Toby Stephens Quotes

Yeah, it is particularly upsetting to be called, whatever it was, sneery, or a snob, given the background I have.

I went to prep school, Eton and Oxford. When people hear that, they think they know you, and you think: 'No, you don't.'

I think I'm going to be stereotyped forever, but I'm not scared of being stereotyped.

When people accuse me of being really posh, I think, 'Hang on a minute - no, I'm not!'

I'm not called Jude Law, I have three names; I'm called 'Hunk Jude Law' or 'Heartthrob Jude Law'. In England anyway, that's my full name. That's the cheap language that's thrown around, that sums you up in one little bracket. It doesn't look at your life. But if one looks beyond, there is actually a little bit more.

People look at me, they know I've appeared in costume dramas and they automatically assume I must be a Tory, I must be a certain type of person.

I've introduced myself with comedy, and once you've introduced yourself as something, that's where people keep you. That's where people like to hold you.

Labels are for cans, not people.

I think you can't be really posh and be an interesting actor. I'm a bit of a posh rough.

I'm not afraid of stereotypes. There are some truths to it - but the problem is that people keep sort of owning that one thing to be the truth.

In real life, I'm not super-posh but if that's the stereotype, I really don't care. It could be worse.

Maybe I'm an elitist, but I don't feel like I am.

When people start thinking of you more as a persona, they are less inclined to allow you to move into different areas. Sometimes they're wrong. Sometimes they're just very stereotypical or restricted in their own thinking of what they'll allow you to do.

I worked with these liberal elites for 28 years at CBS News, and they were always throwing around the term 'white trash,' by which they meant poor southerners who didn't go to Harvard. I'm not sure why that makes them trash.

I definitely think that typecasting is something that happens all the time.

I think the interesting thing about the word 'posh' is that it is so relative; it's quite a provocative title because people have strong feelings about that word.

Turns out typecasting is a real thing.

I don't like labels. I don't understand the need for them. When you define yourself a certain way, people have expectations.

I've been labeled all my life.

I've always ignored the labels people put on things.

My parents' parents were regular working-class people. I ended up speaking in a certain way, and one gets sidelined into doing certain parts. I think that is really quite narrow-minded.

People like to think of you as a certain person, or a certain type of person, and they do love to give you a label. We like luggage labels, and we like people labels.

When you have a label stuck on you, people tend to believe it. If someone calls you suave and debonair, you only get offered parts in a suit and a collar and tie. It just so happens I wear them reasonably well.

People look at you, and they've got just the perfect little box for you, the perfect category. Call you a redneck. Call you a hillbilly. Like those were insults.

Crazy people are my people? Really? I think that's silly. That's another one of those pigeonhole things. Lay somebody on an ironing board and put a scalding hot iron on them, get that going real good: 'Oh, this is who Holly Hunter is.'