosnan’s Bond but today, Toby’s happy enough to let books leave him shaken and stirred. Dame Maggie would no doubt approve.

• To donate to Give A Book or any of the 1,589 charities taking part in Big Give’s Christmas Challenge and have your money doubled, visit biggive.org before midday on Tuesday December 9. Even if a charity has reached its target you can still support it as every pound makes a difference