In new film Mr Burton, the Industry star plays a young Richard Burton, with Jones as the mentor who helped him find his acting chops. The duo discuss trying to understand a cultural icon – and how to nail that voice
Sandringham Road lies in the east of Cardiff; a quiet run of Edwardian terrace houses overlooking Roath Mill Gardens. On a late July day, when the air is warm and the park spills out over its railings, Toby Jones and Harry Lawtey sit on the pavement, wearing matching striped pyjamas. The pair are some way into the filming of Mr Burton, an account of the early life of Richard Burton. Lawtey plays the actor in his younger years, when he was known as Richard Jenkins, and Jones is Philip Burton, the teacher who fostered his young student’s talent. So close would their bond grow that Jenkins would become Burton’s legal ward and take his surname. “Without Philip Burton there would never have been a Richard Burton,” Elizabeth Taylor once wrote. “That great rolling voice that cracked like wild Atlantic waves would never have been heard outside the valley.”
Having starred in three series of the HBO drama Industry as an Oxford graduate from a working-class Welsh background – much as Burton himself had been – Lawtey makes a smart casting. He is, too, a young star in ascendance, diligent and eager to learn, in touch with the thrill of his own potential.
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