Toby Kebbell shows his real face and shares some thoughts on his new show ‘Servant’

Toby Kebbell is one of those actors who doesn’t get stopped in public very often for an autograph or a selfie. It’s not because he doesn’t approve of the practice, it’s just that his career path has him constantly changing his looks. He has appeared as an everyday normal fellow in “Match Point,” has put on muscle for a role in “Wrath of the Titans,” lost scads of weight to be a drug addict in “RocknRolla,” and has been covered up by visual effects in “Warcraft: The Beginning” and as the ape Koba in “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” and “War for the Planet of the Apes.”

The 37-year-old Londoner is currently back to looking like himself - often in extreme close-up - starring opposite Lauren Ambrose in the new psychological horror series “Servant,” which premieres on Nov. 28 on Apple TV+. He plays Sean, a superstar chef who, along with his wife, Dorothy, is going through the traumatic aftereffects of the death of their baby. The show’s twist is that the couple is practicing some radical therapy involving a lifelike doll being used to “replace” the child. Kebbell spoke about the show last week in New York.

Q: How did you land this role, where you had to learn how to cook and had to speak with an American accent?

A: I read the script of the pilot, and I had to audition four times, because there was a lot of competition for the role. But I knew who Sean was. I absolutely could see exactly who he was, and I knew how to play him. I knew everything about him. That’s how I got into it.

Q: Was getting the accent down a big deal for you?

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A: I find the American accent truly challenging. So I have to stay in it all the time. You don’t have to call me Sean, on set, but I have to be American. Luckily I had Drew, the chef I was working with to create all these recipes. He’s from Philadelphia, where the show takes place, and interestingly enough, he talks exactly like Sean talks. So, I just stole Drew (laughs). I became him.

Q: Because there’s so much plotting going on, viewers are going to be confused for a while. The characters are also confused by the story’s circumstances. Did you embrace that or did you read ahead to know what was going to happen?

A: I feel that if you know too much, you have to do a bunch of work to unravel that, so you don’t have a knowing look in your eye. I like to know, and I’m an avid reader when I have all of the scripts. But we got them in four chunks. So we had everything to go through, and you do need to know who you are, and when other characters talk about you, that’s useful. But I feel like we’re telling our own story.

Q: Most of the series was shot in one location, most of it inside one house. How did that affect your performance?

A: Dorothy wants to leave the house, which you learn about later in the series. But Sean wants to be there. The house was a rock. It was a sturdy place. It was a place I needed to be to figure out the soul of this character. I loved that house. I especially loved my cellar. The cellar was phenomenal. We had a full (cooking) deck there, and that’s where I’d go and hang out when I wasn’t shooting. That’s Sean’s “home.” I loved it in there.

Q: What has it been like for you to watch the show?

A: When I watched episode one, the first thing that happened was that I was thrown off by the camera. The brutal close-ups! I was thinking, “What is happening? Is this bad? Everyone’s been telling me it’s awesome.” But I was watching it and thinking, “What’s going on?” But then, it was like when you’re watching a Shakespeare play, and suddenly your ear clicks into the language. When I first watched Shakespeare, every time, no matter who was doing it, I was always going, “What? What? “And then suddenly my ear clicks into, maybe the cadence, I’m not sure. But suddenly I start to understand. That’s what happened to me here.”

“Servant” premieres on Apple TV+ on Nov. 28.

Ed Symkus writes about movies for More Content Now. He can be reached at esymkus@rcn.com.