Acclaimed British actor Toby Jones has admitted he relished playing controversial presidential guru Karl Rove in Oliver Stone's George Bush biopic W.

Rove was special adviser to Bush and his father during their many election campaigns as well as in the White House and is an ever-present in W.

Speaking to inthenews.co.uk, Jones said it was much more interesting to play people whose motives you could not fathom.

"When you've got a guy who's so demonised it's a fantastic challenge to try and humanise them but yet stay fair to the events, that's the sort of challenge you want as an actor," he said at the W European premiere at Leicester Square as part of the Times BFI 52nd London Film Festival.

"My job is to sympathise with someone in so far as they are trying to do the best for themselves as they can," Jones, 41, added.

"I don't have to decide whether they are a morally good or bad person, someone else has to do that. So I do sympathise with Karl Rove when I'm acting as him, when I look at him as a citizen I'm perhaps not as quite as sympathetic."

W is not Jones only appearance at the London Film Festival this month; he also steals several scenes as legendary Hollywood agent Swifty Lazar in Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon.

When inthenews.co.uk asked which character he preferred to play out of Lazar and Rove the actor, who provided the voice for house elf Dobby in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, said: "No it doesn't work like that – I'm proud of them all. I really loved playing Swifty Lazar, he's a fascinating character."

Jones added that it would be "hard to imagine" not returning as Dobby in the final two Harry Potter films.


26/10/2008 02:01:01