Rory Kinnear: ‘I'm self-aware enough to know I would never play Bond'

Telegraph

22-04-2025

Fortunately, Rory Kinnear seems amused when I read him the less than flattering description of his character Leo in the National Theatre's staging of Here We Are, Stephen Sondheim's final musical. It begins: '60s'. Kinnear is 47.
'Thank you!' laughs the son of the late actor Roy Kinnear, who shares his father's cheerful, oval face and thinning pate. 'I'm not too precious about these things. I've been playing dads for a while. I looked quite old when I was quite young. My dad played the same age, which was late 40s-early 50s, from his late 30s and I'm following in his footsteps in some ways, physically. But I think quite often bald men look the same for a long time. So I'm hoping that will be the case for me.'
Leo's description continues: 'Charming billionaire. Ruthless, insatiable, a little crude.' 'Yes!' says Kinnear, before mentioning the next script note, 'some non-strenuous singing'... I'm glad to say there is some competence there!' Kinnear beams. 'Grade 5 music theory. I can count out 6/8 time as well as anybody.'
Most of us are more familiar with Kinnear as a powerhouse actor than a musical triple threat (in the production he dances, too). His packed CV includes directing The Winter's Tale at the London Coliseum and appearing in the National's 2016 production of Brecht's The Threepenny Opera. Yet such feats are overshadowed by dozens of other performances, not least at the National, where he's played – among others – Hamlet, (and Olivier Award -winning) Iago and Macbeth.
On television he's been Tom Bombadil in Amazon's Lord of the Rings franchise Rings of Power, the British prime minister in Netflix's The Diplomat, and the lawyer in Toxic Town, Jack Thorne's four-parter for Netflix about the 2009 toxic waste scandal in Corby. On the big screen, he's immortalised in the four latest James Bond films as MI6's wry chief of staff Bill Tanner.
Backstage at the National, on a break from rehearsals, the hyper-eloquent Kinnear exudes calm affability and a fierce intelligence.
A true polymath (he plays the piano and reached Grade 7 trumpet), other strings to his bow include writing a play, The Herd, performed at the Bush Theatre in London, based on his family's experiences bringing up his severely disabled older sister Katrina, who died of Covid-19 aged 48, isolated from her family in her care home.
Now he campaigns for charities helping families of disabled people. 'Social care is under collapse and the burden is now so overweightedly towards loved ones – there was a story the other day about a father who collapsed and died in care of his son, the son was unable to call for help so died himself. It's the burden of love. The expectation of people's capacity is unfathomably wide, and people's love is elastic, but it has a breaking point.'
He read English at Oxford, where he first became enamoured of Sondheim, after appearing in a student production of Company. Now he's thrilled to be involved in Here We Are, alongside Jane Krakowski (Ally McBeal and 30 Rock) and Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family). Based on two surrealist films of Luis Buñuel, the show about six New Yorkers 'who try to go out to brunch and fail', was unfinished when Sondheim died in 2021. Its off-Broadway world premiere in 2023, directed by Joe Mantello (also in charge of the London production), was greeted with reviews that were generally more respectful than effusive, with the New York Times describing it as an 'inventive, beguiling and not quite fully solved puzzle of a show'.
Kinnear says: 'Sondheim was always experimental with everything he did and there's a history that people don't necessarily get his stuff the first time it's done. Sometimes it takes a while to reveal itself. It's deeply odd, elliptical, portentous, very funny, joyous at times and, in moments, quite sombre. It's a wild ride.'
Kinnear has been a regular at the National since 1985, when his father appeared in a season of plays led by Ian McKellen and Edward Petherbridge, that included Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound. He was studying drama at Lamda when he saw a 2001 production of All My Sons directed by Howard Davis with Julie Walters. 'At the time I was questioning what [acting] meant, if it had significant value for me to be able to devote my life to. Seeing that made me absolutely redouble my commitment. I thought if something can move me like this, and make me question life as it did, then I want to be a part of that.' Many others might have questioned if acting was a sustainable career. Actors have always existed precariously, with Equity figures showing that the average thespian in the UK earns just £27,000 a year.
Kinnear, whose mother Carmel Cryan (Brenda Boyle in EastEnders) is also an actor, as is his partner of 19 years Pandora Colin (they have two children aged 14 and 11 and live a short walk from the National), is one of the lucky few alternating lucrative jobs for the big streamers with poorly paid theatre parts. Yet he says he was never deterred by prospects of penury.
'People often ask what I got from having parents in the industry, and that was seeing acting as a viable career. Often a big block to people acting is thinking – and potentially familial pressure – that you're throwing your life into the unknown and it's a pipe dream. Whereas I saw it as a job that can be done.'
He was inspired by Kinnear Sr, one of the hardest-working character actors of his generation, known for roles such as Veruca Salt's father in the original Willy Wonka film, as well as regular appearances on panel shows such as the taboo-busting That Was The Week That Was. Roy died in 1988, aged 54, falling from a horse on a film set in Spain, when his son was 10. 'Dad's dad [a Scottish rugby international] had also died when he was eight, and after that they had to be very careful. So he lived a pragmatic life. I don't think he was ever a day out of work – if it wasn't a play, it was a TV series, a voiceover, radio, a cartoon.'
Today Kinnear has arguably superseded his father's legacy. 'Fame is quite different these days than in Dad's time,' he shrugs, embarrassed. 'The multiplicity of ways in which you can watch stuff means not everyone is watching things the way everyone watched [Kinnear Sr staples] Blankety Blank or The Dick Emery Show.'
Nonetheless, streaming has made Kinnear Jr's face familiar to an international audience his father could never have imagined. In the US, many recognise him for his role in the first Black Mirror episode, where he played a prime minister forced to have sex with a pig, not to mention Bank of Dave, the Netflix biopic of Burnley businessman Dave Fishwick who established his own bank to help his community. Reviews were so-so but enthusiastic word-of-mouth prompted a 2025 sequel. 'Its appeal was a counter to what people perceive as institutions turning their back on people. It was nice to be part of something that gave people a good feeling.'
For now he's just wrapped a film, Learning to Breathe Underwater; an Amazon miniseries based on Peter Shaffer's Amadeus; and season three of The Diplomat. Another season of Rings of Power is almost certainly on the cards. Yet his Bond role transcends all others in the fame stakes, even if Tanner's future is now unclear since the franchise was recently sold by Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson to Amazon. 'As ever with Bond, I imagine I won't know until everything is settled and they've written the script and cast a James Bond. It will be interesting to see what they do with it. I had a wonderful time working with Barbara and Michael. There'll obviously be a change in some ways, but I'm sure not too much, because it's very successful as it is.'
Who is Kinnear's tip for the next Bond? 'If they're not asking me, I'm not interested,' he smiles. Was it ever his dream? He laughs self-deprecatingly. 'I've always had enough self-awareness to know I wasn't necessarily going to be Bond.' Never mind, there's plenty more to keep him occupied.